This paper sets out a plan for designing innovations that may improve outcomes for young adults in court, develop with support from the Barrow Cadbury Trust through their Transition to Adulthood Alliance. Our report explores the feasibility of establishing specialist court sittings for young adults.

Our report sets out a new blueprint, in which we resolve simple cases outside of court, refocus our resources on finding better ways for courts to handle to complex cases and safeguard vulnerable victims, and create a culture of innovation by modernising the way in which are courts are run.

London’s Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) is a strikingly successful example of courts innovating to deal with complex problems. This report examines the factors behind the court’s success – from the birth of the idea, to the end of the pilot.

Our report outlines evidence-based court innovations which can make our courts fairer and more effective.

Marion Oswald, the founder and director of the Centre for Information Rights, explores the impact of algorithmic outputs compared to human decisions. 

Our court system has its own sense of style, dark wood panelling, a golden crest, and the dock, its own set of rules, to bow or not bow, and even its own language, mitigation, adjournment and remand. For those who appear in court, the whole experience can feel not only intimidating but alien.

Manchester has led the way on problem solving courts in the UK for more than a decade. Projects like Stockport Problem-Solving Court and Manchester Women’s Court have been important examples of what can be achieved when court work in partnership with other agencies to find long-term solutions to offending. 

The research round-up reviews the newest research around court and criminal innovation to help practitioners stay up to date with the latest evidence about what works and why. Our second edition explores two new pieces of research: a study of how gender and mental health influences people’s perceptions of procedural fairness.

Earlier this year, the Centre for Justice Innovation and the Scottish Government brought together a group of practitioners from Scotland and Northern Ireland, to share their experiences of implementing problem-solving.

The research round-up collects the most interesting and useful insights on problem-solving courts to help practitioners and leaders keep up to date with the emerging evidence base. This first issue showcases two items: an analysis of all the evidence to date on how domestic violence courts impact re-offending.