Dr. Sharon Lambert:

I have picked out two things from that and one is victim and perpetrator. The other is good victims and bad victims.

In respect of victim and perpetrator, having done studies ourselves and from applied psychology, we know that 63% of young people involved in Garda diversion programmes have experienced four or more events of adversity during childhood, in comparison with 12.5% of the general population. Approximately 74% of them have experienced the loss of a parent in comparison with 23% of the general population and 54% of them have lived with a parent with a mental health difficulty in comparison with 19.5% of the general population. Women in contact with the Probation Service were three times more likely to have lived in a house where they experienced domestic violence. When we talk about children, we often say that they witness domestic violence. They do not. They experience it. When you are in the presence of danger, your stress response system is activated. You experience that violence; you do not just witness it. Our studies show that women in contact with the Probation Service are six times more likely than the general population to have been sexually abused. So, we have people who are victims and perpetrators. As we know they are victims, if we could catch them before they become perpetrators, we would have fewer victims.

The other point I want to pick up on is the notion of good and bad victims. We know - this is not my personal opinion but is from research across many different jurisdictions - that justice is not applied equally all of the time. There are biases within all of us as human beings and there are biases within systems. We know that people from culturally and ethnically diverse backgrounds and working-class communities are much more likely to end up in court for an offence then somebody from another community. I would never talk about specific examples as that is not appropriate, but certainly we have examples in Ireland of people who were considered to be of good character but who committed offences. Those offences can be violent, yet they receive an entirely different approach from everybody because they might be involved in the community, or sport or business. We then look at somebody who has been socially excluded from education and employment and they are seen as more culpable for their crime when the reality is that the science of stress says that they are less so. They have fewer resources and are therefore more at risk. There is a notion of a good victim and a bad victim and that comes down to education and awareness around our own biases and values, as well as education and awareness about the level of victimisation that occurs in people who do problematic things.

I remember hearing Senator Ruane speak about trauma on a podcast a few years ago and saying that it is messy. There is a children's charity which has a picture of a crying child on its poster. When we see that, we want to help that child. In reality, that is not what a child looks like when they come to a service. They can be cursing and giving out and slamming doors. That is what trauma looks like. It is messy. It is not the withdrawn, very cute child on the poster. That is not what trauma looks like in reality.