LETTERS Is Blair serious?
Sir: Tony Blair, in his interview with Alas- dair Palmer ('No sex, no drugs, just rock 'n' roll', 8 January), identifies the conditions which make it more likely that a child will grow up into a criminal, 'deprivation, unemployment, bad education, the absence of any prospects'. How, one would like to know, does he know all this? I grew up in Weimar, where deprivation, unemployment, and absence of prospects were far worse than anyone here could imagine, but crime was very much less than here and now. A recent study in the United States showed that as unemployment goes up, crime rates fall. Politicians as usual pay no attention to facts — their minds are made up!
Is there no answer? About one hundred experiments have been carried out in the United States on methods for reducing recidivism in juvenile offenders, with a mean reduction of over 50 per cent, and a growing understanding of just what works, and what does not. Blair (and many other politicians!) talk about the problem, but do they know what is going on? Talk is easy, research difficult; perhaps politicians should keep quiet for a while and find out what has been discovered by psychologists actually working in the field. Political tirades and arguments are cheap. Why is there so little research along the lines men- tioned in this country? Problems are not settled by uninformed discussion, but by research. If Blair is serious, should he not advocate concentration of financial help for such research, which would more than pay for itself? If we can support the absurd extravaganzas of sending juvenile criminals up the Nile, but cannot finance research along lines known to be worthwhile, we are really in a bad way!
H. J. Eysenck
Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of London, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5
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