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What price justice?

Having read a colleague’s blog Is justice fair?, I turned my mind to recent media coverage regarding the prosecution rates for rape in England and Wales. Just as a reminder, the coverage concerned the fact that the number of prosecutions is at an all-time low with a fall of 932 or 30.75% with the number of convictions having fallen by 25%. This is coupled with a falling number of cases charged when compared with the year 2015/16. The Victims’ Commissioner Dame Vera Baird somewhat ironically, was incensed by these figures and urged the Crown Prosecution Service to change its policy immediately.
I’m always sceptical about the use of statistics, they are just simple facts, manipulated in some way or another to tell a story. Useful to the media and politicians alike they rarely give us an explanation of underlying causes and issues. Dame Vera places the blame squarely on the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and its policy of only pursuing cases that are likely to succeed in court. Now this is the ironic part, as a former Labour member of parliament, a minister and Solicitor General for England and Wales, she would have been party to and indeed helped formalise and set CPS policy and guidelines. The former Labour Government’s propensity to introduce targets and performance indicators for the public services knew no bounds. If its predecessors, the Conservatives were instrumental in introducing and promulgating these management ideals, the Labour government took them to greater heights. Why would we be surprised then that the CPS continue in such a vein? Of course, add in another dimension, that of drastic budget cuts to public services since 2010, the judicial system included, and the pursuit of rationalisation of cases looks even more understandable and if we are less emotional and more clinical about it, absolutely sensible.
My first crown court case involved the theft of a two-bar electric fire. A landlady reported that a previous tenant had, when he moved out, taken the fire with him. As a young probationary constable in 1983, I tracked down the culprit, arrested him and duly charged him with the offence of theft. Some months later I found myself giving evidence at crown court. As was his right at the time, the defendant had elected trial by jury. The judicial system has moved a long way since then. Trial by jury is no longer allowed for such minor offences and of course the police no longer have much say in who is prosecuted and who isn’t certainly when comes to crown court cases. Many of the provisions that were in place at the time protected the rights of defendants and many of these have been diminished, for the most part, in pursuit of the ‘evil three Es’; economy, effectiveness and efficiency. Whilst the rights of defendants have been diminished, so too somewhat unnoticed, have the rights of victims. The lack of prosecution of rape cases is not a phenomenon that stands alone. Other serious cases are also not pursued or dropped in the name of economy or efficiency or effectiveness. If all the cases were pursued, then the courts would grind to a halt such have been the financial cuts over the years. Justice is expensive whichever way you look at it.
My colleague is right in questioning the fairness of a system that seems to favour the powerful, but I would add to it. The pursuit of economy is indicative that the executive is not bothered about justice. To borrow my colleague’s analogy, they want to show that there is an ice cream but the fact that it is cheap, and nasty is irrelevant.
The never-changing face of justice
There are occasions that I consider more fundamental questions beyond criminology, such as the nature of justice. Usually whilst reading some new sentencing guidelines or new procedures but on occasions major events such as the fire at Grenfell and the ensuing calls from former residents for accountability and of course justice! There are good reasons why contemplating the nature of justice is so important in any society especially one that has recently embarked on a constitutional discussion following the Brexit referendum.
Justice is perhaps one of the most interesting concepts in criminology; both intangible and tangible at the same time. In every day discourses we talk about the Criminal Justice System as a very precise order of organisations recognising its systemic nature or as a clear journey of events acknowledging its procedural progression. Both usually are summed up on the question I pose to students; is justice a system or a process? Of course, those who have considered this question know only too well that justice is both at different times. As a system, justice provides all those elements that make it tangible to us; a great bureaucracy that serves the delivery of justice, a network of professions (many of which are staffed by our graduates) and a structure that (seemingly) provides us all with a firm sense of equity. As a process, we identify each stage of justice as an autonomous entity, unmolested by bias, thus ensuring that all citizens are judged on the same scales. After all, lady justice is blind but fair!
This is our justice system since 1066 when the Normans brought the system we recognise today and even when, despite uprisings and revolutions such as the one that led to the 1215 signing of the Magna Carta, many facets of the system have remained quite the same. An obvious deduction from this is that the nature of justice requires stability and precedent in order to function. Tradition seems to captivate people; we only need a short journey to the local magistrates’ court to see centuries old traditions unfold. I imagine that for any time traveler, the court is probably the safest place to be, as little will seem to them to be out of place.
So far, we have been talking about justice as a tangible entity as used by professionals daily. What about the other side of justice? The intangible concept on fairness, equal opportunity and impartiality? This part is rather contentious and problematic. This is the part that people call upon when they say justice for Grenfell, justice for Stephen Lawrence, justice for Hillsborough. The people do not simply want a mechanism nor a process, but they want the reassurance that justice is not a privilege but a cornerstone of civic life. The irony here; is that the call for justice, among the people who formed popular campaigns that either led or will lead to inquiries often expose the inadequacies, failings and injustices that exist(ed) in our archaic system.
These campaigns, have made obvious something incredibly important, that justice should not simply appear to be fair, but it must be fair and most importantly, has to learn and coincide with the times. So lady justice may be blind, but she may need to come down and converse with the people that she seeks to serve, because without them she will become a fata morgana,a vision that will not satisfy its ideals nor its implementation. Then justice becomes another word devoid of meaning and substance. Thirty years to wait for an justice is an incredibly long time and this is perhaps this may be the lesson we all need to carry forward.
A Problem with the Criminal Justice System?
Nahida is a BA Criminology graduate of 2017. Her dissertation, ‘On Degradation and Shaming’ explored the problems noted in this post.
Throughout studying for a Criminology degree, we are lectured upon the causation of crime, and how there is no, one single cause. However, it is interesting to see how the stereotypes that were once instilled inside us, are no longer a part of our daily voice of reason. We begin to question the very organisation, many of us want to become a part of; that being the criminal justice system itself. We come to realise, that the system, as most things is flawed.
It is public knowledge that the criminal justice system is full to the brim with defendants, offenders, victims and the innocent; amongst many other people. Therefore, as a result of these massive caseloads, the whole process from a crime being reported, to the guilty being sentenced, can become similar to a factory-line; making the procedure very impersonal. Justice can often be delayed and denied. This has a huge impact on all the parties involved; including the ones accused of a crime i.e. the defendants.
Throughout the whole process, defendants can often feel as though they are being discriminated against. It has been found that the criminal justice system, particularly the courtrooms create distance between society and the defendant. Courtrooms in England and Wales are set up in a manner in which the defendants are removed, and made to stand out of the ordinary. They are often placed in their own cage of sorts, and told to not speak, unless spoken to. This can leave defendants, who are potentially innocent, feel degraded and shamed. Courtrooms can often leave defendants without a voice, prohibiting them to feel, or even express remorse. Disallowing an offender to express remorse, can be detrimental to their rehabilitation; and even the victim’s lives. We, as a society, can have hope for criminal rehabilitation, but the way in which our justice system is set up, can hinder that very process.
Through observations made at the local crown court, it has been found that judges tend to not address the causation of the supposed crime. It is understood that people do not commit crime in a vacuum. Something has to lead them to it. Therefore, not allowing one to truly comprehend what has caused the alleged crime in the first place, can be argued as problematic, for the root issue cannot be solved, if it is not identified in the first place. This could be argued as one of the many reasons why there still remains to be a high reoffending rate. To stop reoffending, one must address the causation. However, it can be found that many parts of our criminal justice system does not perform such investigations. Therefore, how can we expect the system to achieve its aim of reducing crime, when it is potentially causing further criminality, without even intending to?