The Tribune

By NOELLE NICOLLS

Tribune Features Editor

nnicolls@tribunemedia.net

Every man, woman and child has the “capacity for killing”, and in different ways “we all do it”, said Dr Michael Neville, consultant psychiatrist at Sandilands Rehabilitation, speaking to an audience at the Bahamas Crisis Centre’s Peace Conference.

Dr Neville said the society has to come to terms with its own “amazing propensity for violence” and look seriously at the notion of a perpetrator of crime.

“What does a perpetrator look like? A little devil sitting in a shop window? It would help if that were the case, but the perpetrator doesn’t look anything like that,” said Dr Neville, on the first day of the three-day conference.

“How many of us have killed before: with a word, with a stab in the back, with the nastiness to our children?” said Dr Neville.

In reality, “good people can do bad things”, and the tendency to believe, it could never be me, whether from the perspective of a victim or perpetrator is counterproductive, said Dr Neville.

He criticised the practice of making jokes about men being raped in prison, claiming that even anti-violence advocates, sometimes wish for sex offenders to get raped as retribution.

“If we can’t stop our young men from being raped in prisons then we are talking nonsense, we are not serious about human rights or people. Rape is rape. Rape is a violation. The vast majority of prisoners, one day, they will be released,” said Dr Neville.

While he said rapists tend to “have cognitive distortions”; deep belief systems developed from childhood that cause them to misread signals, or believe women find their abuse pleasurable, he said the disturbing reality is not limited to rapists. Dr Neville said the wider society “has the same cognitive distortions”.

When a young woman is reported raped on West Street at 2am, members of the public say, why was she there in the first place, and wearing those short clothes - she was looking to get raped. Dr Neville said, in reality, the woman could have been returning home from a late night shift at a hotel, and she may have been wearing a short dress as an unfortunate requirement of her employer. And yet, the inclination of some is to blame her for the rape.

To truly solve the problem of violence, Dr Neville said it is important for society to fully appreciate the ways in which it teaches violence, through corporal punishment and other means, and the way in which it perpetuates violence. He questioned the wisdom of expecting peace, while teaching violence.

• The Peace Conference continues until Friday at the Sheraton Nassau Beach Resort and Casino. For live reporting, follow the Tribune’s features editor @noelle_elleon on Twitter, and join the conversation.