Cells are not zoos

Someone gets assigned ‘criminal’ status, is incarcerated, released, and is often back behind bars shortly after serving time for their first offence.

Having had the opportunity to work in justice system settings at different stages of the criminalisation process, I got to thinking about gaps in the justice system and wider criminal justice policy.

This series of articles will explore my learnings from each opportunity in turn, before bringing them together to discuss policy implications.

My first experience was interning behind the cellblock of a courthouse in Washington, D.C., where my job was to conduct interviews with defendants to help judges set pre-trial release conditions.

When conducting these pre-trial interviews with defendants, I was instructed to go through a list of questions, rather robotically, and note down defendants’ answers as accurately as possible. I quickly learnt this was not the right approach.

Many defendants struggled with their mental health and substance abuse. Many were vulnerable, being without a home or a family to contact. All of them were now in a sensitive environment, answering to me, a rather sheltered 19-year-old at the time.

Eventually, I realised that my basic training and instructions from my managers would only get me so far. Without being a qualified therapist, psychiatrist, or university graduate at this point, there was not much I felt I could do… until I realised the power of empathy.

When defendants spoke about their personal circumstances, I found that truly listening and not just treating them like another box to tick was incredibly important. I not only received more honest answers to my questions when I exercised empathy; I was able to signpost services that could help each individual on remand.

One day, I interviewed a woman and realised it was her birthday. I debated if the phrase ‘happy birthday’ was appropriate, but I ended up saying it anyways. Her face lit up. “No one has said that to me all day,” she told me, “Thank you”.

In retrospect, I find that the people we were working with were treated like a spectacle by many of the interns, rather than human beings – a response that is mirrored by many media representations of crime and criminality. I think a lot of us were wrapped up in who did what crime rather than why we were doing what we were doing.

However, I learnt through experience – not my training – that cells are not zoos. The people we were interviewing deserved support, a fair trial, and the right to be treated innocent until proven guilty.

Near the end of my internship at the courthouse, my grandparents came to visit me from another state. They had toured the courthouse earlier that day and even sat in on a few short trials which were open to the public. At dinner that evening, they asked me, “Aren’t you scared to work with law-breakers?”

If they had asked me that question a few months prior, my answer may have been different. However, I reminded them about the presumption of innocence. And, under this legal principle, the least restrictive conditions possible should be imposed pre-trial.

Most importantly, however, I shared the value of empathy with them, an important lesson that I carried with me into my following roles.

Katelyn Owens is a PhD student in sociology at the University of Kent, studying the impact of gentrification on the sexual geographies of King’s Cross in London and Pigalle in Paris