Criminal Justice in Crisis

Everywhere we look the criminal justice system seems to be in a state of crisis or chaos and the situation could not have been better outlined than by former lord chancellor Charles Falconer with a forensic opinion piece in the Guardian recently:-

British justice is in flames. The MoJ’s fiddling is criminal

From prisons to probation and legal aid, the entire system is on the verge of collapse – and poor people bear the brunt. Act now, lord chancellor

No one who knows anything about the justice system doubts it is in crisis, that the crisis is unprecedented, that it is rendering the system unable to perform its most basic functions. And that the victims of this are poor people.

It is no longer reliably convicting only the guilty. The disclosure problems in serious sex cases have almost certainly resulted in innocent people being convicted. The system for releasing prisoners on parole is letting out those who are unsafe (John Worboys) and keeping inside those who are safe (see the relentlessly unfair incarceration under the IPP (indeterminate sentences for public protection) system. The prisons are as dangerous as they have ever been in modern times to prison officers and prisoners alike. The probation service has ceased to function in the face of a misconceived privatisation.

Legal aid has been so restricted as a result of the terrible reforms contained in Laspo – the Legal Aid and Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2011 – that the government has maintained massively flawed decision-making systems for welfare, homelessness, and immigration decisions, safe in the knowledge that most of those who are the victims of wrong rulings have no effective means of redress. The civil non-family courts are only open to rich people (there is in effect no legal aid for civil claims now); and the family courts are filled with local authorities seeking to remove children from their parents, and disputes between couples in the middle of the pain – to them and their children – of partnership breakdown, and unable to obtain legal help to resolve these disputes.

The cause of this crisis is pretty clear – the justice system has endured austerity cuts from 2011 onwards more punishing than any other domestic delivery department. And the cuts are continuing pretty well unabated for the next two years. There will, by 2020, have been a 40% reduction in real terms of public expenditure by the Ministry of Justice – £10bn down to £6bn, with £600m still to go. And all this on the basis that the system expects the same standards as before – the same level of justice, the same numbers of people in jail or more, and the same non-custodial alternatives. The government has offered no leadership on how this is to be achieved.

The consequences of the crisis are profound. As Lord Judge, the former lord chief justice said, juries will increasingly not convict in serious cases. The public will have no confidence in the ability of the justice system to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent, and between the dangerous and the safe. The government will not be held to the law. Rights given to individuals by parliament are worthless to all save rich people who rarely need them to avoid injustice. Employers, the state, debtors – they can increasingly break the law unchallenged.

Nothing meaningful is going on within government to address this. There are internal Ministry of Justice (MoJ) reviews of Laspo, and the working of the Parole Board; and an internal Crown Prosecution Service review of whether the disclosure in all recent sex cases was adequate: but absolutely nothing to address the evident collapse of almost all parts of the system, and the underlying reasons.

There is the much vaunted £1bn capital fund to transform justice by improving buildings and technology. The example the MoJ points to as the exemplar outcome of this fund is a new online court to deal with civil claims under £25k. If this example shows the MoJ’s priorities, it is clear it has no comprehension of the scale of the current collapse. Fiddling while Rome burns.

Some extra money was obtained, after much effort, from the Treasury to employ more prison officers to make up for a portion of those lost in the austerity cuts. This was well over a year ago, yet the prison service cannot fill all the places they have the money for. The retention rate for prison officers is plummeting both among long-service officers, and new ones who frequently leave quickly when they see the horror the job has become.

Leadership, extra resources and reform to ensure that the justice system is never again allowed to fall below minimum standards are the solution. The new lord chancellor is not to blame for the crisis. David Gauke has to acknowledge the existence of it, rather than suggest the system is functioning properly with a few wrinkles. He will find support across all parties and in all walks of life for doing so.

He needs to craft a plan that he can demonstrate has widespread support, not just from the lawyers but from those who depend on the justice system. He won’t get all that the system needs, but he won’t get anything unless he develops a series of solutions. He needs to work with a much wider group than just his department, and would find so much support if he embarked urgently on that process. Other government departments are actively campaigning for more resources for developed solutions. The MoJ’s failure to do so suggests either it does not understand the extent of the crisis, or is too defensive of its past errors to convey accurately within government the damage being done.

The three priority areas for extra spending and reform are prison and probation, legal aid and the Crown Prosecution Service (the ministerial responsibility of the attorney-general). That extra expenditure is inevitable. The sooner it is acknowledged the less will be required. As the Thatcher government discovered, the failure to do anything about appalling prison conditions until the 1990 Strangeways prison riots cost a lot more than if it had addressed the problem earlier.

But the solution is not just cash. It is also reform to provide long-term confidence that the system, which has so much less political support than health or education, should never be allowed to slip below minimum standards again. The Bach report, published last autumn, made the well-received recommendation that there should be an independent body within government to set minimum standards for justice. That would provide a strategic overview of expenditure, and protect those who need legal help with a degree of security that comes from there being insulation against legal expenditure always being the first to be cut in a crisis.

A collapsing legal system damages not just those who suffer immediate injustice. It leaves us all vulnerable to the consequences of living in a society, where the law is unreliable and only enforceable by the rich.

Charles Falconer is a former lord chancellor and justice secretary

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This from the Daily Telegraph:-

Judge takes swipe at “collapsing” justice system as CPS failures cause yet another sex trial to collapse

A judge has taken a swipe at the “collapsing” justice system as CPS failures cause yet another sex trial to collapse. Judge David Ticehurst was forced to halt a child sex assault case after the prosecution produced a number of documents the defence had not previously seen midway through the hearing.

His decision follows a number of high-profile rape cases in other parts of the country being dismissed because vital evidence had not been provided by the police or the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Judge Ticehurst had been sitting on the trial of Michael Doughty, 30, who was facing three counts of sexual assault against a girl aged under 13 at Taunton Crown Court in Somerset.

He dismissed the jury on Thursday and ordered a retrial, adding that if he was a newspaper reporter his headline would read: 

Yet another case collapses because the CPS fails to disclose documents." He said the problem could be attributed to budget cuts, adding: "It is abundantly clear the criminal justice system is creaking - it's collapsing. Members of the public will cease to have any confidence in the justice system. It's falling apart and this is one of the consequences. I'm not blaming the CPS or the police."

A number of other similar cases have led to thousands of current rape and serious sexual assault cases in England and Wales being reviewed to ensure evidence has been disclosed. Addressing the jury Judge Ticehurst said: 

"Documents were made available to the defence yesterday that hadn't been disclosed earlier. They might have had some impact on the trial and it would have been wrong to continue with the trial without the defence having seen the documents. I don't blame (prosecutor) Miss (Rachel) Drake or the officer in the case. There are not enough policemen around, not enough people in the CPS. Defence barristers are being paid less than they were 10 years ago and that's being reduced. The system is falling apart and this is one of the consequences."

His comments follow the trial of Liam Allan at Croydon Crown Court which was abandoned after it emerged police failed to pass on text messages from his accuser that proved his innocence.

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I can't quite believe this story, but it's in the Daily Mail so I guess it must be true:-

Britain's first 'private police force' has caught 400 criminals with a 100 per cent conviction rate after taking on cases regular officers are too busy to look at.

The country’s first ‘private police force’ is investigating hundreds of crimes that regular officers are too busy to look at. A firm led by former Scotland Yard senior officers has successfully prosecuted more than 400 criminals and is now carrying out murder inquiries. TM Eye, which has a 100 per cent conviction rate, is thought to bring more private prosecutions than any organisation besides the RSPCA.

The company, the country’s first de-facto private police force, is operating against a backdrop of rising crime rates and police budget cuts. Its activities include:

• A service called ‘My Local Bobby’ costing wealthy households up to £200 a month each for guards to patrol their streets;
• Three high-profile murder investigations that police have been unable to complete, including one case dogged by allegations of corruption and cover-up;
• Help in cases of rape, missing persons, burglary, theft, stalking and blackmail. 

Co-founder Tony Nash, an ex-Metropolitan Police commander, said: ‘This is going back to Dixon of Dock Green to a degree. It’s what people want. ‘There is no substitute for going out and knocking on doors. But with the current state of finances, police are solving cases behind their desks and that has become the culture.’

In the past two years the company has brought successful private prosecutions against 403 criminals for fraud, intellectual property theft and other offences. A total of 43 were jailed. The company, staffed by retired detectives and cyber-crime experts from Scotland Yard, the National Crime Agency and GCHQ, is now expanding its services beyond predominantly financial investigations.

It comes as police chiefs admit they do not have the money to investigate high- volume crimes such as shoplifting and stretched officers complain that they are at breaking point. But critics fear the rise of private policing could lead to a two-tier system where only the wealthy get protection from criminals.

Metropolitan Police Federation chairman Ken Marsh described the rise of private detectives as a ‘staggering indictment’ of the state of policing. ‘Eventually there will be a two-tier system with the haves and the have-nots, and if you have money and live in a £20million house in Chelsea you can pay for private security,’ he said. My concern would be, where is the public scrutiny if it goes wrong? If they are allowed to go and do police’s job for them, that is a dangerous status quo.’

Last week official police figures revealed the largest recorded annual increase in crime for more than a decade, with surging levels of violence, sex attacks, knife and gun offences across the country. But what was not recorded in the figures is the astonishing number of criminals being locked up – and in some instances even deported – through the work of private investigators.

TM Eye currently has 36 criminal cases pending at Crown and magistrates’ courts around the country and is working on a further 60 investigations in London, Cheshire, Dorset, Avon and Somerset and Essex. In the past six months, its 60 investigators have snared suspects wanted by police for attempted murder and rape. Recently a stalker was jailed for four years on the basis of its work.

Using covert surveillance and undercover operatives, the private firm has managed to smash a major counterfeit goods gang, securing convictions for 60 offenders in Manchester selling fake designer handbags and clothing. All of its convictions and suspects’ DNA and fingerprints are recorded on the Police National Computer. It does not charge for its investigative services, seeking instead to recoup costs from courts after offenders are convicted.

The firm has offices in London, Manchester, Essex and Mumbai in India, where investigators have helped to catch a major manufacturer of fake medicines. The firm launched its subscription service My Local Bobby last March and its staff now patrol some of London’s most expensive streets in Belgravia, Mayfair and Kensington. Individual uniformed ‘bobbies’ cover up to 250 houses, whose owners each pay a fee of £100 to £200 a month.

In return, clients get a ‘meet-and-greet’ service from their car or the Tube, and have a hotline to their bobby whose location they can track on their iPad. If there is a crime, the firm promises to have a local response officer on the scene within five minutes. Like police, the patrol teams have body cameras to record evidence. They can apprehend suspects using a citizen’s arrest. Mr Nash said his ambition is to get local authorities to outsource their patrols to the firm.

TM Eye also offers more traditional security work such as bodyguards for foreign dignitaries. The firm’s managing director David McKelvey, a retired Scotland Yard detective chief inspector, said: ‘We probably do more undercover work than any other law enforcement agency. We have a better surveillance capability and equipment than most forces.’

He added: ‘It’s about catching the bad guys and protecting the public, and we can help with that. ‘Police are on their knees, sick to the teeth with what is going on in their job. The bottom line is we have better uniforms, better pay and better support at work. It’s a huge growth industry.’

David Green, of the think-tank Civitas and a former adviser to the Government, said: ‘This seems a reflection of the fact that the police are overstretched, underfunded and unable to cope and this group has emerged to fill the gap.

‘There is nothing wrong with private security or private patrols. But if they take on some of the functions of the police and the call for this grows, there is a danger there is not the same safeguards that we have with the police. If the police do something wrong there is a clear disciplinary structure, a chain of accountability and independent scrutiny. If these private firms exercise police powers without public accountability, there could be dangers there.’

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Oh look. According to this Parliamentary Question, it costs the taxpayer £4.4million a year for supervising the non-compliance of that prison maintenance contract that Carillion and Amey had:-

Richard Burgon Shadow Lord Chancellor and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the staffing cost was for teams in his Department with responsibility for monitoring the delivery of contracts for prison maintenance by private sector companies in (a) 2015, (b) 2016 and (c) 2017.

Rory Stewart The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice

Staffing costs for the teams in the Department with responsibility for monitoring the delivery of contracts for prison maintenance by private sector companies is as follows:
2015: £2,491k
2016: £4,471k
2017: £4,438k

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Finally, I couldn't help but notice the Judge hearing the application for Judicial Review into black cab rapist Warboy's release demanded his appearance from HMP Wakefield "because he didn't trust the video link". According to the Justice Gap website :- "Worboys appeared in person at the High Court after judges experienced a faulty video link during a hearing the previous day. ‘How is it that I can call my brother in Brisbane over Skype, but we’re unable to contact a person in a prison in this country?’ said Sir Brian Leveson."