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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 12:14 am
Time: 12:14 am
Results for criminal justice reform (u.k.)
2 results foundAuthor: Lanning, Tess Title: Redesigning Justice: Reducing Crime Through Justice Reinvestment Summary: The Coalition government has initiated what it describes as a ‘rehabilitation revolution’, aimed at ‘breaking the cycle’ of offenders leaving prison, only to go back into the community and reoffend. ‘Justice reinvestment’ is one important way of achieving this goal of more effectively rehabilitating offenders. It is a process through which resources currently spent on incarcerating offenders in prison can be redirected into community-based alternatives that tackle the causes of crime at source. This report demonstrates how a process of justice reinvestment could be made to work in the context of England and Wales. The report comes in three parts: 1. The costs of prison Using the London Borough of Lewisham as a case study, chapter 1 examines who goes to prison, how effective it is and how much it costs the taxpayer, focusing on convicted adult offenders. We demonstrate both the cost of prison and, by implication, the sort of budgets that could be made available to local areas through justice reinvestment. We find that a total of 518 adult offenders were released into Lewisham over the course of 2009/10 having served less than 12 months. Using the figure of £45,000 a year, we calculate that their combined prison sentences cost the state £2.8 million in 2009/10, or an average of £5,386 per sentence. At odds, perhaps, with public perception, the majority of the crimes committed by these offenders were non-violent offences. It cost the taxpayer £2.5 million in 2009/10 to send non-violent and non-sexual offenders from Lewisham to prison for periods of less than a year. The funds that could be made available to local agencies to prevent reoffending through a process of justice reinvestment are therefore considerable. 2. Local alternatives to prison Chapter 2 explores how some of these offenders could be diverted from prison and managed locally in Lewisham. We describe reparative options in the borough and draw on wider evidence to explore effective alternatives to custody. We argue that the government should change the sentencing guidelines to enshrine a presumption against the use of short-term prison sentences, with community-based punishments used instead. We map existing rehabilitative services in Lewisham and examine their capacity to absorb more offenders. We find that local services are confident about their ability to manage offenders locally, but that widespread cuts to local agencies risk weakening the supportive infrastructure that effective rehabilitation requires. We argue that local alternatives are cheaper and more effective than custody, but that they must be properly resourced and better coordinated to deal effectively with offenders. 3. Making justice reinvestment work Chapter 3 outlines a commissioning structure to bring justice reinvestment into practice. Good local policymaking requires strong, democratically accountable local institutions to coordinate policy and practice on the ground. We argue that local authorities should be given a key role in the criminal justice system because they are best-placed to coordinate and manage correctional services in the community. Details: London: Institute for Public Policy Research, 2011. 37p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 2, 2011 at: http://www.ippr.org/images/media/files/publication/2011/07/redesigning-justice-reinvestment_July2011_7786.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.ippr.org/images/media/files/publication/2011/07/redesigning-justice-reinvestment_July2011_7786.pdf Shelf Number: 122248 Keywords: Alternatives to IncarcerationCosts of Criminal JusticeCriminal Justice Reform (U.K.)Rehabilitation |
Author: Muir, Rick Title: Everyday justice: Mobilising the power of victims, communities and public services to reduce crime Summary: This report argues for reforms to the way the criminal justice system deals with victims, communities and offenders, in order to repair the everyday relationships damaged by crime and social exclusion. Crime is both a cause and a consequence of a breakdown in relationships: a lack of positive family and wider social relationships very often lies behind offending behaviour, while crime itself damages relationships, harming victims and fostering fear and mistrust within communities. Yet our criminal justice system does very little to repair the relationships that are damaged by crime and social exclusion. The system is set up as a confrontation between the state and the accused, rather than providing for direct reparation between the victim and the offender; it also gives local communities very little role in achieving justice and tackling the causes of crime. Furthermore, rather than providing the kind of consistent relationships with professionals that would aid rehabilitation, the system passes offenders between a range of different agencies, with too many falling between the cracks. This report proposes means to tackle the everyday, high-volume but relatively low-harm offences that make up the vast majority of crimes by mobilising the collective power of all relevant actors and institutions to ensure reparation for harm done and rehabilitation for the offender. Its recommendations cover three areas. - Offering greater direct reparation from offenders to their victims, including a right to restorative justice, to improve victims' confidence in the system while helping to reduce reoffending by bringing home to the offender the damage they have caused. - Fostering greater community involvement in the justice system, particularly through neighbourhood justice panels, to secure greater public confidence in the courts. - Providing offenders with the kind of stable and consistent relationships with criminal justice professionals that the evidence tells us are likely to promote desistance from crime, by making the justice system more integrated, and placing all young adult offenders aged 18-21 under the responsibility of the successful local youth offending teams. Details: London: Institute for Public Policy Research, 2014. 46p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 19, 2015 at: http://www.ippr.org/assets/media/publications/pdf/Everyday-justice_Jul2014.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.ippr.org/assets/media/publications/pdf/Everyday-justice_Jul2014.pdf Shelf Number: 134980 Keywords: Community ParticipationCriminal Justice Reform (U.K.)Offender RehabilitationRestorative JusticeVictim-Offender Mediation |