Rehabilitation, Trust and Public Life Through the SSF Lens
The Six Stages Framework says movement is possible. But movement is not self-certified.
A news story I heard this morning arrived at a particularly relevant moment.
I had already begun developing an SSF reflection around the question Stages or States? The emerging argument was that the stages within the Six Stages Framework should not be treated as permanent identities. People, groups and systems may occupy different psychological states depending on context, emotion, leadership, social influence and the choices they make.
Then came a difficult real-world test of that proposition.
His past conduct included a sustained campaign of antisemitic harassment against the former MP Luciana Berger. The official sentencing remarks described it as a very serious offence involving a prolonged campaign of racist abuse.
Luciana Berger has taken a different position. She distinguishes between accepting that a person may contribute usefully to society after prison and deciding that the same person should be placed in elected public office.
This creates a question that reaches well beyond party politics:
If the Six Stages Framework says movement is possible, how do we determine whether movement has genuinely occurred?
The SSF says movement is possible—but movement must become visible through behaviour, responsibility, relationships and sustained action.
Two conclusions that are too simple
There are two tempting but inadequate responses.
The first is:
A person who has expressed extremist beliefs can never truly change.
The second is:
A person has served their sentence, says they have changed and must therefore be accepted as rehabilitated.
The SSF supports neither position automatically.
To say that movement is possible is not to say that every claim of movement must be believed.
But to insist that no movement is ever possible would turn the continuum into a permanent classification system. People would become fixed at the worst position they had ever occupied.
That would undermine one of the central purposes of the framework.
The SSF maps movement. It asks what contributes to downward movement towards dismissal, hostility, blame, entrenched prejudice and extremism—and what might make upward movement towards awareness, reflection, empathy, advocacy and transformational responsibility possible.
If movement towards harm can occur, movement away from it must also remain psychologically conceivable.
Otherwise, there is little purpose in intervention, education, rehabilitation or reflection.
The more difficult question is not whether movement is theoretically possible.
It is:
What evidence should count as movement?
The stages provide the map; states explain how positions are inhabited
The distinction between stages and states may help.
The stages remain the recognisable positions on the SSF continuum. They provide shared language for patterns of awareness, emotion, behaviour and responsibility.
States describe the psychological, emotional and relational conditions through which those positions are occupied.
Someone may enter a hostile state under perceived threat.
A group may move towards blaming and deflecting when a leader offers an outsider as the explanation for its difficulties.
A person may become more reflective after a relationship, experience or consequence disrupts a deeply held belief.
A system may use the language of inclusion while continuing to operate from a dismissive or avoidant state when pressure arrives.
These states are not necessarily brief or superficial. Some are repeated so often that they become habitual. Some are reinforced by ideology, relationships, institutions and social approval. Some become deeply entrenched.
Yet describing them as states protects an important possibility:
The position someone occupies does not have to become their permanent identity.
That possibility must not, however, become an excuse.
Movement is not self-certified
A person cannot establish movement simply by announcing it.
Nor is completion of a prison sentence, on its own, psychological evidence of change.
A sentence represents the legal consequence imposed for an offence. Rehabilitation concerns what has happened within the person and how that change is expressed through conduct, relationships and responsibility.
Genuine movement would therefore need to be considered through multiple forms of evidence.
Has the person acknowledged the nature and seriousness of the harm without minimising it?
Can they demonstrate understanding of the impact on those they targeted?
Do they accept responsibility without blaming youth, manipulation, other people or circumstances?
Has their behaviour changed consistently over time?
How do they respond when challenged?
Can they tolerate the anger, distrust or refusal of those they harmed without becoming defensive?
Do their actions demonstrate empathy and respect across different groups and contexts?
Is their reparative activity centred on those affected—or primarily on restoring their own reputation and opportunities?
The question is not whether someone can present a convincing account of transformation.
The question is whether transformation has become visible in how they live, relate, respond and exercise responsibility.
Movement may be genuine but incomplete
The SSF also cautions against treating people as though they occupy one identical position in every domain.
Someone may reject antisemitism while continuing to display hostile or objectifying attitudes towards women.
A person may demonstrate reflection in professional settings but return to blaming and deflecting when personally criticised.
A leader may advocate inclusion publicly while creating fear and silence within their own organisation.
Movement may therefore be uneven.
A person may move away from one form of extremist ideology without yet having developed the wider empathy, self-awareness and relational responsibility associated with the positive axis.
Renouncing a belief is significant.
But positive-axis movement requires more than the absence of an earlier ideology. It involves the development of curiosity, reflection, accountability, empathy, repair and responsibility.
Moving away from the negative axis and moving meaningfully onto the positive axis are related, but they are not necessarily the same process.
Rehabilitation, forgiveness, trust and public authority are different questions
Much of the public debate appears to combine four separate issues.
Rehabilitation
Has the person genuinely changed their beliefs and behaviour?
Forgiveness
Do those harmed choose to release resentment, rebuild a relationship or regard the matter as closed?
Trust
Is there sufficient evidence for other people or institutions to rely upon the person?
Public authority
Should the person be entrusted with an elected or representative role?
These questions do not produce the same answer automatically.
A person may be rehabilitated without being forgiven.
A victim may accept that change is possible while choosing never to engage with the person again.
An organisation may recognise a person’s rehabilitative work while concluding that a particular role requires a different threshold of public confidence.
Someone may make a useful contribution to counter-extremism without that contribution creating an entitlement to elected office.
This leads to an important SSF principle:
Movement does not create entitlement.
Change may open possibilities. It does not erase history, compel forgiveness, restore every relationship or guarantee access to every role.
Those harmed are not required to participate in someone else’s redemption
Discussions of rehabilitation can sometimes shift attention away from those who experienced the original harm.
The person who has changed becomes the centre of the story.
Their remorse, development and second chance become the primary concern.
Meanwhile, victims may find themselves being asked—directly or indirectly—to validate the transformation.
But the person harmed is not responsible for completing the other person’s redemption narrative.
They are not obliged to forgive.
They are not obliged to trust.
They are not obliged to meet, collaborate with or endorse the person.
They are not required to experience the person’s return to public life as evidence of social progress.
A genuinely accountable person should be able to say:
I believe I have changed, but those I harmed do not owe me forgiveness, trust, access or support.
The capacity to accept that some consequences may remain could itself be evidence of movement.
The joint statement from Jewish community leaders is particularly important here. It does not reject rehabilitation as a principle. It distinguishes belief in rehabilitation from agreement that rehabilitation should lead to this particular opportunity.
That is not necessarily a denial of human change.
It may instead be a judgement about trust, representation and the continuing impact on those harmed.
Public office introduces an additional responsibility
The question of public office is not simply whether a person should be permitted to rebuild their life.
Participation in society after punishment is a core part of rehabilitation.
But elected office involves representation, institutional legitimacy and public trust.
A councillor may deal with local services, but the role is still one of democratic authority. Local office is not devoid of moral or representative significance simply because it is not national office.
The relevant question therefore becomes:
Is there sufficient, independently examined and sustained evidence of change to justify placing this person in a position of public trust?
That is a different question from:
Has this person completed their sentence?
It is also different from:
Is this person legally permitted to stand?
Institutions have responsibilities too.
A political party making such a selection must do more than invoke the general value of second chances. It should be able to explain the evidence it considered, the scrutiny applied, the risks weighed and the threshold used to determine suitability.
Rehabilitation should not become a slogan that ends examination.
It should invite a more careful examination of what meaningful change looks like.
Has he moved onto the positive axis?
From the public information currently available, I do not think the SSF allows us to answer that question confidently.
There are reported indicators that may suggest movement away from former extremist positions: rejection of previous views, expressions of shame or contrition and involvement in work described as counter-extremism education.
Those indicators deserve fair consideration.
But public reporting alone does not provide a sufficiently complete psychological, relational or behavioural picture to locate someone confidently on the SSF continuum.
The SSF is not a remote diagnostic instrument. It should not be used to declare that a person has reached a particular stage on the basis of a media interview, political endorsement or personal claim.
A responsible conclusion would be:
Movement may have occurred, but the nature, depth, consistency and breadth of that movement require evidence.
That position preserves both openness and scrutiny.
Holding hope and accountability together
The difficult work of the SSF is often found between two extremes.
It asks us not to freeze people permanently at their worst point.
It also asks us not to mistake a claim of transformation for demonstrated change.
It allows us to believe that people can move from hatred, prejudice and extremism.
But it does not ask victims to forget.
It allows rehabilitation to be recognised.
But it does not treat rehabilitation as an automatic right to restored trust or public power.
It creates room for redemption.
But not redemption without accountability.
Perhaps this is the deeper challenge within the stages-and-states discussion.
If we believe that human beings can change, we must develop more careful ways of recognising change.
And if we believe in accountability, we must ensure that accountability does not become a permanent denial of human possibility.
The Six Stages Framework asks us to hold both truths:
Movement is possible.
And:
Movement must become visible in behaviour, responsibility, relationships and sustained action.
The past may not have to become a permanent identity.
But neither can it be erased simply because a different future is now being requested.
Reflection question
What evidence should society require before claimed personal change becomes restored public trust?
Explore more psychological reflections on current events through Through the SSF Lens.
New to the framework? Visit Start Here or explore more articles, podcasts and resources in SSF in Action.
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