Criminology - What's It All About?

ANOTHER BONUS EPISODE. Continuing with my informal research, I recently managed to catch up with Criminology lecturer Michael Cawley from Edge Hill University, UK. This is a fascinating interview and insight into Criminology. Topics include prison, the justice system, inequality in society, neoliberalism and career paths for Criminology students.

During the three and a half years I was in prison I wrote over a million words by hand. Tales From The Jails is a contemporaneous account of my life, and attempts to thrive rather than merely survive, whilst incarcerated.

Most names have been changed. The events have not.

This is a Jekyll & Pride production.

Producer: Trevessa Newton

Title Music taken from The Confession, on the album Crimes Against Poetry (written and performed by The Shadow Poet, produced by Lance Thomas)

Copyright Jekyll & Pride Ltd 2025

@talesfromthejailspodcast

@jekyllandpride2023
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Transcript

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Hi everyone,G-Dubz here, 2026, out in the real world. Continuing with my informal research, I recently had the opportunity to catch up with Michael Cawley. He's a criminology lecturer at Edge Hill University, which is where I managed to tie him down. We're in the middle of the main hub, hence the busy background atmosphere. But undeterred, I was keen to gain some academic insight to a word often used, that has numerous connotations, but as the interview unfolds, it becomes clear it's not what I or you may have first thought. So without any further ado, let's crack on. Criminology. What's it all about? I think we should start with who are you and how did you become a lecturer in criminology at Edge Hill? Okay. This is a question... a lot of my students don't know the answer to this, and have never asked me this. So I could have went to university at the time most people do age 18, 19, and I just felt that I wasn't a hundred percent sure what I was gonna do. I was going down a sort of business road actually, which you may find interesting, as a businessman...former... um, former businessman, former, um, and I just wasn't sure. So I went out into the world of work for the few years, got a bit of experience, little bit of money, and actually thought I would always return to higher education at some point. I always wanted to go to university and my teachers always wanted me to go to university and I really liked the confidence they had in me for that. They, they kind of consolidated that idea that I would go to university. So a few years later, must have been about 22, 23, I came across a friend who was doing criminology and whenever anyone was studying on anything, I was always interested and I wanted to know what they were doing. And I was quite nosy, as you know. I was asking her what criminology was. I didn't know what it was, really had an idea what it was. But when she explained that it was much more than I thought it was, and the more she told me, the more I was interested in it. And I thought, I think this might be for me. So she lent me a couple of books, which I still have in my office, by the way. I ended up with all of her books. I never say no to a secondhand book, especially if it's a really good one. I still remember it. It was the first edition of Hazel Croall's Crime in Society in Britain, which is still a book that I refer to and refer students to the later version of it. I thought it was brilliant. Very accessible book. So I looked around seeing who's doing criminology, and I went and I had a look at a few. I wanted to stay local. I knew some people who'd studied at Edge Hill and looked at a few other universities and I liked the feel of Edge Hill and I liked the people who I came to visit and see them. And well, cut a long story short, I got hooked, actually became a criminologist. I was a first year in September 2001, which was the year and month that 9/11 happened. Okay, so it was a really interesting time to be a criminologist and someone who really engaged me in criminology and many people over the years. but someone I remember was Phil Scraton who is actually still a friend of mine, I'm proud to say, and someone who still influences the way I think about criminology, the way I teach criminology, he's a critical criminologist, which we all are here. So his legacy, he set up criminology here in Edge Hill. Okay. And his legacy really still thankfully lives on. So anyway, I got into criminology, loved almost everything about it. I wouldn't lie, I'm not gonna lie and say I loved everything about it because I think anyone who studies a discipline, I think it'd be very rare for someone to say they loved every aspect of it. I love most of it. What is it then? What are those pieces and parts that you enjoy the most? It's providing a voice to those who don't normally have it, what we call the voice from below. Oh, okay. I haven't heard that expression before. Haven't you? No, not at all. That, that's one one of the first things that we say to our first years is, we look at inequality, we look at those people who are marginalized by society, who don't normally have a voice, and we want to hear what they have to say. So for me, I'm interested in prisons and prison research. One of the first pieces of research I did was in Liverpool Prison, and it was hearing those prisoners who wouldn't normally get a voice. And they fascinated me. They were brilliant, they were candid, they were honest and above all else, they were very informed. They were very clever. They knew what they were talking about. And that's what it is that interests us the most as criminologists. It's the human experience of crime or the criminal justice system, and especially those who've been at the sharp end of it. So that's what it is for me. Well, that leads me into, because really one of my questions was what are the aims and objectives of the criminology course or the modules with regard to the changes or impact graduates may bring about as a result of the course? What are you hoping to prepare students for? Where do the threads or the paths take? They take us in different directions and students, when I'm teaching one of my modules in the first year, students take a while to understand this because it's very political. We talk about politics, you've gotta have an understanding, even a basic understanding of politics, the political spectrum in the countries we look at. When we're looking at the UK we're looking at issues around the USA, which, there's probably never been a better time in the 21st century to look at those political issues, in the USA and other issues like Palestine, Ukraine. Well, just on that, how are those issues shaping the criminology module content then, or the course? How does it shape it or influence it? Well, again, we try to give an overview of the political dynamic and the political legacies of the likes of Thatcherism. So important. So where we find ourselves now in the 21st century and how that was carried on with Blair. So Thatcherism, Blairism, there's a blur between them really because they overlap. Some people have called it Blatcherism. So one of the, the big things that I bring in and make sure that first years get some understanding of it, and it's, it's something that you don't have to get an absolute grip of or an absolute understanding of until the second or third year. And some students only get that towards the end of the degree, and that's fine. And it's neoliberalism and it's this advanced form of capitalism. What I'm curious though already is if, if you don't mind, it's all that you've said and we've come to neoliberalism... politics is embroidered into criminal justice as much as criminal justice is in... That's the essence of what the foundation, that political and economic foundation, talking about neoliberalism, aims to do. It aims to let us know how interwoven they both are. And there's a third element, economics really. So, politics, economics, government, criminal justice, all interwoven. They all affect each other. I'll give you just two basic examples. The privatization of the NHS affects us all. Waiting lists are off the scale. NHS dentists are difficult to find. That's not a coincidence. Most of the places I played as a child, green fields now have houses on. The point I'm making here is that we're very quick to sell off land for housing companies to make money out of governments will tell us to provide housing for people. That is the case and we should provide housing. But a lot of this is profiteering. Housing brands buying up land and putting as many houses as they can on there to make profit. They don't necessarily care about the quality of those houses. They don't care about the quality of people's experience or getting back to the point I made before, you can't find an NHS dentist. We have the housing and we have everywhere to live. But we have nowhere to go and we don't have the infrastructure to match it. So as the housing stock is growing, the ability to choose what school your child goes to is not there. And the NHS dentists, they're not expanding, doctors' surgeries, etc, to match the growing population in areas where the land's been sold off. This all started with neoliberalism and the right to buy. So the working class became what we call the propertied classes, and we refer to the middle and upper classes traditionally. But the working class became propertied as a result of policies like the Right to Buy scheme where people could buy council houses. That's led to problems down the line. Of people not being able to get onto the housing ladder. I don't disagree. I find it quite interesting what you've said, but equally there are two things going on... where we began, which is asking you maybe to why, what are students learning and progressing onto when they leave here as a result of criminology. But secondly, I suppose almost is if we're going to talk about crime, are we still going to say that the increase of crime now, the type of crimes now, the justice system, the social system, are we still going back to, well, it began with Thatcher and Blair and all of that because I'm not saying they're not directly linked, but we could go back 50 years then couldn't we? Absolutely. Begun there 60 years, hundred years. Inequality is nothing new. Thank you. And we saw that in the Victorian period. We saw it towards the beginning of the First World War. We saw real inequality, class polarization, as we call it. The difference between the classes was massive between the upper and lower classes. What we saw as a result of the post-war efforts to reduce that and to reduce inequality, we saw the welfare state being introduced. We saw the NHS being introduced, things like that. Policies of education, housing, for the sacrifices they made, ultimate sacrifices they made. And the two World Wars, that brought down inequality. So we were moving in the right direction post Second World War. And we continued to, we saw a postwar consensus between the two major political parties. That ended quite abruptly when Thatcher came to power in 1979. And we started moving back towards, unseen before model of capitalism, neoliberalism. It's no coincidence that Reagan implemented this in the USA as well. He was a great friend of Thatcher's. So we see neoliberalism being promoted and we see the start of massive inequalities and we see the start of what we see now, which is a couple of really powerful billionaires who control a lot of what we do, a lot of what we see in terms of media. Again, you know, this leads to marginalization and people are left out. What we want our students to understand is how this happens. And then how to deal with people who this happens to. So what we're trying to prepare our students for is really to have a background knowledge and context to be able to deal with people who've been marginalized. A lot of our students go on to work with offenders, ex-offenders, victims of crime, and other marginalized people like homeless people. So if you understand inequality, you understand the people who it affects and you can work with them. Has crime reached a tipping point whereby as a society we've got all of these issues, unemployment, violent crime, crimes against women, shoplifting, destruction, all the issues that are very current and topical on the news. I'm just curious as to students being equipped for what they really face, have we not reached a critical, critical point, haven't we? We're overcrowded in prisons. I highlight that we need to make a connection, between what the students are aware of what's outside the university bubble and what's taking place? Is that a fair comment? That is a fair comment. With any course that covers the material we do, there are gonna be some who are more prepared than others. That's due to many factors, sometimes down to the individual and the way they learn and engage. Students who do extracurricular stuff, they'll volunteer for charity. They'll find a placement or we'll find a placement for them. Students who go and do study abroad, they're the ones who are more equipped when they graduate. It's about how you've engaged with that experience and what we, we can only teach so much. We can only teach a certain fraction of what's out there. It's up to students to go and do some of it for themselves. Students begin criminology believing it's one thing and leave realizing it's another? Many do. And one of the, one of the sort of disciplines that has emerged over the last, say 20, 25 years that we teach about as well and we make sure we, we are very clear early on in the degree about, this is something called study of harms. Because a lot of what harms us in the global society isn't illegal. So it's going back to what I said before, how governments and economics and even corporations and governments are linked together. Powerful corporations influence and control governments. And they deregulate sectors and reregulate sectors to make it easier for them to basically do what they want or to make money. Air pollution kills more people in the UK, but we don't see that on the front page news because as you said before, people aren't really interested in that. They're interested in more exciting stuff, in homicides. So because certain industries are being deregulated in terms of how much pollution they can put into the atmosphere, powerful corporations making people ill or polluting. But they enjoy the government rolling itself back from getting involved and saying to them. What's happening here? Too much pollution coming out of your chimneys here. So that's zemiology. The things that are most harmful to us are not criminalized really. Now that sounds bizarre because people listening to this would think will know things like murder are criminalized and, and manslaughter and, GBH and in comparison, they affect a smaller amount of people than the economic harms and the environmental harms that happen every day. They affect much more, many more people and disproportionately poorer people as well. Can I ask you this though, maybe I've interpreted it incorrectly, but have we not become a victim centric society where now from a justice societal point of view, the weight and attention is now on the victim and... Yeah, I still don't necessarily, I think there's always a lot of rhetoric and talk around that this is for victims, but one, there's more than one person caught up in being a victim. Absolutely. I spoke with T about this last night, this forgotten victims. Thank you. And I'd like to throw this in for you, if you don't mind me saying is I'm taking nothing away from anybody that's been a victim of crime, but today, let's bring it right up to speed. The guy who's just received a sentence on the radio before we've started this interview for the Liverpool FC Parade. Yeah. He's just received, I think it's 21 years, they've said. His family, his wife, his children, his parents, if they're still alive, all become victims, don't they? Of... Yeah. They all become affected. They become victims of his actions. yeah. As much as the people that were affected directly by what happened on the day. I'd say that's a fair point. Obviously not as affected physically. There are victims and people are harmed that aren't directly the victim of the crime. Absolutely. There is that. All the time I was away, I must be honest, most of my thoughts always went to loved ones that are suffering more than we are to a large extent. T always says, well you were on the inside, but they're left on the outside to pick up the pieces, to deal with the stigma and shame. It's an important issue and it's a very relevant issue today. And considering where we are in the world as well, it's a very localized issue as well. Can I come back to this, Michael, because I won't have much time with you, I'm just curious, while I've got you here, after everything that's been said so far, the reality is there too much talk and too much politics and too much rhetoric and just not enough happening? Is there a sense from your position, society's breaking down because the justice system is broken? Yeah. We see that with what Lammie's just proposed, removing jury trials, which if you look at it on the face value, the justice system is clogged up. The court system is clogged up. It's had a lack of investment, for decades. That is a quick fix to it. And people who don't really understand the criminal justice system properly might think it's a good idea, but it's fundamentally against our rule of law where people have the right to a fair trial. The kind of people who opt for a trial by jury won't be able to, that will be severely limited. And again, it's marginalized people. It's people who don't feel like they're being judged properly by judges who have nothing in common with them. So people often opt for the trial by jury to get a fairer bite of the cherry when it comes to the outcome. So that's gonna be reduced a lot. And again, it's the most marginalized people that are always hit by that. Legal aid. The amount of that, it's been defunded, that's only affected one portion of society. The poorest within society have even less access now to legal representation. That's what we're seeing with the removal of the juries or the proposal. Even with that happening, I could sort of keep sitting here thinking crime is on the rise. Prisons are out of control. Especially justice. I mean, I think the inherent problem with the justice system, the criminal justice system is nobody's in the job for long, are they? It's a very short lived role, and so nothing ever really gets done. It's just surviving your role until someone else takes it over. And then inherits the problems that you couldn't fix and maybe more, problems that you've made as, a secretary, home secretary, whatever it might be. I think that's a good point. Again, it goes back to a lack of investment. You were saying it's a sign it's broken... but I've been at the coalface, haven't I? I've been... of the most common things I wrote from the TFJs along the way. We've had this conversation many times. I think you know what's coming. Yes, there's the element of underfunded, but I saw the flip side of it, which is where's all the money going? There's obviously millions upon millions... if an average prisoner per year is 40 something thousand pounds. Yeah, it's 45. Let's say 48. I think you are on 48 aren't... I'm on sort of 48, 49. 48. 49,000 pounds per year. And even more for young offenders. Well, what I remember was we were living in squalor. We were provided with nothing. There was no rehabilitation. Courses were at a large extent for Neanderthals, we had courses that weren't very effective. But worse than that, we had a budget of three pounds a day. Less than three pounds a day for your three meals per head. And you sort of think, okay, then let's just do the maths on that. 365 days at three pounds a head. Where's the other 46 and a half thousand pounds going to? Where do you think it goes? What's the aim of prison? Because that's... you tell me. Okay. You'd be more equipped to give me right answer. I, I hope so. It might be, but you experienced it. You've got the right to say that. I know what you're saying by that. I know what you're saying. Some of the tasks, the things that come under the banner of education are very demeaning to prisoners. That's a great way to put it, pictures of Peppa Pig. That is, what educational value has that got? Really? We should be doing better. We should be treating people better. I think lots of people are being paid lots of money, to deliver programmes that are delivered. It's almost exploitation in the extreme to deliver programmes that are, demeaning. Now, I'm not sure they're designed to demean anyone. I agree with you. I don't think they are designed to do that. But the byproduct of how they're delivered is, that's what happens... because it's often disjointed. I've gotta say, I've had some good experiences of prisons, prison governors, prison staff who cared about the education that was being delivered. So any organization, any prison establishment, any prison that got involved with Learning Together, I think is progressive because they were doing it for the right reasons. They cared about what prisoners were learning. But the thing is, one governor may think it's a good idea and another doesn't. There's an inconsistency. There's no message from the top that we're gonna try this. That works. And by the way, the lads in prison know it works. They know what works and what doesn't. The turning point in my prison time was Learning Together. Meeting yourself, briefly. But Alana and Anita, most certainly. The programme that they delivered, how they delivered it. And I think I've, I've said before along the way it was the only one. I think we did two hours, didn't we? It was a two hour session each week. But they were the only two hours in a week that I felt human, that I felt treated as a human. Helen's article. What did you say? It was two hours. What did you say it was? It was two hours. I haven't seen the article yet. What? You said it, you might not remember saying it, but you'll have to get your copy of the article two hours of sunshine in a desolate.... one of the most powerful things that anyone said to me about it. The students that came along from Edge Hill University, with the lecturers... yourself, Anita and Alana, they were incredible. We felt as though we...didn't feel as though we were a, a tick box exercise or something. A tick box. A tick box exercise From day one, the way that it was designed we had to jump through many hoops. The university were very supportive of it and were on board from the start with it. But as you say, if people buy into it, if a governor buys into it, you're halfway there, really, aren't you? Yeah, absolutely. And then we had to get people to buy into it at the university, which they were keen to do. And we got a lot of support from the university, pleased to say we did. And the way it was designed, it was totally new course. It wasn't something adapted from somewhere else. And it was designed with that in mind to be a neutral playing field and inclusive, more importantly than anything else it was inclusive and it was made to feel and it did from the first session. There was no us and them. It wasn't it wasn't as prisoners and as university students. It was, Learning Together learners. I won't mention the prison, but it was'prison name' learners. Went to university as a result. Yeah, no doubt about that. It gave me, confidence. That I wouldn't be out of place. Yeah. The word you've used before is the springboard. Yeah. To go, you went on to achieve, which is brilliant, should inspire others. Well, I'm conscious of time for you, not me. I'm okay for another 10 minutes. Okay. Well in that 10 minutes. Can I go back to something you asked? Of course you can. How sometimes education in prison ends up poor quality, such poor quality and demeaning. And it goes back to what I was talking about earlier on how we need to understand inequality and neoliberalism and what role that plays. Okay. And you said, where's the money gone? And I said, where do you think it's gone? And what happens is most aspects of prison, have become privatized. And that's where the money's gone. It's gone into private companies. I won't mention their names. Throw this into the mix. When I was in Walton, that wasn't private. It wasn't, but aspects of it were. So you have prisons where the laundry services are privatized. You have, as far as I know, every prison in England and Wales uses those private transport companies. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, I'm gonna be diplomatic about that. What we want to understand is how does that happen? The private contracts are one thing, but I also think that within the prison itself, the wastage is just eye watering. Yeah. And then it filters down to what's important. So I said to you before, what is the aim of imprisonment? And it's to keep people separate and secure from the rest of society. And it's to do it in the cheapest way possible. So a lot of it goes on staff, infrastructure, maintenance. Um, you know how poorly and what poor shape HMP Liverpool is in. A lot of money goes on quick fixes to keep that place running. So a lot of the money goes on security. Some of it goes on things like medication, food. And then there's a little bit left for education and things like that. I think it's at an all time low now. Yeah. Inside. Yeah. Can I ask you this? From your experience, does society care about how prisoners or criminals are being treated? No. And this is one of the big issues really, because that is the big issue, isn't it? Because if they don't care, then nobody's ever really addressing the problem because there's not enough pushback. Is there? It isn't. And it continues because it's becoming more and more privatized. Well it's a gravy train. You've only gotta look at how the prison industrial complex helps the economy. Sending people to prison helps the economy. It needs an endless supply of prisoners or a constant supply of prisoners. That's a very dangerous situation. Possibly. We have our version of it. Possibly we do. I agree with that. The Americans have led the way with this for decades. I was vocal about that when I was away. Now, there are some good aspects of that. Like, James Timpson who some of the establishments we would go into really put his money where his mouth was and he believed in giving offenders or prisoners a chance. He has backed them. Two things going on on that topic. One is businesses or organizations are providing opportunities to inmates and another group of people will see it as complete exploitation. Yeah. Yeah. think as much as you can get it right, I think Timpson has got it right and I don't know everything about this. There might be people listening to this who have experience of this or something similar and don't agree and that's fine if you don't agree. But he seemed to kind of make sure people got a chance post-release...a hundred percent... which I think is brilliant. I think my criticism of James Timpson at the moment, I would say, is for all the good work he's done and his family have done over the years, the reality is he's gone missing in action on his watch. He's been given the post and... yeah... if he can, if he can do something good with that, then great. But I think all of us like to know, what is he doing? Is he the prison czar? We've seen this kind of thing before. But say this we only see the negative picture and face of prison and prisoners, don't we? Social media fuels that, mainstream media fuels that, we're not really seeing what's it really like for most prisoners inside that prison? And from an outside point of view, the impact that it is having. But equally we don't see or hear the success stories of the former criminals or former prisoners that don't return to crime or prison. Is that the 10% you're talking about? 10 percenters, yeah. Yeah. No, we don't. And society's not really interested in that story. Which leads me to this because I've only got a few minutes left. But why do you think society is so fascinated with the topic or genre of crime? The simple answer to that is because it's interesting in ways that people's everyday lives aren't, but isn't that interest now at a stage where it's unhealthy and actually that interest in crime and criminals is turning into potentially people becoming criminals? Yes, some certainly are attracted to that, what would you call it, vocation. You can go from being a voyeur of the topic... To being a participant? To becoming a participant. Yes, you can. But also I would imagine the evidence already suggests that, doesn't it? That if we're watching stuff about crime, then you're probably going to get involved with it. Yeah. And something you said earlier on, we're a society that doesn't care. We become desensitized because we see so much of it. Yeah. And we see on our devices, on our phones, we sometimes see things that we probably shouldn't see, things we wouldn't have seen in the past. Well our children... people being assassinated in real time... we never saw stuff like that. No, no. And I'd say probably the closest thing, before all this technology was probably the assassination of President Kennedy. Yeah. I think you're right. And even then we didn't see the gory details of it. We didn't and, and now a society wants to see that. In some ways we're disappointed or unsatisfied when we can't. Yeah. I've gotta be honest that's the media and that's politics. Not only is one protecting the victims, they play a part in the victim... And two, it's protecting society from becoming desensitized to violence. And the many reasons why we are desensitized to violence. Because the reality between fact and fiction, between what we see in the media, what we see in movies, video games, in terms of violence, what we see with AI the blur between fact and fiction has never been more dangerous, I think. But can I also say, say this to you, has crime become just more glamorous and more appealing. I'm not sure. I just think we know more about it. More people are committing it. There's an industry, More people if they experience crime, are more likely to go into a life of crime. Now I do think there's some truth in that, but what I also think is, many of my students, they want to go into the industry around that to try and make a difference. I'm not saying solve the problems around crime or, prison overcrowding, but to make a positive difference in victims' lives, offenders lives. I'm gonna sound like an old skeptic here, an old cynic. A side of me is sat here thinking, take the police going into a particular career, as you say, but you often hear, officers saying that they went into it, the role or the job because they wanted to make a difference. I think there comes a point not much further down the line, realizing that they're going to make no difference because it's an epidemic or it's so overwhelming or the truth of the matter is, what happens, they realize that on the whole, the people around them don't care as much... yeah, yeah. Is that the old cynic coming out or is that not a sense of...? I think if you look at statistics and the amount of people who join the police and then leave within the first five years, 10 years, maybe, that would back up what you're saying. I would think that a lot of young people, I would imagine a lot of students, a lot of young people might think, I'd like to work in the prison service. I think I could make a difference. I think we should have prison reform and I think prisoners should be entitled to pathways to rehabilitation and so on and so forth. Yeah. Then they get inside a prison and think, oh my God. Yeah. It's a cross between a zoo and asylum. Everyone's calling me terrible names. No one cares about me. Someone's just swilled me. I'm not staying here, and that's reality for me. That's what...possibly..., but what I will say is think of the difference that the likes of Alana and Anita made to you and the lads on Learning Together. Some of the university learners actually went on to, roles and careers within the criminal justice system. And I know they are making a positive difference because we stayed in touch with them. We still aren't in touch with some of them. What are those areas then? Would they be probation, they'd be... prison service? Prison service, definitely. Victim support. That was that cohort. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and of course, you know, the, the, the job list that our students go into is, is quite, endless really, I suppose. Eh, it's quite, quite a large one. I fear we're going to have to round this up. Can we just for the record give a shout out again to the book that really did change the course of your career. Croall's Society in Britain. Yeah. Crime and Society in Britain. Would you recommend people to read that and why? I would. I think it's, what we call accessible. It's quite easy to read even if you're not an academic. It's quite rounded. It talks about some of the issues we should be looking at. Pretty easy to get involved in. If you're really interested in crime, why not read something like that? Move beyond the documentaries, move beyond the crime channels, which are very similar. A lot of those shows are very similar. They just focus on the individual. Hazel Croall, any key criminologist, Stan Cohen, focus on the structural issues. Within society. I think people would be interested in that. And that brings us back quite neatly to what you were saying about what is criminology and it's trying to understand those processes that affect structural issues, structural decisions, which affect us all. Keep people marginalized, things like the NHS and the prison service, along the path of privatization, which ultimately affects negatively, in my opinion... Yeah... People's experiences of those services and those organizations. Can I sort of wrap us up with this then? I'm curious as to if there's a second time, what would you talk about or like to talk about on your own terms and... Well, you've put me on the spot. I'll have a little think while I'm gonna tell you before I forget what it was. You mentioned Alana and Anita before, and they are with a note. So Alana was a former colleague of mine here at the university and there's certain things that people say along your career journey that you'll never forget. And one of them that Alana said of several that she said that I'll never forget, we were talking about some of our students going into the police and she said basically criminology students would make great police officers because they're so aware of the inequality, the processes of marginalization, discrimination, etc. And I thought that was brilliant. I thought that was really resounding and I thought it was profound. So she said basically if you study criminology, you've got a much more rounded understanding of how the whole system works and how people end up within the criminal justice system. So perhaps, the assumption there is that they'll be treated more fairly. I think I stood up on my feet at... I think one of the things I think I opened with, didn't I? Completely, unexpectedly. But if somebody comes to you and asks you for help, what are you going to do? I think that the people, students or people that may go on for careers, whether it be with the police, whether it be with probation, et cetera, are going to be met with the challenge that somebody from a particular background or somebody that may have committed a particular crime may still reach out to them for help. Yes. And I think what I was trying to say, don't lose sight of who you are as a human being. No. And that's where I think some people who go into those roles, people who go into the police thinking they're gonna make a difference, and then suddenly feel they can't feel a bit helpless about that. It's important that you stay who you are. You try and if you are someone who is helpful, someone who has empathy, then there's probably no better role dealing with people within the criminal justice system. All of those roles need empathy and understanding, and that's just as important as knowing your job, knowing what to do, knowing the law, knowing how to teach, knowing how to take blood, whatever it might be. Having empathy and being able to deal with people. You're dealing with members of the public and sometimes you're dealing with them at times of crisis. You're seeing them at the worst sometimes. One of the problems we have, is that we're trying to deal with the issues like a quick fix when these are endemic problems, endemic. They're massive problems. They're endemic, complex mental health issues, mental health yeah. We didn't have to talk on that. Yeah. Maybe that's what we should talk about next time.