Dr. Christian Perrin, a criminal psychologist, visited our class yesterday to tell us about his experiences with criminology and a few interesting cases that he has examined throughout his career. He is an alum of the University of Liverpool, who now works in Singapore, conducting research in Changi Prison where he interviews criminals to see if they are fit for rehabilitation, to change policies regarding crimes, to identify when a criminal is lying, and most importantly, to answer why people stop offending. His target audience with these interviews is sexual offenders and murderers.
What interested me was the ethical part of his work. I had always wondered how laws were really made as none of them can appeal to every single member of society, so lawmakers would have to find a golden mean in order to make laws that benefit most people or people in power. Thus, laws are biased, because so are people. Even for a criminologist like Dr. Perrin, who is supposed to be unbiased and objective, it is hard to do so. His job is so difficult that being surrounded by criminals all the time made his “go crazy” for a while until he returned back to his research.
What the legal systems of most countries lack is a good way to stop criminals from reoffending, as 77% of criminals reoffended over a two-year period in the UK. This means that although research should be continued in criminology, some other course of action like education that helps criminals cope with their past can help besides prison. This also means that prison is not that good of a deterrent to stop people from committing crimes, and thus a more emotional approach is probably needed for societies to function, or a more radical approach, which acts as a better deterrent of crime compared to prison, should be taken.
In any case, I believe that alongside researches in criminology, there are other courses of action that can be taken to improve criminals so they can join society again and not offend. That is, however, not to say that the justice system is perfect either.
so is there a story in this? maybe an op-ed?