Hear My Voice – See Who I See
In this blog, Iain Smith, a Criminal Defence Lawyer and Partner at Keegan Smith Solicitors in Livingston, reflects on a transformative moment in his career. After viewing the documentary Resilience in 2018, Iain's perspective on his clients shifted profoundly. He reveals how understanding the impact of trauma led him to see his clients not just for their actions but for their deeper humanity.
With his extensive experience, including his role with the Drugs Death Task Force and his co-founding of Trauma Aware Law, Iain calls for a shift towards greater empathy and compassion within the criminal justice system. He advocates for recognising and addressing the underlying issues faced by individuals in the system.
Iain’s blog is a powerful reminder that true justice begins with understanding the complex realities of those we serve. His firm, Keegan Smith Solicitors, was awarded Scottish Criminal Law Firm of the Year in 2021 and 2022, and Iain himself was honoured as Scottish Solicitor of the Year in 2020.
In March 2018 I sat down in the Wester Hailes Education Centre to watch a one hour documentary called Resilience. Made by the late James Redford (son of Robert), it educates the viewer about the horrific biological & physiological impact of trauma on the developing brain. By this time, I had practised law & conducted criminal trials for around 25 years. I probably thought that this old law dog couldn’t be taught any more tricks. I was wrong. I sat initially in amazement as Dr Nadine Burke Harris, paediatrician & Surgeon General of California talked through the impact of toxic stress on the body & mind and the links to addiction & criminality. I suddenly saw my clients properly for the first time & quickly realised I had missed “who” they were due to my focus on “what” they had done. No one likes to admit failures, but I knew in that moment what I was doing wasn’t good enough. I not only pledged to change me but also to tell other lawyers, judges, prosecutors, policy makers, social workers & other players in the criminal justice system about the unspoken truth about the people who we as a society stigmatise & other as “Neds, Junkies, Alkies & Scum”.
I was always aware that many of my clients had problematic childhoods & terrible poverty. But I bought into the simplistic idea of personal responsibility & choice. Who in their right mind chooses to become addicted to heroin? And those I witness limping through life are often not “response-able”. My clients spend more time being victims of crime rather than perpetrators of it. Yet they quickly lose their victimhood when they try to cope with sexual abuse, neglect & being unloved by self soothing on drugs & alcohol. We witness the manifestation of trauma victims in the justice systems in bad behaviours & addiction. We condemn them, shame them, degrade & jail them. We are focused on retribution & punishment. In Scotland we might be pish at football, but we are European Champions at jailing folk & standing by as we lead the world in Drug Related Deaths. Trauma Awareness is an unwanted addition in the justice process. When we humanise folk who offend & shine a light on the horrors of their lives then human nature makes space for empathy, compassion & understanding. It is not about excusing offences but understanding the person who offends. Regrettably there is no magic wand to cure those blighted by adverse childhood experiences, but we cannot punish folk into a better way of being or out of addiction. We can however love them, persevere with them and offer hope.
The system is so busy telling those who commit crime to change when we should realise that we the professionals must change first & properly see who is actually before us.