Your Crime and Justice system – it’s changing for the better

Two months on from taking up his appointment as Crime and Justice Coordinator, Russ Weaver sets out where he is aiming to see improvements in the system. He knows from experience that people want an effective criminal justice system, but Police, council and  probation officers, crown prosecutors and magistrates very often feel as frustrated with the system as many victims and witnesses. So what is going to change?

We will listen more to what people want. In the New Year there will be a series of events, open to community crime fighters, neighbourhood watch coordinators and representatives from many other community groups, so that people can say what they want from the system, where it works well and where it doesn’t, so we can begin to make the improvements you want to see.

We will make criminals pay back for the crimes they have committed. Not everyone will or should go to prison and many offenders receive community sentences. In practice this will often mean they have to undertake many hours of hard, often dirty and unpleasant work fixing and repairing things for the community. They do not like it, but as a punishment, it is not there for them to enjoy. Increasingly members of the public will be able to say what projects they want to see offenders working on.

We will give you better information about what is happening in your area in jargon free plain English. New rules are coming into force which means we can tell people in much more detail, what happened to those who have gone to court for committing crimes and behaving in an antisocial manner in your local area.

You will get agreed and published standards of service from local services. The Policing Pledge commits those in charge of policing to publish their standards in relation to levels of policing, keeping local officers on their beats, responding to calls and access and contact arrangements for local people. All the criminal justice agencies will move towards published standards of service which people are entitled to receive as victims, witnesses or simply as ordinary citizens.

We will get better at dealing with Antisocial Behaviour. Police and Council officers are working more closely than ever before, working with housing officers, environmental protection teams, victim support and many others to deal with antisocial behaviour, whether it is criminal, nuisance, inconsiderate behaviour or blatant disregard for rules and regulations that spoil a neighbourhood. New plans are in the making to provide more help and support for victims and to deal with those whose antisocial behaviour needs to be curbed and punished.

We will work harder to prevent re-offending and give people the chance to have their say about how they feel as the victim by further developing alternatives to going through the court system when people want justice, but do not necessarily want to go to court. Restorative justice allows victims to tell people who have caused them inconvenience and harm just how it feels to be a victim. This is tough for the offender who has to face the victim and in doing so, they often make it the first and last time they will commit a crime. It is also very popular with victims, 93% of whom say they are completely satisfied with the way their case was dealt with.

The percentage of those cautioned who go on to offend again is actually much lower than for those who go through the formal court process. Court will always be the correct route for more serious offences of course, but for minor offences where a person fully admits what they have done, cautions are very effective at stopping any further offending. People will rarely get more than one caution and if they have offended in the past or they offend again after having been cautioned already, it almost certainly means they will go to court next time. Sometimes cautions are given on condition that an offender compensates the victim or complies with some other condition to make amends.

“If you have a problem, the criminal justice system needs to make sure you know who to talk to about it and how to contact them. People also have a right to a standard of service and they are entitled to know exactly what has been done about their problem and why. My job is to make the system work like that for people” Russ Weaver, Neighbourhood Crime & Justice Coordinator.

Follow the link to view the recent projects that the Community Payback Team have completed. Work Placements