"Without end-to-end reform the entire Criminal Justice System could collapse" says new report from the Tony Blair Institute

• The volume and complexity of demand facing the Criminal Justice System have increased over the past decade, with a 67 per cent rise in recorded crime since 2014 (from 4.17 million to 6.86 million offences). 

• Criminals are going unpunished and undeterred, victims are not receiving the justice they deserve and prisons continue to be overcrowded and unsafe.
• TBI has set out plans for end-to-end reform of the entire CJS from charging to sentencing, with victims at the heart of the process.

The Criminal Justice System (CJS) is locked in a ‘doom spiral’ with criminals going unpunished and undeterred, a court system being overwhelmed and a prison system at breaking point.

‘A Plan to Reform the Criminal Justice System’ by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) explains how government efforts to paper over the cracks in one part of the system have simply resulted in unsustainable pressure on others.

Report authors and criminal justice experts Harvey Redgrave and Madeline Rolfe have therefore set out plans for end-to-end reform of the entire CJS from charging to sentencing, with victims at the heart of the process.

The statistics on the CJS underline the scale of the problem:

• The volume and complexity of demand facing the CJS have increased over the past decade, with a 67 per cent rise in recorded crime since 2014 (from 4.17 million to 6.86 million offences).
• Over the past decade, there has been a collapse in the rate at which offences are charged, significantly reducing the certainty of detection.
• The average charge rate for all offences is now 5.7 per cent. For some offences, it is even lower, such as rape (2.1 per cent) and fraud (less than 1 per cent).
• The length of time between an offence being committed and a charge being brought has increased by 63 per cent since 2010.
• The latest population figures show that there are currently more than 86,500 people in prison, with an operational capacity of 87,710, leaving very little room for manoeuvre. To stay within capacity limits, the system already puts up with high levels of overcrowding. According to the Ministry of Justice’s own forecasts, that capacity will be materially breached within the next 2-3 years, meaning prisoners will either have to be let out early or placed in alternative accommodation.

The recommendations in the report fall into five broad categories:

1. An enhanced system response for managing prolific offenders, with mandatory drug testing on arrest, diversion into treatment, multi-agency support and the use of electronic tags to enforce compliance.
2. Streamlining the charging process, freeing up capacity to deal with the most serious and complex crimes
3. Improving the victim experience by using technology to create an end-to-end service for victims, with a national victim care hub and a single case officer assigned to each victim from the moment a crime is recorded
4. A new national timeliness target similar to A and E waiting time targets, and greater use of technology to drive efficiency across the whole criminal justice system and reduce long waiting times
5. Tougher and more intensive community sentences, and the use of next-generation tags such as alcohol and GPS ankle bracelets as alternatives to custody to help manage overcrowded prisons

TBI Home Affairs lead Harvey Redgrave said:

“The Criminal Justice System is locked in a doom spiral. Criminals are going unpunished and undeterred, victims are not receiving the justice they deserve and prisons continue to be overcrowded and unsafe.

“Focusing solely on one of these issues in isolation will just ramp up problems elsewhere. If the recent increase in police officer numbers leads to a rise in charge rates, then the courts will not be able to cope. And if the court backlog is reduced then prisons will not be able to accommodate the increase in prisoners. The system is under-resourced, but more importantly it is inefficient and disjointed.

“We need end-to-end reform of the entire CJS to tackle persistent offending, give victims the support they deserve and end the use of expensive and ineffective short custodial sentences.”

Further detail on proposals

Managing prolific offenders

Almost a tenth of offenders drive up to half of total crime, sometimes committing hundreds of offences before they are incarcerated. Such offenders ought to be treated as a distinct cohort, but the CJS focuses on the offence rather than the offender.

Traditional approaches to prosecution and sentencing also appear to have little impact in changing the behaviour of prolific offenders, some of whom are subject to multiple short prison sentences over the course of their lives.

Prolific offenders should be subject to mandatory drug testing on arrest. The courts should also be given licence to defer sentencing of prolific offenders for up to six months, provided that the offender agrees to undertake an extensive rehabilitation programme, subject to strict conditions, which if breached would lead to an immediate custodial sentence. This would be for prolific offenders who have committed acquisitive crimes, such as burglary, car theft, shoplifting.

The rehabilitation activity would be agreed by the judge and be tailored to the individual offender. All offenders participating in the scheme would be constantly monitored by GPS-enabled trackers.

Streamlining the charging process

The current system for charging offenders was designed for a different age – a time when the majority of crimes were committed locally and before the internet existed. Today, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is spread too thinly to manage the level of demand, particularly with the explosion in violent and sexual offences. Delays in charging suspects are blocking justice, as victims tire of long waits and decide to withdraw, while suspects walk free.

The Home Office and Ministry of Justice should work together on legislation to enable the police to charge more non-violent offences, such as theft and burglary, while suspects are still in custody. Charging decisions would continue to be governed by guidance agreed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, and the CPS would remain responsible for charging the most serious offences.

Putting victims at the heart of the system

For serious sexual offences, such as rape, research has found that investigators continue to put disproportionate effort into testing the credibility of the victim’s account, rather than focusing on the suspect’s offending history. At the same time, due to systemic failure and an absence of data different agencies of the CJS, including the police, CPS and probation service, are continuing to operate in the dark when it comes to understanding a suspect’s history of offending. This leads to patterns of repeat offending being missed and inappropriately lenient sentencing decisions by judges. In response to these findings, the Home Office has piloted a new model for investigation of rape – Operation Soteria - which is seeking to embed the principle of ‘suspect-focused investigations’ across all 43 police forces.

Operation Soteria should be expanded to include a wider range of offences against women and girls. In parallel, the Home Office and MoJ should work together on the establishment of an integrated intelligence hub to consolidate information about offender histories, currently stored on the police national computer, in a single digital location which is accessible to all parts of the CJS.

A key driver of victim unhappiness is feeling distanced from their own case, with victims receiving very few updates and limited specialist support throughout the criminal justice process. This is driving increasing numbers of victims to withdraw from the process altogether.

A national victim-care hub, similar to the model proposed by London’s Victims’ Commissioner should be rolled out to provide a single point of contact, timely updates on case progression, information and advice, referrals to specialist support and oversight to ensure that entitlements under the Victims’ Code are being delivered. To build the confidence of victims, we recommend that the hub is run independently by, perhaps, a third-sector provider.

A National A&E-Style Target to Speed up the Court Process

Timeliness is an undervalued resource in criminal justice where delays are not only tolerated but considered to be inevitable. This is bad for both defendants and victims, who are left in limbo. It also becomes self-reinforcing, with suspects incentivised by defence teams to plead not guilty in the hope that the victim will withdraw, causing the case to collapse.

The NHS four-hour waiting-time target is an example of a simple numerical target which had the effect of signalling a clear direction and galvanising effort around a priority policy area. This should be replicated in the CJS with the introduction of a single national target to speed up court timeliness and reduce the backlog of cases. A newly constituted national criminal-justice board should oversee annual progress.

Smarter Use of Technology to Clear the Backlog

Technology can drive greater efficiency, for example, through the use of remote hearings, which saves time for lawyers and judges. However, to date, the rollout of new technology by HM Courts and Tribunal Service has been poorly handled. In a Law Society survey, only 13 per cent of respondents agreed that the current technology was fit for purpose, with respondents reporting problems with the usability of tech, such as screens being too small, not being able to link to the right network, problems with sound and other glitches.^[3]

Government should appoint an expert advisory board to oversee the rollout of new technology across the courts. A key focus of the board should be the scope for greater use of remote hearings for procedural and administrative cases as well as ramping up the digitalisation of the CJS as a whole.

Smarter sentencing

There is a lack of confidence in existing community orders (COs), the use of which has more than halved since 2010. Despite being a more effective means of rehabilitating offenders than short prison sentences, such orders are perceived overwhelmingly as a soft option.

The MoJ should bring forward legislation to create a distinct new community sentence: a “work order”, which will be more intensive and rigorous than existing COs, taking up at least five full days a week and starting within a week of sentence, with GPS tags to enforce compliance. This will give policymakers the space to end the use of short custodial sentences, which are an expensive and inefficient way to punish offenders.