Speeches and Statements

Rebalancing the Criminal Justice System

Statement to the House of Commons by John Reid, then Home Secretary, on rebalancing the Criminal Justice System, on 20 July 2006.

Mr Speaker, yesterday I set out to the House our plans for transforming the Home Office. I said that I would return to the House with two further sets of proposals – the first to rebalance the Criminal Justice System and the second to reform the Immigration and Nationality Directorate.

With your permission I am today presenting to the House the results of my review of the Criminal Justice System entitled 'Re-balancing the Criminal Justice System in Favour of the Law-Abiding Majority (new window)', copies of which, of course, I have placed in the Library. 

As I made clear in my statement yesterday, we are not starting from year zero. My predecessors, in this House and in office, and colleagues across Government have made substantial improvements in all aspects of the criminal justice system. The result is that:

• crime is down 35% since 1997
• offences brought to justice are up by 27% to 1.27m since 2002
• there are, of course, more police officers on the streets than ever before; we have given local authorities tough powers to tackle anti-social behaviour in the battle to regain community space
• we have modernised legislation in areas such as asset recovery to ensure that organised criminals are hit where it hurts, in their pockets

However, it is clear to me that there are still major issues about the way in which the Criminal Justice System currently operates and - just as importantly - the way it is perceived to operate. Too often it appears that the CJS is on the side of the offender - protecting their interests and individual rights over those of the victim and the law-abiding majority.

That has to change.

The proposals set out today all have at their core the re-balancing of the criminal justice system in favour of the victim and the law-abiding majority. They are set out in detail in the published plan to which I have referred, but here I highlight a few, to illustrate our direction and our intent.

Firstly, we will put law-abiding people victims and their communities first.

When asked, only 36 per cent of people are confident that the criminal justice system meets the needs of victims, compared with 80 per cent believing it is fair to the accused.  We will take steps to redress this imbalance. Among other proposals:

• we will reform the Parole Board so that all new members have experience of victims issues
• we will ensure that in serious sexual and violent cases there is a Victims Voice and that decisions must be unanimous
• we also aim to make violent offenders pay towards the healthcare costs of their victims, just as they currently do for road traffic injuries and to reform the law to make it easier for victims to sue offenders who later get a windfall

We will act to prevent human rights - which are rightly held dearly by all of us in this House - being used by offenders to secure perverse outcomes which penalise victims and the law abiding majority.

The 1996 Chahal case found that the UK Government could not consider the protection of the public as a balancing factor when arguing the case for the deportation of a dangerous person. We believe that this goes against the fundamental principle in the Human Rights Act that individual and collective rights can and should be balanced against each other.  We are working, therefore, with our partners in Europe to challenge this as vigorously as possible.

But we will also ensure, by legislation if necessary, that public bodies give proper priority to public protection when considering the individual rights of offenders.

And to support criminal justice agencies to counter misrepresentation and misuse of the Human Rights Act, we will:

• ensure that criminal justice agencies' frontline staff get practical advice and guidance to dispel myths about the Human Rights Act
• introduce a new online legal hotline to help them do so

In addition, we will prevent criminals from abusing the law, by restricting the ability of the plainly guilty to be released on appeal due to procedural irregularities.

Mr Speaker, we also need a sentencing framework that gives the public confidence.

We have equipped the judiciary with new powers to allow them to detain serious offenders indefinitely for the protection of the public, and over 1000 have been used already. However, I want to do more to reassure the public.

So we will end the automatic one third discount given to those caught red-handed and who plead guilty, irrespective of their circumstances.

We will remove the automatic discount offered to those re-sentenced on appeal.

And further, we will end the requirement that judges should automatically halve the minimum term when setting the earliest release date for those serving unlimited sentences. The Lord Chancellor, the Attorney General and I will consult on options on how to achieve this.

Moreover, we must ensure that Offenders comply.

People's confidence in the criminal justice system is undermined when they see people deliberately flouting the rules.  So we intend to:

• speed up the recall to prison of those offenders who break the terms of their licence
• speed the return to court of people on Bail who fail to attend, by restricting the use of 'warrants with bail'
• implement a presumption against bail for those who abscond or offend while on bail

Another key area of focus in the Plan we publish today is on gripping offenders in order to better protect the public.

We now have 19,000 more prison places than in 1997 and there are around 7,000 more seriously violent offenders in prison behind bars. It is clear to me, and to many in the House, that there are people in our prisons who shouldn't be there, ranging from foreign nationals through to vulnerable women or those for whom mental health treatment, for example, would be more appropriate.

So I do not regard this to be about being tougher or softer. It is about being fairer and smarter and better protecting the public against the most serious offenders. As we make available additional capacity, we will ensure these new resources are focused on the serious, violent and prolific offenders who ought to be in prison. We will ensure that we have the places we need to protect the public.

We are presently embarking on 900 prison places by Autumn 2007.

We will expand prison places by an additional 8,000 to keep dangerous offenders in for longer.

To make more space in prison for a tougher approach towards the most serious crime we will:

• send more foreign nationals back to their own country to serve their sentences
• speed up the court processes which will mean that those not yet convicted spend less time on remand and
• make better use of tagging for people on bail for less serious offenders

We must also, I believe, do more to tackle the most prolific offenders, including drug users. The report details how we are overhauling our priority and prolific offenders and drug interventions programmes, with tougher conditions, tougher enforcement, and new follow-up assessments.

We will also clamp down on serious offending by measures including:

• increasing the maximum penalty for carrying a knife to four years
• and setting an ambitious new target for seizing the assets of criminals and increase the involvement of the private sector in asset seizure

Mr Speaker, for most people their world begins with what they see when they open their own front door, step into their own street and enter and move about their own communities. So sometimes what is considered low level offending and anti-social behaviour thus causes real harm, damage and fear.  So we must ensure that we tackle this ever more efficiently, so that the public feels increasingly safer. 

To do this I propose among other things to:

• add to our present range of ASBOs, by examining the provision of powers to close businesses that sell knives and spray cans to underage consumers, as part of a major review of summary powers, which we will publish later in the year and in addition;
• to introduce Parental Compensation Orders in ten areas from this summer to make sure parents take responsibility for the damage their children cause

And finally, Deputy Speaker, we also need to ensure that this is all underpinned by a simpler, swifter and fairer system to support our rebalancing aims.

My Rt Hon Friends the Lord Chancellor, Attorney General and I propose to work with practitioners across the CJS to:

• speed up Magistrates' Court and Crown Court processes and expand the use of conditional cautions issued by prosecutors without the need to go to court
• develop 'bulk processing' arrangements for simple non-contested cases such as TV licence non-payment; and
• use a variety of approaches to speed up justice through live television link pilots between police stations and the courts, next day justice and taking courts closer to local communities.

 Deputy Speaker, today's plan is a comprehensive package of measures. It builds on what we have done before and reflects this Government's ongoing commitment to public safety and the rights of the victim over the offender. I commend the Plan to the House.

View Rebalancing the criminal justice system in favour of the law-abiding majority (new window).