Overhauling a broken system: The Times Crime and Justice Commission Report
This is a blog by our Communications and Campaigns Manager, Keeva Baxter.
Last week, The Times newspaper’s Crime and Justice Commission released their ‘Report into the state of the criminal justice system’. The report is the culmination of a year of work, led by journalist Rachel Sylvester, alongside a group of Commissioners from “the worlds of policing, intelligence, the law, business, science, social policy and medicine”.
The group was set up last year to examine the future of prisons, policing and the courts, in light of the problems with the justice system that are “clear for all to see”. As the Editor, Tony Gallagher states, “The current approach to law and order is eroding public trust and is simply unaffordable.”
Speaking to over 500 people, and visiting a variety of points throughout the justice system, the Commission takes an intentionally broad approach. The report sets out its key recommendations across a range of areas, from violence against women and girls to sentencing and the courts.
What does the report cover?
The report covers a series of 11 categories pertinent to the justice system at the moment.
For each chapter, the report goes into detail about how the issue is manifesting in the UK, and how it needs to be addressed. The end result is a series of 68 recommendations across the 11 categories, that the Times believe should be undertaken for “the overhaul of a broken system”. The categories they cover in the report are as follows:
- Shoplifting, robbery and anti-social behaviour
- Knife crime and gangs
- Violence against women and girls
- Cybercrime and fraud
- Terrorism, radicalisation and online harms
- The role of technology
- The causes of crime
- Policing
- The courts
- Sentencing
- Prisons and probation
In the introductory letter from the Editor, Tony Gallagher, he emphasises three key points. “First, the criminal justice system must be seen as an interconnected whole rather than being broken into its constituent parts… Second, it is time to end the sloganising about law and order and follow the evidence about what works. The only way to be truly “tough on crime” is to reduce offending and reoffending… Third, technology has the power to transform the criminal justice system.”
Where does Restorative Justice come in?
Section 10 of the report covers ‘Sentencing’, with an emphasis on the prison overcrowding crisis. They highlight how a series of Home Secretaries have bent to the demand of the general public, calling for tougher sentences in the wake of high-profile cases, meaning sentence lengths have almost doubled since 1993. In addition, the use of community sentences has halved since 2012, leading to an over-reliance on custodial sentences and a booming prison population. Despite the Government’s early release scheme, prison places are set to run out by next Spring.
The segment then goes on to explore the role of Restorative Justice, through an interview with playwright James Graham.
‘The playwright James Graham described the power of restorative justice. In his play Punch, he tells the true story of Jacob Dunne who killed a stranger in a bar and went to prison. Then, by meeting his victims’ parents, he allowed them to confront him about what he had done and to move on. “It is a moral fable,” Graham said. “Restorative justice probably invokes, in the culture wars, all those classic tropes of being soft, woolly, easy, liberal, progressive, woke. What really surprised me is how rigid, robust, muscular and evidence-based it is. Having looked these individuals in the eyes, I can’t, on an emotional level, think of anything harder to do than the victim being given the opportunity to hear the offender’s story and the offender having the capacity to hear the harm that they caused and to take accountability and responsibility, and then turn their life around. I think that’s probably the hardest thing that anyone could ever do. It’s not soft. The evidence is there: around 85 per cent of victims and 80 per cent of offenders claim to have had a positive experience when it comes to restorative justice. For those offenders who did experience it, it reduces the reoffending rate by about a quarter. There needs to be a willingness from our political class and the wider criminal justice network to say, ‘These are really hard arguments to make, but we’re going to make them over a long period of time with passion and with detail, with humanity and with empathy.’” If the public can hear the human stories he thinks they will understand “the irrationality and the madness in a system that would rather spend more for a gesture than spend less to actually prevent and help something”.
An important part to highlight is Graham’s exclamation that “What really surprised me is how rigid, robust, muscular and evidence-based it is.” His point demonstrates the wide misconceptions around Restorative Justice that many of the general public hold, with people assuming it is an easy option. Our own research into perceptions of the process showed similar findings; that it is often seen as ‘pink and fluffy’, which can lead criminal justice professionals reluctant to make referrals. By portraying the reality of the restorative process on stage, James Graham and the cast and crew of Punch are helping to dispel these misconceptions.
Overall the recommendations made in Chapter 10 encompass a move away from custodial sentences and decision-making based on political demand or a desire to appear tough on crime. Instead, the recommendations suggest a restructured system that prioritises rehabilitation and reduction in reoffending, promotes sentences being served in the community and tackling the “cliff edge between prison and the community”.
Whilst it is unfortunate that Restorative Justice is not named explicitly as part of these recommendations for reform, we know it can play a crucial role in bringing these recommendations to life, should they be taken on by the Government. Also, the mention of Restorative Justice in Chapter 10 shows a desire to take a more restorative approach to justice, that focuses on creating safer communities and repairing harm, rather than the ‘short-termism’ of increasingly punitive sentencing.