A curious lawyer’s journey to justice
From a video by ACE-Aware Scotland
What might Scotland’s prison community look like if it had compassion at its core?
Iain Smith, a partner at Keegan Smith Criminal Defence Lawyers is one of the leading voices in Scotland in moving the legal profession to an awareness of how childhood trauma affects behaviour. At a conference in Scotland, he gave a talk, entitled ‘A curious lawyer’s journey to justice’. He provides a clear account of how he came to be concerned about childhood trauma and why he is so insistent that we stop allowing culture to overlook it. Here are some extracts:
In 2018, I watched a one-hour film called 'Resilience', directed by the late James Redford - Robert Redford's son. It was all about trauma - what happens when the developing brain of a child is flooded with adversity and stress.
I watched and thought, "I've been a lawyer for 25 years and I didn't understand any of my clients".
I thought they took drugs because they chose to take them for pleasure rather than the true reason, which was to remove or reduce pain. I didn't realize that they were angry because they were dysregulated (an inability to control or regulate one's emotional responses, which can lead to significant mood swings). I didn't realize what was going on.
That film changed my personal life but also changed my working life. As a lawyer, it changed who I saw in front of me, how I listened, how I really heard them. I can't heal but what I can do is put my clients with people who can put them on a better path to recovery. I can disrupt the trauma or at least start them on the journey. Everyone can do that.
I signpost my clients to help and, on occasions, physically take my clients by the hand after they get out of custody from the court and walk them 500 metres to a help facility where they're greeted with a hug and asked what they want to do, what would be good for them?
What I realized when I understood about trauma is that the change that had to happen was actually in me. And the bigger change has to happen in the justice system, the judges, the social workers.
Nobody likes anyone, including a lawyer, to tell them to change. Those in power and the system they operate in do not like change. The justice system we have in Scotland at the moment focuses solely on retribution and punishment.
Imagine switching that narrative to a system focused on rehabilitation, healing and repair - smart justice. It would be good for victims because there's less victims, better for the community because people don't continue to offend.
In our small firm, I've had 16 clients die of drug related deaths in the past two years. In dealing with traumatized people, this is unacceptable. What we do with our system is we spend lots of money on building bigger and better jails rather than looking at ways of reducing the prison numbers. We should be talking about how to build better people rather than better jails. Providing rehabilitation. Providing ways and pathways out. Recognizing their pain.
I focus on the who rather than what they've done. Their battles for justice actually start from birth - they've been abused, neglected, unloved and judges need to know this.
We've created campaign group called Trauma Aware Law. We work with law students, lawmakers, policymakers, the judicial institute who train all the judges, the sentencing council, prosecutors. We have created, through the sentencing council, a change in policy for young people. In every case, every judge must take into account childhood trauma. Judges have got to consider that and focus not on punishment but on rehabilitation.
Watch the 22 min video here:
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From a video by ACE-Aware Scotland, 21/02/2024