About

Putting practitioners and evidence at the heart of justice reform

Our vision

At the Centre for Justice Innovation, we seek to build a justice system which everyone believes is fair and effective.

We believe that the justice system should be focused on solving the issues that drive crime and social harm; that it should be and feel fair in how it treats people; that it should be proportionate in the things it does; and that it should empower people on the frontline to solve the problems their communities face.

To deliver our vision of a fairer and more effective justice system, we:

provide hands on support to practitioners in the justice system to help them develop and share innovative and effective practice;
conduct research into how things work right now and how they could work better;
promote evidence-based, innovative justice policy reforms;
share lessons between the jurisdictions of the United Kingdom, and others, especially via our sister organisation in the United States.

Our areas of focus

Out of court resolutions

To keep our communities safer, we work to improve the use and effectiveness of out of court resolutions. Out of court resolutions, including diversion and deferred prosecutions, are an evidencebased way of addressing lower harm criminal and anti-social behaviour, ensuring that people are given a proportionate intervention, and victims are given swifter justice. Better use of out of court resolutions can create better long term outcomes, especially for children and young people, those from minoritised communities, and for women who offend.

Family justice reform

We work to ensure that our family justice system works in the best interests of children and families and the communities they live in. For example, we support the spread of problem-solving in our family courts, helping practitioners implement evidence-led approaches which support parents to overcome the substance use, mental health and domestic abuse problems which lead to their children being at risk of serious harm.

Women in justice

Women make up a small proportion of our justice system but report higher needs related to mental health, substance use, debt, housing, and trauma, including domestic and sexual abuse. We work to implement gender-specific responses for women in the justice system, especially around violence against women and girls. This includes supporting practitioners to deliver gender-responsive interventions and victim services, trauma-informed practice and ensuring policy change recognises the distinct needs of women and girls.

Smarter sentencing

Utilising the best evidence-based practice from across the UK and further afield, we work to make our sentencing smarter—where crime is proportionately punished, where the harm caused by crime is repaired, where victims feel listened to and protected, where we tackle systemic racial disparities, and where people who have offended are given the chance to turn around their lives.

Expert voices

We work to promote the voices of people with a stake in our justice system, whether they are people with lived experience, victims and survivors, practitioners, researchers or policymakers. We want to encourage the sharing of ideas and good practice to realise our vision of a fair and effective justice system. By using our cross-jurisdictional networks in the UK, the Republic of Ireland and our unique relationships in the USA, we can compare and contrast innovative practice and evidence-based reform.

Court innovation

We work to encourage court innovation and policy reform that goes beyond the efficient processing of court cases and that instead seeks to solve the problems that bring people to court in the first place. We champion and support evidence-based specialist and problem-solving courts to test new approaches to difficult cases where social, human, and legal problems intersect, such as Intensive Supervision Courts and improved youth court operations.

Other work

The Centre for Justice innovation is proud to be incubating the Common Ground Justice Project, which aims to engage and listen to members of the public, finding common ground on which people can agree for a more thoughtful and effective justice system. The aim is to break through a polarised debate dominated by noisy extremes, illuminating a more thoughtful way forward that can bridge divides and deliver for victims and wider society.

Our support

Many of our projects are funded by charitable trusts. This enables us to provide free support, training and advice to practitioners in Youth Justice Services, Children’s Services, the judiciary, police forces, probation services and others.

If you want to explore whether we can help you, please contact us.

We are always looking to develop new programs of work, so if you are a funder please do drop us a line too.

The formal bit

The Centre for Justice Innovation is a registered charity (charity number 1151939) and a company limited by guarantee (company number is 08274430). The Centre was incorporated on 30th October 2012 and is governed in accordance with the Memorandum and Articles of Association (which can be accessed here). The structure, management and governance of the Centre is set out here.

Our most recent set of audited accounts can be accessed here.

While we were founded with support from our American sister organisation in 2011, the Centre for Justice Innovation has been a separate legal entity since October 2012 and there is no financial/funding relationship between the two organisations.

Keep updated

Contact our office by emailing info@justiceinnovation.org