Justice system in crisis as the number of defendants prosecuted falls by 25% and the proportion of defendants on remand at 5-year high

“The collapse in cases dealt with by the criminal justice system in the past year is a result of the government’s slow and incompetent response to the pandemic.

“The Government has failed to listen to Labour’s calls for a rapid extension in Nightingale Courts, reduced war time juries while pandemic restrictions are in place, and the immediate roll-out of testing in courts that would have allowed more justice to be done.

“A decade of failed Conservative ideology has wrecked the justice system, leaving it vulnerable even before the pandemic began. We now need to rebuild the justice system so that the UK can become the fairest country in the world.”

Ends

Note to editors:

The latest Criminal Justice Statistics quarterly, released today, is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/962357/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly-sept-2020.pdf

Its findings include:
· The number of defendants prosecuted at all courts fell by 25% in the latest year.
· The total number of individuals formally dealt with by the CJS in England and Wales fell by 22% when compared to the previous year.
· The proportion of defendants remanded in custody was at a 5-year high. In the latest year, 10% of defendants were remanded in custody by police prior to appearing at court, 5% were remanded in custody at magistrates’ court, and 41% at the Crown Court.
· The average custodial sentence length was the highest in the decade at 19 months.