Fuckwittery

Here's a hypothetical story for you to fly up your flag pole, and see which way the wind's blowing.

Let's say that if I were acting for a lifer convicted of murder about thirty years ago, and he was due to apply to the Parole Board for a transfer to an open prison to prepare for release into the community, you might expect a suitably qualified forensic psychologist to prepare an assessment on the nature of any risk of serious harm that he may pose to the public. Hypothetically the Parole Board might, strangely, agree with me and direct a psychologist to prepare an assessment. However, the hypothetical psychologist in this story does not think that a prisoner who has killed someone with a sawn off shot gun, and maimed another to be a priority. One would have to wonder about who the hypothetical psychologist would consider a priority - Peter Sutcliffe is in Broadmoor extracting pencils from his eyes, and Myra Hindley did us all a favour, eventually, and died.

For the sake of argument, lets say that we all go along to a Parole Board hearing, and a certain psychologist tells me before the hearing that it's not my place to demand a report, and I tell her to bring it on with her flat brown shoes and taupe cardigan before the Judge. Perhaps the Judge agrees with me (I know it's not professional to gloat but I did manage to do that ner ner na ner ner gesture to her without the Panel noticing). If this happened to be a real story would you expect that, after being chewed up and spat out by a Judge, and receiving a further deadline to complete a risk assessment, that a hypothetical psychologist might do her fucking job. Apparently not. Strangely the psychologist won't take my calls - was it something I said? So where does that leave me in this imaginary scenario. It's just this sort of fuckwittery that drives me to keep writing.