Blamestorming, Blamemongers and Scapegoats

Allocating Blame in the Criminal Justice Process

Dingwall, Gavin, Hillier, Tim

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781447304999
• eBook ISBN: 9781447321163
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Philosophy
• Index: Social Sciences

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence We live in a society that is increasingly preoccupied with allocating blame: when something goes wrong someone must be to blame. Bringing together philosophical, psychological, and sociological accounts of blame, this is the first detailed criminological account of the role of blame in which the authors present a novel study of the legal process of blame attribution, set in the context of criminalisation as a social and political process. This timely and topical book will be essential reading for anyone working or researching in the criminal justice field. It will also be of wider interest to anyone wishing to discover the role of blame in modern society.

ONE

Introduction and the centrality of blame

The Case of Mrs Inglis

On 21 November 2008 Frances Inglis killed her 22-year-old son, Thomas, by injecting him with heroin, having been unsuccessful in an earlier attempt. On 20 January 2010 she was convicted of murder and attempted murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum specified term of nine years. The killing of children by their parents is almost universally regarded as especially wrong and there is usually widespread public condemnation of mothers who kill their own children. On the face of it, Frances Inglis could expect considerable blame to be attached to her actions. Many might consider that her blame would be increased by the fact that she committed the murder while on bail for the attempted murder and that a condition of that bail was that she had no contact with her son. The Sentencing Council guidelines indicate that there is greater culpability when offences are committed on bail (Sentencing Guidelines Council, 2004). Yet the facts surrounding the case outlined in the Court of Appeal judgment in Frances Inglis’s appeal (R v Inglis [2010] EWCA Crim 2637) show the attribution and assessment of blame to be far more complicated.

On 7 July 2007 Thomas Inglis was involved in a fight in which he was struck on the head. Against his wishes an ambulance was called and he was taken to hospital. According to the facts disclosed in the Court of Appeal judgment, during the journey to the hospital the back doors of the ambulance opened three times. On the third occasion Thomas fell out of the back and sustained severe head injuries which left him in a coma. At the inquest, the Hertfordshire Coroner found that on all three occasions the doors had been opened by Thomas himself and that on the third occasion he had jumped from the ambulance. Thomas required two life-saving operations to relieve pressure on his brain and a portion of the front part of his skull was removed. The Court of Appeal accepted that the appearance of Thomas following the second operation was ‘distressing’ but the view of the consultants at that time was that there was every possibility that Thomas could recover sufficiently to lead an independent life. Frances, who was separated from her husband, Thomas’s father, had been opposed to the operations and took the view that Thomas should have been allowed to die naturally. She was considerably distressed by Thomas’s condition and believed him to be suffering and in pain. In August 2007 the medical team concluded that Thomas was not yet ready to be moved to a rehabilitation unit as he was still unable to swallow on his own. The medical team also took the view that Thomas would probably require long-term dependent care.

On 4 September 2007 Frances Inglis visited her son in hospital and following the visit he suffered cardiac arrest and was clinically dead. He was resuscitated and subsequent tests showed the cause of the cardiac arrest to be street heroin. Frances was arrested and interviewed and initially denied all knowledge of the heroin or any idea of ending Thomas’s life. The Court of Appeal pointed out that she was ‘content to allow suspicion to fall onto Thomas’s father or his brother or those responsible for his care at hospital’ (para 17). She was subsequently charged with the attempted murder of her son and granted bail subject to the condition that she did not visit her son. In May 2008 her solicitors indicated that Frances Inglis would plead guilty on the basis that her action was motivated by a desire to end what she saw as Thomas’s suffering. Her only regret was the fact that she had failed in her attempt. While there was some doubt about Thomas’s prognosis before 4 September 2007, after the cardiac arrest his condition and prognosis was extremely poor.

On 21 November 2008 Frances Inglis gained access to the hospital which was providing care for Thomas. The hospital was short staffed and, although staff were aware that Frances was not permitted to see her son, a photograph which would have enabled staff to identify her had been removed some time earlier. Frances asked to see Thomas and was allowed in without suspicions being raised. She then injected Thomas with heroin and, calculating the time needed for it to take effect, waited for the staff to leave the room and then superglued the lock and barricaded the door.

At her trial Frances Inglis argued that she felt she had had no choice. Her actions had been motivated by love for her son who she did not wish to continue suffering a living death. She was particularly concerned about the possibility that hydration and nutrition would be withdrawn from Thomas if his vegetative state persisted beyond a 12-month period. There was also evidence given at the trial to show that Frances had suffered from depressive disorder in the past and was suffering from depression at the time of her actions. At the end of the trial she was convicted of murder and attempted murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum period of nine years specified for the murder. She appealed both against conviction and against sentence. The appeal against conviction was dismissed and the Court of Appeal focused more on the appeal against sentence. The judgment was delivered by the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge.

Having been convicted of murder the only sentence available to the court was life imprisonment, but the court could still reflect the level of blame to be attached to Mrs Inglis by the minimum period specified. The Court of Appeal confirmed the conventional view that premeditation increases the quantity of blame as does the abuse of a position of trust: both were present in Mrs Inglis’s case. They also found, as an aggravating factor, that Mrs Inglis continued to show a lack of remorse for what she had done. On the other hand, the Court of Appeal accepted that Mrs Inglis was suffering from an impaired ability to cope with the situation of her son and that she genuinely believed that she was carrying out an act of mercy. By weighing the aggravating and mitigating factors together the Court of Appeal came to the conclusion that the initial sentence had overvalued the amount of culpability and reduced the recommended minimum term to five years imprisonment.

Had Thomas Inglis not sustained serious head injuries in November 2008 it seems unlikely that his mother, Frances, would be currently serving a sentence of life imprisonment for his murder. Had Thomas not received a blow to the head during a fight in a pub an ambulance would not have been called. Evidence at the inquest suggests that Thomas had been drinking and that, either as a result of alcohol or the blow to his head, his judgement was impaired. In other circumstances he would probably not have attempted to leave a moving ambulance by the back door. Had the light warning the driver of an open door been working properly then the driver might have stopped when the back doors opened. Had the photograph of Mrs Inglis not been removed from the hospital which was treating Thomas then she might have been recognised and escorted from the premises before administering the fatal dose of heroin. Had the hospital not been short staffed it may have been more difficult for Mrs Inglis to see Thomas unaccompanied. Clearly the main person to blame for Thomas’s death is Frances Inglis. The questions as to whether any others in the tragic story are deserving of blame and the quantity of blame to be attributed to Frances Inglis are more complex.

The Case of Baby P

In 2007 in England and Wales 574 children died between the ages of one and four (ONS, 2007). Of those, 21 were victims of unlawful killing. One of the victims became particularly known to the public. Peter Connelly was born on 1 March 2006 and was found dead in his cot on 3 August 2007. The death of ‘Baby P’, as he came to be known, received considerable media attention, far more than the other 20 young children whose lives were unlawfully ended in 2007. During his life, concerns had been expressed on a number of occasions about the quality of his care. He was repeatedly seen by members of Haringey’s Children and Young Persons Service and by NHS healthcare professionals. On two occasions his mother was arrested in connection with injuries sustained by Peter but both times she was released without charge. The post mortem examination of Peter identified 22 separate injuries including fractures to his ribs, a broken spinal cord, a broken tooth and a removed toenail (R v B, C and Jason Owen (2009)).1 In November 2007 Tracey and her partner, Steven Barker, together with Barker’s brother, Jason Owen, were convicted of ‘allowing or causing the death of a child or vulnerable adult’ under section 5 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004. Connelly and Barker were given indeterminate sentences of imprisonment for public protection, Owen received a sentence of three years imprisonment.

Unlike the case of Thomas Inglis, a successful criminal prosecution of those directly responsible for the death did not bring matters to a close. Seven years earlier, Haringey Social Services had been heavily criticised following the death of eight-year-old Victoria Climbié in February 2000. The death of Peter Connelly seemed to be an awful repetition of many of the events surrounding Victoria Climbié’s death. Following Peter’s death, Haringey Council launched an internal Serious Case Review and the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families ordered Ofsted, the Healthcare Commission and the Chief Inspector of Constabulary to carry out an inspection of safeguarding in Haringey. The inspection report was delivered to the Secretary of State on 1 December 2008 and acting on their findings he ordered the immediate removal of the Director of Children’s Services, Sharon Shoesmith.2 On 8 December 2008 Sharon Shoesmith was dismissed by Haringey Council and in April 2009 the Council announced that it had also dismissed the Deputy Director of Children’s Services, two managers and a social worker. Two of the healthcare professionals involved in the case were also subject to sanctions. One is left to wonder whether, had it not occurred within the jurisdiction of Haringey Social Services, the tragedy of Baby P would have received the same media attention. Had it not received the media attention it did, one also wonders whether Haringey Council would have been so minded to dismiss the Director and Deputy Director of Children’s Services, the two managers and the social worker.

The case of Baby P raises important issues relating to blame. It also provides an example of public scapegoating. Baby P was not the only young child to die in 2007 yet his case received considerable media attention. Those directly responsible for his death received long terms of imprisonment, yet that did not seem sufficient to assuage a public (or certainly media-led) desire to allocate blame. What is also striking is the fact that the tone of the inquiries into the deaths of Peter Connelly and Victoria Climbié was markedly different to that of the first modern child abuse inquiry and this difference was reflected in the respective reports. In 1973 Maria Colwell was killed by her stepfather following systematic abuse. The case received considerable media coverage and a Committee of Inquiry was established, chaired by Thomas Fisher. In 1974 the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the care and supervision provided in relation to Maria Colwell (the Fisher Report) was published (HMSO, 1974). It was considerably shorter than the two inquiries chaired by Lord Lamming into the deaths of Victoria Climbié and Peter Connelly. The written style of the later reports is much more personalised and there is a greater willingness to identify the guilty and the innocent. In 1974 the authors of the Fisher Report could conclude: ‘The overall impression created by Maria’s sad history is that while individuals made mistakes it was “the system”, using the word in the widest sense, which failed her. Because that system is the product of society, it is on society as a whole that the ultimate blame must rest’ (HMSO, 1974, para 242).

The later reports seem to be keen to protect society as a whole from blame by identifying specific individuals and organisations deserving of blame. It will be a central tenet of this book that the increasing willingness to attach blame to specific individuals and organisations is inextricably linked to a desire to exonerate the rest of us.

Blamestorming

Among the new words identified by the Oxford English Dictionary in 2003 was ‘blamestorming’ which was defined as ‘The process of investigating the reasons for a failure and of apportioning blame, esp. by means of discussion or debate’. The first use of the word was traced to a section in Wired Magazine by Gareth Branwyn entitled Jargon Watch. On 20 January 1997 Branwyn identified blamestorming: ‘To sit around and discuss why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who’s responsible. Like brainstorming, from which it is derived, blamestorming is done with little regard for the quality of contributions to the discussion’ (Branwyn, 1997). The Daily Telegraph reported on 29 January 2008 that ‘blamestorming’ was among a number of new buzzwords to enter office jargon identified by a survey carried out by the recruitment firm Office Angels:

When times get tough, when people get stressed, and when they are faced with a crisis, it is interesting to observe how many people seem to suddenly become skilled in the Art of Blamestorming. Loosely defined Blamestorming is a meeting of like-minded people who enjoy sitting around in meetings, deciding who or what they are going to blame for their current plight. How many good Blamestorming sessions have you had in your own organization recently? You probably know some people who are highly skilled at Blamestorming. Some people are so proficient that they do not even need an organized meeting in order to practice their art. They do it at the water cooler, in the elevator, on the phone and some are even skilled enough to record it on paper or send out by email. In our current economic climate it is not difficult to become a skilled Blamestormer as there are so many easy targets to pick from: Wall Street; The Government; Over Spending Home Owners; Greedy CEOs; Oil Prices and the like. (Meredith, 2009)

Undoubtedly blamestorming has its origins in the workplace and particular management styles yet the concept has a relevance in wider society. Meredith’s linking of blamestorming and times of crisis seems apt. Yet the increased readiness to blamestorm and blame seems a particularly modern phenomenon. A review of the British press coverage of the urban unrest of August 2011 by PressEurop was headlined ‘Blamestorming Britain’3 and the overall tone of the press coverage reflected a readiness or even desire to allocate blame to specific individuals and organisations. This is in marked contrast to the attitude of the press following unrest in the St Paul’s area of Bristol in April 1980. Then The Times editorial published on Monday 7 April 1980 attempted to understand the weekend of disturbances and considered the effects of deprivation and unemployment and the nature of police–public relations:

But whatever the causes of it, and however blame for the causes of it is distributed, the fact of this high unemployment rate, which can only worsen in the months ahead, is a contributory factor in petty crime, dropping out, and resentment of authority – and authority means first and foremost the police. (p 9)

This shift in public attitudes is perhaps encapsulated by words, often misquoted, spoken by the then Prime Minister, John Major, in an interview given to the Mail on Sunday: ‘Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less’ (Mail on Sunday, 21 February 1993). The condemnation is expressed in blame. Increasingly, in all aspects of life there seems to be a desire, almost a need, to allocate blame when things appear to go wrong. We live in a society that is increasingly preoccupied with allocating blame. Scientific and technological developments appear to give humans increasing control over their own destiny. An important consequence of this appears to be that when things go wrong someone must be to blame. Stan Cohen refers to ‘a denaturalization of nature’ (Cohen, 2002, 38). Cohen argues that disasters and environmental problems are increasingly treated as social events:

These ‘technical’ disasters are ‘the new species of trouble’, in contrast to traditional ‘natural’ disasters. They have become ‘normal accidents’, catastrophes embedded within the familiar: the collapse of a football stand, a rail crash, a bridge falling, the sinking of a channel ferry, a botched cancer screening programme. The resultant reactions are not as homogenous, automatic or simple as they are supposed to be in contrast with the complexities of moral discourse. Indeed the reactions are similar to the highly contested terrain of a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the authors
• Preface
• One: Introduction and the centrality of blame
• Two: Blame in the criminal justice process
• Three: Blame and the blameless
• Four: Blameless crime
• Five: Blame amplification
• Six: Putting oneself in harm's way
• Seven: Blame, punitiveness and criminalisation
• Eight: Blamestorming and blamemongers
• Glossary
• References
• Case list