criminal justice

Official launch of the Report of the Commission on Women Offenders by Rt Hon Professor Dame Elish Angiolini QC DBE, Chair of the Commission on Women Offenders.

Paper that looks at features of the criminal justice systems in operation in the Netherlands and Germany and analyses changes in prison numbers in order to see whether any lessons might usefully be considered in England and Wales.

There is a particular focus on Germany and the Netherlands as these are countries which share certain similarities with the UK.

The Transition to Adulthood (T2A) Alliance is a broad coalition of organisations, that evidences and promotes ‘the need for a distinct and radically different approach to young adults in the criminal justice system; an approach that is proportionate to their maturity and responsive to their specific needs.

The T2A Pathway identifies ten points in the criminal justice process where a more rigorous and effective approach for young adults and young people in the transition to adulthood (16-24) can be delivered.

The Scottish Government’s Making Justice Work Programme represents the most significant set of reforms to courts for more than a century. A central objective of the programme is to improve the experience of victims and witnesses, and a commitment has been made to to bring forward a Victims and Witnesses Bill during this Parliament.

Report that begins by considering how the female prison population has increased, why this has happened and what the consequences have been. This is followed by a review of the way the Labour government sought to reduce the number of women going to prison and the very limited impact its policies had in practice.

The report concludes by considering what the current government has achieved during its first two years in office; and what changes might be needed if the number of women entering prison is really to fall.

Subject map which is one of six covering various aspects of the Scottish criminal justice system. It provides a brief description of the operation of the prison service in Scotland, including information on the current system of early release for prisoners.

The Hate Crimes Project will present new Scottish research on concepts of “hate” crime. It will also provide short summaries, discussion and artwork from multimedia projects.

The site is partially funded by a grant from the Royal Society of Edinburgh and at present it contains links and findings from research carried out, some with colleagues, funded by the RSE, the Clark Foundation and the Scottish Centre for Criminal Justice Research, all of whose support is gratefully acknowledged.

Lecture given by Professor Eric Miller, Saint Louis University Law School, USA at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland (March 2012)

In March 2010, Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland (CJI) published a report into the treatment of people with mental health problems in the criminal justice system, starting with the police, moving through the prosecution to the courts and ending up with prisons and probation.

The report – while noting some excellent practice – documented a range of deficiencies with current arrangements and highlighted the enormous challenges the treatment of people with mental health issues presented to the criminal justice agencies.