Summary/Findings - A Plan to Reform the Criminal-Justice System

• Building upon the previous publications’ call for policing reform, this looks at the wider criminal justice system (CJS) and calls for widescale reform of the system overall. The CJS is the system from the police through to the Probation Service.
• In particular, the report notes the interdependencies of the different aspects of the system. For example, it discusses that although the increase in officer numbers may be seen as a positive, this may increase the number of cases appearing at court, which consequently impacts other organisations in the CJS.
• The report notes the importance of ‘swiftness and certainty’ to drive effectiveness in the CJS. These principles impact the deterrence of crime, with the report explaining that certainty (for example, the likelihood of being caught) is more important than severity (the “harshness” of the sentence).
• Again, this report is structured by identifying drivers of reform, resultant policy implications and recommendations.
• A small minority of offenders responsible for a large proportion of total crime: Data show that 9% of offenders are responsible for half of crime. Furthermore, the data show that more than 40% of “prolific offenders” already have seven convictions before they are sent to prison for the first time. The report suggests that this indicates local-level interventions are not early or thorough enough. In addition, the report cites studies which show many these offenders lack settled accommodation (40%) and 81% are involved in substance misuse. The case for reform for this area is summarised in Recommendation Area 1: The CJS should establish a distinctive and enhanced response to prolific offenders, with mandatory drug testing on arrest, diversion into treatment, multi-agency support and the use of electronic tags to enforce compliance.
• Too few offenders being charged – and those that are charged facing lengthy delays: The report provides the context of the system for charging offenders in England and Wales. In the past, lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) would be embedded in police stations, enabling the CPS to shape investigations from the beginning and efficient decision making. However, CPS faces its own resourcing issues, resulting in the service operating remotely from police stations, requiring the police to send CPS an electronic file for a charging decision to be made. This can result in months lapsing before this decision is made. Ultimately, this requires the police to release suspects who are under investigation, posing a risk to victims. The report notes that this can result in victim attrition, and frontline officers becoming unmotivated to progress the charging process for “more commonplace crimes” such as burglaries. This results in Recommendation Area 2: Streamlining the charging process, freeing up capacity to deal with the most serious and complex crimes.
• Victims losing confidence, meaning they withdraw from the process, allowing offenders to evade Justice: MoJ data show that victims who were “very satisfied” with police and in CPS has dropped from 42% to 32% since 2014. The report notes that the overarching priority of victims is timely and effective communication, with this being particularly focused on being updated about the progress of their case through engagement with a single point of contact. The experience of female victims of sexual offences is found to be “even worse”. This is found to be specifically with regards to “insensitive attitudes”, victim blaming and prolonged investigations. This is summarised in Recommendation Area 3: Improving the victim experience by using technology to create an end to-end service for victims, with a single case officer assigned from the moment a crime is recorded.
• Declining trial effectiveness and lengthy court backlogs leaving suspects and victims in limbo: The report presents three structural barriers to embedding the principles of swiftness and certainty into the CJS:
  1. Due process: Defendants in criminal trials have the right to a fair trial.
  2. Organisational: As the CJS in England and Wales is centralised, there is limited flexibility at a local level.
  3. Cultural: Although some specialist courts have been piloted in England and Wales, they remain small examples of isolated practice.
• These barriers to improvement in the efficiencies of the CJS are summarised in Recommendation Area 4: A new national timeliness target and greater use of technology to drive efficiency across the whole criminal-justice system and reduce long waiting times.
• Offender-management system that neither punishes nor rehabilitates offenders: As previously mentioned, many offenders who are delivered a prison sentence have often been through the court system before, with prison being viewed as the last remaining option. However, a fifth of those sentenced to prison have been convicted for theft offences, resulting in sentences of less than six months. This timeframe is viewed to be insufficient for treatment courses or to explore the factors driving offending. Simultaneously, community sentences are cited as “not command[ing] public confidence”. Therefore, the final area of reform is Recommendation Area 5: Tougher and more intensive community sentences and the use of next-generation tags as alternatives to custody to help manage overcrowded prisons.