IT has taken the criminal justice system a while to catch up on education. The tradition of punishing children for failing to learn has long since been abandoned in favour of a system of understanding, encouragement and positive reward.
Until recently, the courts have regarded substance abuse and the crimes committed to finance it as individual failings which should be punished. While prison is the obvious place for those who have committed harm and who cannot be safely managed in society, imprisoning people for substance abuse and associated criminal behaviour often fails to break the cycle of offending.
That’s because substance abuse is essentially a public health issue and prison is hardly an appropriate place to address it.
While the crimes committed to fund it are a matter for the courts, tackling the abuse problem at a personal level appears to be a more sustainable approach than sending repeat offenders to prison.
For that reason, it is encouraging to see that the north’s legal system now operates The Substance Misuse Court. As reported in this newspaper yesterday, it is an attempt to tackle underlying problems that lead to reoffending rather than continue with the cycle of regular imprisonment.
Initially begun in America before the turn of the century, this novel approach was introduced here in 2018, following an in-depth analysis by local professionals of the efficacy of the American system. They are to be commended for this work.
Aimed at solving rather than just punishing a problem, the legal process operates more as a meeting with a judge than a formal court. Defendants appear regularly to update the judge on their addiction recovery, which ultimately leads to what is described as their “graduation” back into the world of non-offending.
Like any criminal justice approach it does not always work for everyone, but the evidence both here and in the US, indicates that it is a much more successful method than the traditional courts system.
While it is not an approach which can automatically be transferred to the rest of the criminal justice system, it does indicate that tackling crime requires an understanding of wider social and economic factors. In England, for example, the imprisonment rate in the most deprived local authorities in 2022 was ten times that of the least deprived areas.
Crime can best be understood beyond the legal system.
As the problem of substance abuse becomes a major public health issue across the north, The Substance Misuse Court represents a refreshing approach to the concept of justice. Like education, it encourages self-learning.
While individuals must always bear some responsibility for their actions, education will always outperform punishment in producing a better society.
