Phil Bowen
In their latest report on crime reduction, the Justice Select Committee asks the question,"Is court innovation in England and Wales a casualty of the cuts?" It is a question we have been asking for the last year in our work on Better Courts. It is undoubtedly the case that certain court innovations, most notably the North Liverpool Community Justice Centre, have closed at a time when the court service is having to work out how to manage a 30% cut in its funding over the spending round period.
It is also true that elements of effective court practice, such as the regular monitoring of offenders by a consistent bench of magistrates or district judge, have, in some courts, been seen as easy places to cut costs. As Richard Monkhouse, chairman of the Magistrates Association, says in the report, "“[Drug case reviews] are not used as much as they used to be. It is an efficiency problem. “Is this going to mean another hearing? Is this going to mean another sitting? Well, let’s not do it, because it is going to cost money.”"
And yet, as the report itself makes clear, there is actually much to be hopeful about, and much to fight for, in the cause of assisting and supporting innovation at court. Firstly, in our work across the country, in Scotland, Northern Ireland and England and Wales, we keep being impressed by the number of committed practitioners who strive to make the court a fairer and more effective place. Our forthcoming work on the Family Drug & Alcohol Court is a great example: committed individuals and organisations at the local level trying to make a difference.
Secondly, there is certainly something odd about a court service that, as the Justice Select Committee puts it, sees "courts as purely instrumental institutions involved solely in processing and resolving cases." The reason this position is strange is that it seems such a hollowed out conception of what courts can do to serve the public. In part, the reason for the argument we have been making for Better Courts over the past year is an argument to help the court service: to urge it to prove its value within the criminal justice system, justify spending on it within Government and to make it a more legitimate institution for the public. I have long been of the view that if the court service accepts a very narrow definition of its role, one that is purely about case processing, it can't be surprised that when it is squeezed into that role, its contribution to the justice system is seen as simply quicker processing for less. That vision of the courts leaves it with no clear argument about how it contributes to crime reduction and no public argument about why it can make a difference to the lives of victims, defendants and the communities it serves.
In our view, courts are more important than that. The Justice Select Committee agree. As they say, "there is much that can be achieved within the confines of the existing sentencing framework which need not require additional resources. We consider that the judiciary and HM Courts and Tribunals Service should see crime reduction as an intrinsic part of their role." I could not have put it better myself and, in our work on Better Courts, we aim to show that there is a body of practice that is out there, and is growing, to demonstrate it.