As part of the writer’s fortnight programme, I had the opportunity to meet a criminal psychologist by the name of Christian Perrin. He currently works with the Singapore branch of the University of Liverpool, where he teaches police officers to incorporate psychology into their jobs. His recounts of various experiences was really an eye-opener; it shed light and created a different perspective on a topic that is heavily looked down upon and shied away from by the public: prisoners and convicts, especially those who have committed serious offences such as rape, murder, sex-related offences that include children and minors.

His fascinating recounts and first-hand experiences of working at some of the toughest prisons with various types of people really highlighted how the media portrays these people as “predators and monsters, prowling around and waiting to commit their next offence”. His experience of interviewing numerous these people, sometimes for hours on end, changed some of his previous ideas about criminals. “Here’s what I’ve learnt”, he said, “You can’t judge these people solely upon however bad their crimes are. These people may have committed awful crimes but they are not awful people.” He also mentioned how he initially thought that everyone could be helped and change their attitude, but it turns out that there are just some people who can’t change and they are best left alone.

His job really reflects the UWC values of empathy and compassion because he stated how he was interested in helping these people who have gone through unfortunate times ever since he volunteered in prison to assist in preventing suicide and to rather focus on helping offenders why they did what they did in the first place and avoid reoffending. He also talked about nature and how the desistance (desisting repeating their previous behaviour) of convicts depends heavily on the environment they return to after rehab, and currently, society is far too judgemental of these people even though sex offenders and murderers re-offend at one of the lowest rates.

This is a very interesting story to write about as it challenges yet embraces that we have in our school; how do people react to people who are genuinely trying to change themselves and can we learn to forgive and forget?