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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 11:16 pm
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Results for criminal justice systems (u.k.)
8 results foundAuthor: Great Britain. Ministry of Justice Title: Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation and Sentencing of Offenders Summary: The safety and security of the law-abiding citizen is a key priority of the Coalition Government. Everyone has a right to feel safe in their home and in their community. When that safety is threatened, those responsible should face a swift and effective response. We rely on the criminal justice system to deliver that response: punishing offenders, protecting the public and reducing reoffending. This Green Paper addresses all three of these priorities, setting out how an intelligent sentencing framework, coupled with more effective rehabilitation, will enable us to break the cycle of crime and prison which creates new victims every day. Despite a 50% increase in the budget for prisons and managing offenders in the last ten years almost half of all adult offenders released from custody reoffend within a year. It is also not acceptable that 75% of offenders sentenced to youth custody reoffend within a year. If we do not prevent and tackle offending by young people then the young offenders of today will become the prolific career criminals of tomorrow. Details: London: The Stationery Office, 2010. 92p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 13, 2010 at: http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm79/7972/7972.pdf Year: 2010 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm79/7972/7972.pdf Shelf Number: 120447 Keywords: Costs of Criminal JusticeCriminal Justice Systems (U.K.)PunishmentRecidivismRehabilitationSentencing |
Author: Great Britain. National Audit Office Title: Criminal Justice System Landscape Review Summary: Under the current constitution and structure of government, there can be no single 'owner' of the criminal justice system. The system is complex, responsibilities cross different departments and involve a wide range of delivery partners, and it involves a wide range of activities and objectives. This 'Landscape Review' is aimed at providing an overview of recent criminal justice performance and practice. Our findings are based on the evidence that we have collected in the course of recent value for money studies, and also on the wealth of documentary evidence in the public domain. Our aim is to inform the debate on future developments in the criminal justice system and especially on how the government can achieve better services for less expenditure. Details: London: National Audit Office, 2010. 27p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 15, 2010 at: http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/1011/criminal_justice_landscape_rev.aspx Year: 2010 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/1011/criminal_justice_landscape_rev.aspx Shelf Number: 120513 Keywords: Costs of Criminal JusticeCriminal Justice ExpendituresCriminal Justice Systems (U.K.) |
Author: Giangrande, Richard Title: The Lawful Society Summary: The sterile debate on crime and police numbers has obscured a major shift in the public's response to crime. Britons have become "passive bystanders", uninformed about crime and punishment and less likely to participate in maintaining justice than people in other countries. Lacking the real facts, the public has demanded "something is done", resulting in Robocop justice, ever more centralised and technocratic. This move has made Britain the most expensive country to police in the world and has rendered citizens incapable. When violence has increased as a proportion of all recorded crime from 8 per cent in 1997 to 20 per cent in 2008, it is unsurprising that these "passive bystanders" call for action. Without the federal systems or alternative bulwarks of local power other countries have, crime has been nationalised and politicised with the Home Secretary and sometimes the Prime Minister taking responsibility for every assault. The UK spends the largest amount on law and order as a proportion of total government spending, and as a percentage of GDP, of any other country in the OECD, overtaking the US in the last decade. The failings of Robocop have been recognised by the political parties who have all attempted to spell out a localist agenda. In practice though this approach is one of the "colouring book", with national politicians dictating parameters and targets for local action with only a small amount of autonomy allowed. Radical decentralisation has been consistently blocked by politicians and police keen to maintain their national power base. A new way forward is required to transform Britons from passive bystanders to active citizens. In order to do this there must be an information revolution with details on prosecution strategies, offenders and correctional programmes available to the public on a granular level, as well as a full extension of existing crime mapping programmes. There should be locally elected Justice Commissioners, who people can hold accountable for the maintenance of order and pay for through local taxes. This must be balanced by the establishment of a National Bureau of Investigation. Maintaining lawfulness should be seen as part of the duty of every citizen, whose role should be to hold agents accountable and participate in the justice process. These radical changes would unlock long overdue innovation. Local services could evolve, pooling the resources currently divided between prevention, prosecution, policing and correction. Local areas will experiment with different styles of policing and offender management. Local people will engage in a rich debate about the appropriate policies for their areas. Eventually criminal justice policy could be subsumed within a wider quality of life and wellbeing area. Details: London: Reform, 2008. 36p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 15, 2010 at: http://www.reform.co.uk/Research/CriminalJustice/CriminalJusticeArticles/tabid/113/smid/378/ArticleID/635/reftab/74/t/The%20lawful%20society/Default.aspx Year: 2008 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.reform.co.uk/Research/CriminalJustice/CriminalJusticeArticles/tabid/113/smid/378/ArticleID/635/reftab/74/t/The%20lawful%20society/Default.aspx Shelf Number: 120515 Keywords: Costs of Criminal JusticeCriminal Justice ReformCriminal Justice Systems (U.K.) |
Author: Silvestri, Arianna, ed. Title: Lessons for the Coalition: An End of Term Report on New Labour and Criminal Justice Summary: In a collection of essays by leading UK thinkers and commentators, the report Lessons for the Coalition, critiques the many innovations and the numerous failings on criminal justice during Labour's period in office. It also offers pointers to the coalition government of what not to do and on what needs changing. Professor Andrew Sanders of the University of Birmingham warns that one third of the prison population is likely to be serving indefinite prison sentences by 2012. His concerns are shared by the President of the Prison Governors Association Eoin McLennan-Murray, who describes Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection (1) as a `stain on our criminal justice system' that has left an `indelible scar on the prison service'. McLennan-Murray also critiques the original structure of Labour's National Offender Management Service (2) as `a dysfunctional duplicate of already large prison service headquarters' that has been `very successful at increasing the level of bureaucracy'. Professor Andrew Ashworth of the University of Oxford also expresses concern about Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection, describing them as `a policy-making disaster'. He calls on the coalition to undertake some `fundamental re-thinking' on sentencing. This should include a reassessment of the roles of the police, Crown Prosecution Service and magistrates' courts; a reaffirmation of the right to a fair trial; a re-examination of justifications for the UK's high imprisonment rate and a commitment to evidence-based policy. On the coalition's plans for a `rehabilitation revolution', David Faulkner, a former senior Home Office civil servant, argues that `no connection have been made between the "rehabilitation revolution" and the social conditions... which would enable it to take place, including the consequences which might follow from the government's programmes in other areas of social policy such as employment, housing and support for families'. Faulkner goes on to argue that `one of the test for the coalition government... will be the extent to which it can bring together the political vision of a "big society" and the professional and managerial wisdom that is needed to "make things work"'. Other contributions to Lessons for the coalition include: •Professor Rod Morgan, former chair of the Youth Justice Board, predicts that `cut-backs in "law and order" expenditure during the period 2011-2014 will almost certainly see a continuation of, possibly an increase in, the policy of imposing criminal sanctions out-of-court by the police and CPS'. •Dr Annette Ballinger of Keele University concludes that Labour's initiatives on violence against women were failures `leaving women exposed to unchallenged and unchecked male violence'. •On control orders (3) Professor Andrew Sanders argues that in most cases they have been used to disrupt `groups with only the most speculative and tangential relationship with terrorism'. •Professor Tim Hope of the University of Salford argues that Labour's `achievement with the crime trend has been less to do with its efforts and more to do with its skill in rigging the examination system'. •Professor Reece Walters of The Open University argues that `the so-called environmental successes under New Labour are already threatened by the proposals of the coalition... where environmental issues, such as green house gas emissions have been overshadowed by economic recovery and fiscal restraint'. Details: London: Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, 2011. 87p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 11, 2011 at: http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publication_download_form_1830.html Year: 2011 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publication_download_form_1830.html Shelf Number: 121296 Keywords: Criminal Justice PolicyCriminal Justice ReformCriminal Justice Systems (U.K.) |
Author: Baxter, David Title: Innovation in Justice: New Delivery Models and Better Outcomes Summary: Continued budgetary pressure and associated austerity measures are forcing a rethink of how justice services are delivered in the UK. Police forces, courts, probation trusts, prisons and community organisations must continually reduce their spending in the coming years. In this environment, innovation can and should play a major role in driving efficiency, meeting cost targets and developing new and better ways of delivering justice services. While these organisations are required to cut back, the social impact of austerity brings further challenges. New and quite different forms of criminal activity are emerging, from the riots this summer to developments in cyber-crime. Innovation has thus now become absolutely essential if organisations are to ‘square the circle’ and rise to the challenge of delivering more, lowering costs and ensuring criminal justice services can continue to protect the values and integrity of society. It is not enough to simply recognise that innovation is important, a number of hurdles must be overcome to implement new ideas in justice organisations. It is widely recognised that successful innovation in the public sector is difficult. However, the barriers to innovation are all the more acute in justice. Public protection by its nature obviously prefers to avoid taking risks that might lead to high profile failures endangering citizens and communities. Given its increasing importance, and appreciating the challenges and barriers, we undertook a major study to investigate the key success factors for effective innovation in criminal justice services. Twenty eight senior leaders were surveyed in diverse justice organisations across the UK, Netherlands and Czech Republic, and four detailed case studies of successful justice innovation were undertaken: Warwickshire Justice Centres, Restorative Justice in the Greater Manchester Police, Detention Centre Rotterdam and the Roma Mentoring Programme in the Czech Republic. Important insights from the research •Breakthrough improvements are possible by taking innovative approaches, in particular by engaging offenders, communities and the private sector in new forms of service delivery: new processes, new services and new business models. In the current climate, successful innovation will involve combinations of these three. •Although there are significant examples of innovation in the justice sector, it appears that innovation is not systemic, ie there are no innovation frameworks that exist from a justice perspective and as a result it is not visibly and deliberately managed. Innovation needs to become integral to service delivery. Policy makers and managers need to be more proactive in creating formal mechanisms for stimulating, managing and implementing ideas. There are significant lessons to be learned from the commercial sector’s approach to managing innovation but these ideas will need to be adapted to make them effective in the justice sector. •Acute barriers to innovation exist in the justice sector. Innovators have to contend with organisational silo structures, a reluctance to deviate from established performance targets and a general culture of risk aversion. These barriers call for an approach that challenges existing ways of working. •Effective leadership is important at all stages in the innovation process. At the early stages, senior managers must be seen to be open to new ideas and thinking, and demonstrate that new ideas will be considered. During development, leaders play a key role in defining how new ideas relate to existing performance measures and governance structures. During implementation, sponsorship and continued support of the project team is critical. The willingness of senior leaders to fight for local initiatives in a national setting also emerged as a key success factor. Wide Range of Successful Innovations The published literature does not reflect the true breadth of innovation currently taking place in justice. The authors have discovered a wide range of successful innovations and yet awareness of these across the sector seems limited. Innovators in the justice sector need to publicise initiatives more effectively and this includes clear articulation of the benefits achieved. Publicising success will allow other organisations to consider adopting similar initiatives. Central departments and policy makers should reward innovation that addresses local challenges in addition to the development and assessment of national targets. However, ‘bottom-up’ innovation is only part of the solution. The centre also needs to find a way to effectively promote and scale up innovation without being overly prescriptive. Funding mechanisms are an area for improvement because they can hinder innovation that works across traditional boundaries. It is recommended that the way justice services are funded should be reviewed, better value for money could be achieved by starting with locally relevant outcomes and allocating funding accordingly. In conclusion Innovation is now critically important in ensuring that criminal justice services can meet new and increasing demands, and protect the values and integrity of society. Successful innovation in criminal justice appears to be more about effective leadership and creating the right environment for new ideas to be developed and adopted, and less about the centre dictating ‘best practice’ and demanding adherence to performance metrics. The challenge is about maintaining the space for ideas to be developed, accepting and learning from failure and encouraging organisations to adopt new approaches. This can be achieved by developing an innovation strategy supported by systematic methods to identify, assess and implement new ideas. Details: Bedfordshire, UK: School of Management, Cranfield University, 2011. 44p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 6, 2012 at: http://www.steria.com/uk/fileadmin/assets/yourBusiness/homelandSecurity/files/Innovation_in_Justice.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.steria.com/uk/fileadmin/assets/yourBusiness/homelandSecurity/files/Innovation_in_Justice.pdf Shelf Number: 124882 Keywords: Costs of Criminal JusticeCriminal Justice ReformCriminal Justice Systems (U.K.) |
Author: Helyar-Cardwell, Vicki, ed. Title: Delivering Justice The Role of the Public, Private and Voluntary Sectors in Prisons and Probation Summary: The number of people in the criminal justice system has increased extraordinarily over the last two decades. The focus is often on rocketing prison numbers – quite rightly lambasted as one of the worst features of this extraordinary growth. But, so too have the numbers on community sentences increased over the last two decades; the probation service now manages some 230,000 offenders in the community. This huge increase in scope of the justice system come at a significant financial cost. For example, investment in prisons has increased by nearly 40% in real terms between 2003-04 and 2008-09, from £2.52bn to £3.98bn a year. Despite this, capacity has not been able to meet demand, and as a result the prison system is severely overcrowded. So too in the community, the challenge of high probation caseloads is well known. As well as questions about whether the size and scope of our criminal justice system, in particular the custodial estate, is necessary and appropriate, to which the answer is surely no, there is also debate about how the government intends to financially sustain the functions of the justice system whilst maintaining historic low crime rates, and what the respective roles of the private, public and voluntary sectors should be in delivering these functions. Private prisons were first introduced to the UK in the 1990s and represent part of the move from the 1980s onwards towards greater competition across a range of public services. The catalyst for prison privatisation was to address overcrowding, reduce costs and to some degree improve standards. The involvement of private companies in building, financing and operating custodial facilities has been endorsed and expanded by the former Conservative administration, New Labour and now the Coalition government. Despite being strongly against private prisons in their time in opposition in the 1990s, once elected, the Labour government, faced by a spiralling prison population, quickly announced that they would be allowing private companies to bid for the running of new prisons, and that existing private prisons would not be taken back into the public sector. A consensus had now been reached amongst the major parties in support of privately-run prisons. Despite this political consensus, there has been a consistent critique, including from academics (Teague, 2010), the penal reform lobby (Neilson, 2009) and sections of the media (Monbiot, 2009). Following this initial foray in the 1990s, the next major step towards privatization was the establishment of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) in 2004, with the intention of introducing ‘contestability’ throughout the prison and probation services. The review by Patrick Carter (2003), on which the structure of NOMS was based, argued for ‘greater use of competition from private and voluntary providers’ (p.5), and called for this to be extended to existing prisons. It was clear that Carter, and subsequently the Government, envisaged a much greater role for the private and voluntary sector in the criminal justice system, and that the introduction of NOMS was seen as a way of facilitating this. The second important development was the announcement in 2008 that a number of charities were bidding in partnership with private sector companies for prison contracts. While the voluntary sector has long worked in both public sector and privately-run prisons, delivering services to prisoners, this was seen as a significant change in the landscape. There are now charities and private companies running prisons and delivering large-scale payment-by-results contracts within prisons. Perhaps the most significant ‘step change’ has occurred over the last year or so. Although the majority of the UK prison estate is managed by the public sector, there are now currently 14 private or ‘contracted out’ prisons. Last year Birmingham was the first public sector prison transferred to private sector management, and the government is currently tendering out a further nine prisons. At the same time probation services are being radically reshaped. The majority of probation functions are being competed out, with advice to courts and the management of high risk individuals retained in public sector. Probation Trusts will inevitably merge to form fewer, larger entities and become commissioners of services at local level, although it is questionable how ‘local’ this will be. Clearly, cuts in public spending are a significant cause of the current quickening in the pace of the privatisation of the prison estate, based on the (contested) belief that privately-run prisons are cheaper than their public sector equivalents. As NOMS Business Plan 2012-2013 makes clear, the stated aim of government is to drive down prison place costs (MoJ, 2012). The Probation Service has undergone a 19% real terms budget cut since 2008-09, and this pressure on cost is set to continue. While the ongoing debate about competition is sometimes presented as peripheral to the overall future of criminal justice policy, it is in fact highly significant. The issue of who delivers criminal justice services is important, and must be informed by full and accurate analysis of the benefits of different approaches. This collection of essays is intended to be a contribution to this debate. Details: London: Criminal Justice Alliance, 2012. 61p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 16, 2012 at: http://www.criminaljusticealliance.org/delivering_justice.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.criminaljusticealliance.org/delivering_justice.pdf Shelf Number: 125314 Keywords: Criminal Justice Systems (U.K.)PrisonsPrivate PrisonsPrivatizationProbationVolunteers in Criminal Justice |
Author: Great Britain. Ministry of Justice Title: Swift and Sure Justice: The Government’s Plans for Reform of the Criminal Justice System Summary: This White Paper sets out the Government’s programme of reforms to the criminal justice system in England and Wales. It is in part a response to the commitment given by the Prime Minister to learn the lessons from the highly effective and rapid reaction of the criminal justice agencies to last summer’s disturbances. The Paper sets out reform programmes already in train across the criminal justice services to tackle delay and waste, increase accountability and transparency and improve public confidence. The public has a right to expect the justice system to be swift and sure: swift: so that the low-level, straightforward and uncontested cases, where a quick response is appropriate, are dealt with promptly and efficiently; and sure: so that the system can be relied upon to deliver punishment and redress fairly and in accordance with the law and public expectation. A criminal justice system which fails to command public confidence in this way has fallen at the first hurdle. Too often the public view the criminal justice system as complex and remote, with processes that seem obscure. Target chasing has replaced professional discretion and diverted practitioners’ focus from delivering the best outcomes using their skill and experience. The system is in need of modernisation, with old fashioned and outdated infrastructures and ways of working that suit the system rather than the public it serves. The wheels of justice grind too slowly. Too often the system tolerates unnecessary work and hearings which do not go ahead on time. This comes at a great cost to the taxpayer: over £20 billion each year. A large proportion of this is spent processing offenders, rather than on early, targeted interventions which help to prevent problems escalating. Many of those working in or around the criminal justice system will recognise these problems and there is a real appetite for improvement. The response to last year’s disturbances showed what was possible: a quick and flexible response, dispensing justice in some cases in a matter of hours and days, rather than weeks and months. In this White Paper we set out how we intend to reform criminal justice by: creating a swift and sure system of justice; and making it more transparent, accountable and responsive to local needs. In this way, we will transform criminal justice from an uncoordinated and fragmented system into a seamless and efficient service. Details: London: The Stationery Office Limited, 2012. 64p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 17, 2012 at: http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/publications/policy/moj/swift-and-sure-justice.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/publications/policy/moj/swift-and-sure-justice.pdf Shelf Number: 125650 Keywords: Criminal Justice ReformCriminal Justice Systems (U.K.) |
Author: Great Britain. Ministry of Justice Title: Transforming the CJS: A Strategy and Action Plan to Reform the Criminal Justice System Summary: There is much that we can be proud of in our criminal justice system (CJS). It is admired and emulated across the world. Its workforce is dedicated and highly skilled and has made a significant contribution to the Government’s deficit reduction programme by developing new and more efficient ways of operating, whilst at the same time delivering a 5% fall in crime in the last year alone. But there are also aspects of the CJS in which we can take rather less pride. It remains cumbersome, there are too many complex procedures and archaic working practices, its use of technology lags behind other public services, and it is still characterised by unacceptable delays, complexity which leads to blurred accountabilities, and huge amounts of time and effort unnecessarily going into straightforward cases. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary’s (HMIC) report Stop the Drift identified 70 rubbing points for a standard domestic burglary case where it was difficult to make progress because one agency or practitioner required information from another and at least seven occasions on which data had to be transferred. For victims and witnesses, despite some improvement in recent years, the CJS can be baffling and frustrating, and their experience all too often falls below the standards they might expect from a modern public service. This Government is committed to transforming criminal justice into a modern public service that provides a swift, determined response to crime, treats victims and witnesses with the care and consideration they deserve, and provides much better value for money to the taxpayer. Details: London: Ministry of Justice, 2013. 51p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 3, 2013 at: http://www.crimeline.info/uploads/docs/digital2013.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.crimeline.info/uploads/docs/digital2013.pdf Shelf Number: 129251 Keywords: Criminal Justice ReformCriminal Justice Systems (U.K.) |