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A Love Letter: in praise of board games
This my fifth love letter, previously I have written in praise of poetry, art, Agatha Christie and the Thoughts from the Criminology Team blog. Since early childhood, I have loved playing games and today’s entry is dedicated to this form of media. In the early years, the focus on fun is paramount, after all who wants to play a dull game? Equally important, the educational aim of games is sometimes explicit, other times less so. Nevertheless, they help us learn to match and sort colours and shapes, to develop our counting skills in an applied setting and improve our memory recall, as well as spelling. Games likes Snap, Happy Families, Hungry Hippos, Snakes and Ladders, Guess Who, Junior Scrabble offer a variety of different ways for children to learn important skills whilst playing. These games enable even very small children to share space, develop important interpersonal skills like taking turns and learn to deal with winning, and of course, losing. Often the latter is a very slow and painful lesson to learn….and one that isn’t always remembered into adulthood!
Of course, one of the most explicit part of playing games is learning the rules of the game, and of course, what happens when we deviate from those rules. It might lead to the loss of a turn or even forfeiture of the entire game. People interpret rules in different ways and families often develop their own “house” rules, but nevertheless there is always an agreed upon set of rules and a way of policing and punishing those who break them.
But once these lessons have been learned, what do games have to teach us as adults? I would say plenty! On a surface level, they offer an opportunity to relax and do something outside of our humdrum lives. Once the games have been purchased, they generally cost nothing to play unlike other forms of leisure time.1 Some can be played alone, others require competitors or even teams. They can aid our thinking, concentration and develop skills of strategy and tactics. They also have the general benefit of not being all consuming (unless at competition level), allowing for conversation to flow. The latter, conversing whilst doing something else, can often be useful for difficult emotional conversations, allowing people to open up without pressure (known colloquially as “health by stealth”).
But do board games have anything to offer to Criminology? Again, I would argue yes! Most games involve chance or luck, will you get the numbers you need, will you have the right pieces/cards in your hand, will the other person play their game in a way that benefits you? It is easy to recognise the role that luck or chance plays in games, but are we equally aware of their role in our lives. More importantly, as criminologists do we fully understand and acknowledge the role played by both in relation to criminality and victimisation?
We have no choice about whether we are born or not, when and where we arrive on the earth, who our parents are. These are all down to forces outside our individual and collective control. Our upbringing, our education, our employment opportunities are largely constrained by geography, money and influence. Compare the opportunities available to a baby born today in Sudan, with one born in the UK, another born in Palestine, and another born in Finland. Compare again, thinking about race, sex, class, disability, sexuality and so on. Very quickly you begin to understand the role played by chance and luck.
So if all of the above are imponderables, how much of a role does luck play in relation to criminality and victimisation? The regular publication of data relating to crime in postcodes, towns/cities and globally show huge diversity in the chance of victimisation. Lucky you, if you were born and live in the ‘Nordic countries of Europe (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland) who rank among the 25 safest globally, most of them also being among the top 10 happiest nations worldwide’. Less fortunate, if you were born in Haiti, Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan or Iraq identified as some of the most dangerous places on earth currently. It is not very difficult to imagine the difference in opportunities in fundamental human rights; food, shelter, healthcare, education and so on. In war ridden nations it is incredibly difficult to separate different typologies of victimisation and for the individuals living under these conditions, it makes no meaningful difference who is/are the perpetrators.
Even if you are living in a “peaceful” state2 such as the UK, there are vast differences in the opportunities available. If you have money you can buy a car to get to work in your evening/night job, if you don’t, maybe you can take a bus, failing that you can walk. Each of those journeys carries its own risks. Your sex, your race, your ethnicity, your sexuality, your abilities/disabilities, your age add the aggravating/mitigating factors and see your risk increase/decrease. All a matter of chance and luck
What about criminality, is this, as the Classical School of Criminology would have us accept, a matter of free will, weighing up the pros and cons and making a deliberate and calculating choice to commit crime? Or can we also identify the same issues of luck and chance as shown above? If your family is loving, everyone has good health, housing is secure, food is plentiful and there are plenty of educational and employment opportunities in your area, would you still choose a life of crime? If there is violence at home, poverty impacts health, housing and regular meals, making it challenging to study or work, would you perceive crime to be a choice?
And what of those board game rules and consequences, real life has its own rules, some written in the forms of laws, others engrained via family, friends, institutions; the norms of our society. In the board game, these rules apply equally (aside from luck and chance) but in real life, not so much. Consider racial and ethnic disproportionality and the treatment of vulnerable women in the CJS, as just two examples. We may all be playing in the same “Game of Life”, but luck, chance and the rules we are subjected to are very different when it comes to criminality and victimisation.
- I appreciate that there are some very expensive board games out there, as well as expansion packs to enhance play. ↩︎
- There are lots of academic arguments around what constitutes a peaceful state, most agree that it more than just the absence of war. Whilst the UK has not seen active warfare on its shores for decades, its military has been involved in conflict throughout the world for more than a century. ↩︎
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When will these issues be addressed?
In the realm of education, inclusivity and accessibility should be the foundation of any society aspiring for progress. However, in the case of special education schools in the United Kingdom, there exists a troubling narrative of systemic failings. Despite efforts to provide tailored education for students with diverse needs, the British educational system’s shortcomings in special education have cast a shadow over the pursuit of equal opportunities for all.
One of the main challenges facing special education schools in the UK is inadequate funding. These institutions often struggle with limited resources, hindering their ability to provide the necessary support for students with special educational needs. Insufficient funding results in larger class sizes, fewer specialized staff, and a lack of essential resources, all of which are detrimental to the quality of education these schools can offer. Furthermore, the heavy reliance on the UKs crumbling social care services and the overstretched NHS within special education settings exasperate poor outcomes for children and young people.
Special education students require a range of support services tailored to their individual needs. However, the inconsistency in the provision of support services across different regions of the UK is a glaring issue. Disparities in access to speech therapists, occupational therapists, and other essential services create an uneven educational landscape, leaving some students without the critical support they require to thrive.
Effective collaboration and communication between educators, parents, and support professionals are vital for the success of any special education school. Unfortunately, there is often a lack of seamless coordination. The lack of collaboration can and has result in fragmented support for the students, hindering their overall development and thus making it difficult to implement cohesive and effective educational plans.
The success of special education programs relies heavily on well-trained and empathetic educators. Unfortunately, the British educational system falls short in providing comprehensive training for teachers, working in special education schools. Many teachers express a lack of preparation to address the unique challenges posed by students with diverse needs, leading to a gap in understanding and effective teaching strategies. It is also important to note that many staff members that work within special education settings are not trained teachers, although they have been given the title of teachers. This further leads to inadequate education for children and young people. Moreover, post-covid has seen a high staff turnover within these settings. There have been many reports that have alluded to the notion that British schools are failing our children, but it seems that children from special education provisions are ignored, and families are dismissed when concerns are raised about the lack of education and preparation for the ‘real world’.
I am also critical of the overreliance of labelling students with specific disabilities. While categorization can be useful for designing targeted interventions, it can also lead to a narrow understanding of a student’s capabilities and potential. This labelling approach inadvertently contributes to stereotypes and stigmas, limiting the opportunities available to students with special needs….. There tends to be a focus on the troubling history of the way people with disabilities in the UK have been treated, but what I find interesting is there is a sense of disregard for the issues that are occurring in the here and now.
There is also a lack of special education provisions in the UK. This has led to many children with additional needs without a school place. And while a specific figure of the number of children being excluded from education has not been disclosed, West Northamptonshire, has awarded families over £49,000 over special education failings in 2023 (ITV, 2023). Furthermore, Education health care plan recommendations (EHCP) have not been followed within schools. These are legally binding documents that have been continuously dismissed which has led to further legal action against West Northants council in recent years (Local Government and Care Ombudsman, 2023).
The failings in special education schools have repercussions that extend beyond the classroom. Many students who leave these schools face challenges in transitioning to higher education, entering the workforce or living independently. The lack of adequately tailored support for post-education opportunities leaves these individuals at a disadvantage, perpetuating a cycle of limited prospects, which inevitably pull people with disabilities into a cycle of poor health and poverty (Scope, 2023). The disability employment gap in the UK is 29% and the average disabled household faces a £975 a month in extra costs (Scope, 2023) access to employment and financial independence is out of reach for disabled people due to failings within education because lack of preparation for life beyond school.
There needs to be reform in British schools from mainstream to special education. There are failings across the board. Adequate funding, improved teacher training, consistent support services, enhanced collaboration, and a shift away from overreliance on labelling are all crucial steps toward creating an inclusive educational environment. It is difficult to draw on optimism when the UK government continues to ignore age old concerns. This blog entry is to bring awareness to an issue, that may not be on your radar, but will hopefully get you to reflect on the copious barriers that people with disabilities face. Childhood should be a time when there is a fence built to protect children is schools. As we get older and face the challenges of the wider world, we should be equipped with some skills. Special education schools should not be used as a holding place until a child comes of age. There should be provisions put in place to give all young people an equitable chance.
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And time waits for no one, and it won’t wait for me*
Last week in my blog I mentioned that time is finite, and certainly where mere mortals are concerned. I want to extend that notion of finite time a little further by considering the concepts of constraints placed upon our time by what might at times be arbitrary processes and other times the natural order of things.
There are only 24 hours in a day, such an obvious statement, but one which provides me with a good starting point. Within that twenty fours we need to sleep and eat and perform other necessary functions such as washing etc. This leaves us only a certain amount of time in which we can perform other functions such as work or study. If we examine this closer, it becomes clear that the time available to us is further reduced by other ‘stuff’ we do. I like the term ‘stuff’ because everyone has a sense of what it is, but it doesn’t need to be specific. ‘Stuff’ in this instance might be, travelling to and from work or places of study, it might be setting up a laptop ready to work, making a cup of coffee, popping to the toilet, having a conversation with a colleague or someone else, either about work or something far more interesting, or taking a five-minute break from the endless staring at a computer screen. The point is that ‘stuff’ is necessary but it eats into our time and consequently the time to work or study is limited. My previous research around police patrol staffing included ‘stuff’, managerialists would turn in their graves, and therefore it became rapidly apparent that availability to do patrol work was only just over half the shift. So, thinking about time and how finite it is, we only have a small window in a 24-hour period to do work or study. Reduced even further if we try to do both.
I mentioned in my previous blog that I’m renovating a house and have carried out most of the work myself. We have a moving in date, a bit arbitrary but there are financial implications of not moving in on that date, so the date is fixed. One of the skills that I have yet to master is plastering. I can patch plaster but whole walls are currently just not feasible. I know this, having had to scrape plaster from several walls in the past and the fact that there was more plaster on the floor and me than there was on the wall. I also know that with some coaching and practice, over time, I could become quite accomplished, but I do not have time as the moving in date is fixed. And so, I employ plasterers to do the work. But what if I could not employ plasterers, what if, I had to do the work myself and I had to learn to do it whilst the deadline is fast approaching? Time is finite, I can try to extend it a little by spending more time learning in each 24-hour segment but ‘stuff’, my proper job and necessary functions such as sleeping will limit what I can do. Inevitably the walls will not be plastered when we move in or the walls will be plastered but so will the floor and me. I will probably be plastered in a different sense from sheer exacerbation. The knock-on effect is that I cannot move on to learn about, let alone carry out, decorating or carpet fitting or floor laying or any part of renovating a house.
As the work on the house progresses, I have become increasingly tired, but the biggest impact has been that my knees have really started to give me trouble to the extent that some days walking up and down stairs is a slow and painful process. I am therefore limited as to how quickly I can do things by my temporary disability. Where it took me a few minutes to carry something up the stairs, it now takes two to three times the amount of time. So, more time is required to do the work and there is still the need to sleep and do ‘stuff’ in a finite time that is rapidly running out.
You might think well so what? Let me ask you now to think about students in higher education. Using my plastering skills as an analogy, what if students embarking on higher education do not have the basic skills to the standard that higher education requires? What if they can read (patch plaster) but are not able to read to the standard that is needed (plastering whole walls)? How might we start to take them onto bigger concepts, how might they understand how to carry out a literature review for example? Time is not waiting for them to learn the basics, time moves on, there is a set time in which to complete a degree. Just as I cannot decorate until the walls are plastered so too can the students not embark on higher education studies until they have the ability to read to a requisite standard. So, what would the result be? Probably no assignments completed, or completed very poorly or perhaps, just as I have paid for plastering to be done….
Now think about my temporary disability, what if, like me, it takes students twice as long to complete a task, such as reading an article, because they have a disability? There is only so much time in a day and if they, like everyone else, have ‘stuff’ to do then is it not possible that they are likely to run out of time? We give students with learning difficulties and disabilities extra time in exams, but where is the extra time in the course of weekly learning? We accept that those with disabilities have to work harder, but if working harder means spending more time on something then what are they not spending time on? Why should students with disabilities have less time to do ‘stuff’?
The structure and processes within HE fails to take cognisance of time. Surely a rethink is needed if HE is not to be condemned as institutionally failing those with disabilities and learning difficulties. Widening participation has widening implications that seem to have been neglected. I’ll leave you with those thoughts, a quick glance at my watch and I had best go because in the words of the white rabbit, ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late’ (Carroll, 1998: 10).
Carroll, L. (1998) Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass: The centenary edition, London: Penguin books.
*Richards, K. and Jagger, M (1974) Time waits for no one. Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
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Autism: Police discretion and decision making in an uncertain environment
A question that always strikes when discussing my dissertation topic is why did I chose that particular area to research – is it a topic that I was passionate about, or was it my personal life experience that lead me into that field? The answer to these questions is quite simply, no. In fact, it was a topic I accidentally fell into after reading existing research on the area for one of my other modules in second year. Intellectual disabilities within the Criminal Justice System are quite often misunderstood, and as with all academics, the more I read the more questions I had. Taking this topic at face value, the field is extremely vast, therefore after taking some time to digest many angles of research I narrowed my topic down into two areas. Firstly, an institution that I have always been interested in, policing, and one intellectual disability in particular, autism (ASD).
To give you a brief background; the examination of the relationship between criminal offending and intellectual impairments is proved as complex and problematic. This is due to the issues associated with the definition of intellectual disability, as well as the contribution of unreported crime which means researchers can only examine individuals who are currently involved in the criminal justice process (Talbot, 2007). From a policing perspective, these complexities and concerns increase in terms of conflicting procedures and relevant training which can later impact levels of service and effective results (Mercier, 2011). Amongst academic literature, it is evident that contemporary policing institutions are subject to increasing budget cuts which means that police staff must exercise discretion in processing large amounts of work with inadequate resources, in which shortcuts and simplifications are made (Lipsky 2010; Loftus 2012). This is highly problematic as policies have a tendency to occupy a one size fits all approach. In effect, this becomes increasingly difficult when dealing with individuals with autism, as increased support and time is needed to sufficiently deal with vulnerable groups.
In terms of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), this is a common form of learning impairment which can affect patterns of behaviour within a social setting. Autism is characterised by a triad of impairments, which includes difficulties in social interactions, communication and repetitiveness in daily activities (Roth, 2010, p.6). The varying expression and severity of these characteristics means that autism is recognised into sub-types, and therefore, is also considered as a spectrum disorder (King and Murphy, 2014).
On the occasions that an individual with ASD comes into contact with the police and wider criminal justice services, it is normally a result of their social and communication skills being misunderstood which means that they are not given the appropriate support (Cockram, 2005; Tucker et al, 2008). Research suggests that autistic individuals are likely to become extremely distressed in unfamiliar, confusing and loud situations whereby their actions and behaviour can be easily misinterpreted and subsequent actions could escalate the situation (Hayes, 2007). Complimented by the current implications previously discussed that are faced by the police and wider services, it is no surprise that there are issues and concerns surrounding police responses and decision-making processes towards the ASD community. After personally interviewing police constables and custody officers from Northamptonshire Police to investigate the initial responses when dealing with such individuals; the realities of such dilemmas were highlighted.
After now completing my studies with First Class Honours, I am now fortunate enough to work for The Appropriate Adult Service (TAAS) where such theoretical standpoints are often presented to me in a practical environment. From a personal judgement, Appropriate Adults can be easily dismissed, but just being a friendly face who can help and support a vulnerable person within a custody setting is far more rewarding than meets the eye. In fact, it is my dissertation itself that has lead me into this career and has now also given me a thirst for further study in my chosen research area.
References
Lipsky, M. (2010) Street- Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Loftus, B. (2012) Police culture in a changing world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mercier, C. (2011) The first critical steps through the criminal justice system for persons with intellectual disabilities. British Journal of Learning Disabilities. 39(2), pp.130-138.
Roth, L. (2010) Autism: an evolving concept. In: Roth, L. (ed.) The Autism Spectrum in the 21st Century: Exploring Psychology, Biology and Practice. 1st ed. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, pp.1-29.
Thoughts from the criminology team 