By Mark Reidy
WHEN Dr Brian Steels addressed participants at the Catholic Social Justice Council’s (CSJC) Seminar on Violence on 9 October, he spoke from his personal experience of violence as a young person and its long-lasting effect on his thinking and well-being, as well as his current work in the Church with current and former prisoners.
In an interview with The Record, Dr Steels said that with his experience as a criminologist, campaigner, activist and researcher for prison reform, victim of crime and as an ex-prisoner himself, he has become well equipped to speak about violence and the justice system that deals with it.
In working with both the victims and the perpetrators of violence, Dr Steels said that he has been privileged to work with many wonderful people, from chaplains and pastoral workers to police and prison workers, who are trying to create a better justice system.
Dr Steels is currently co-ordinator of the Asia Pacific Forum for Restorative Justice as well as a lecturer and researcher at Murdoch University.
He is a strong advocate for victims of crime and has researched a community model for the Perth Magistrate’s Court which provides an opportunity for victims and perpetrators to come together within a safe space to share their stories, their hurts, suffering and pain, and to give an account of why the crime happened.
The programme provides an opportunity for personal transformation in an attempt to prevent the behaviour happening again, to offer help to make things right, to hold out a hand in understanding and to try to bring a halt to the cycle of violence.
Dr Steels said that his work with the Magistrate’s Court provided him with a great insight into the violence in everyday Perth as well as the depth of compassion, forgiveness and desire to make things right that exist within the community.
He said that his work indicated that there were many causes of violence within our society.
These ranged from poor and overcrowded housing, under-employment, drug and alcohol use and the violence associated with young men in pubs and gangs to the violence that occurs within the family home, whether emotional, social, physical, psychological or spiritual. “It is a very dark issue as it deals with sexuality, power, control, manipulation and gender issues. Most of us feel comfortable thinking that it doesn’t happen, and yet it does. It happens in our own Christian homes as well as elsewhere”.
Dr Steels was pleased to be a part of the CSJC seminar as he saw it as a first step for people to engage in conversation about the topic.
“It is one that challenges the Christian as it goes to the heart of what we are called to do, not only throughout the Gospel, but also from the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.”
This was captured in the Bishops’ statement, which said: “The heart of this vision is the God who loves each of us intensely and passionately.
“This God has invited us to shape our world so that all human beings share it equitably and justly, and has prepared for us happiness beyond our imagining.”
It was an insight with which Dr Steels could identify.
He said that society needed to change direction from hurting offenders to offering to help them heal.
“This calls us not to poke out someone’s eye, to make them suffer as we have suffered”, he told The Record.
“Violence is in our face today, just as it was in the time of our Lord”, he said. “He saw His own country invaded and occupied, His family had to escape persecution. He was well aware of the fact that humans could and should live better lives, and that very same call comes to us today from the Bishops”.
He said the seminar provided an opportunity “to first remove the plank in our own eye so that we can reflect on the splinter in our brother’s and sister’s eyes”.
He said that the seminar challenged the Church community as it reminded us that, as Christians, even if we have found a personal peace, we have a duty to assist others in also experiencing peace and justice.
“While we witness so many people each day being made victims of crime or behaving badly, we know that we have work to do”, he said.
It is important, he concluded, that each person carefully examine what the Bishops have said, what the Church is asking them to do and what their faith is saying to them.
“It begins as a personal journey and yet we are not alone on the path.”