Whilst researching the Criminal Justice System I came across disturbing information about how crime is prosecuted in the United Kingdom and how unaccountable the whole process is.The Labour Government is determined to be seen as a party of Law and Order with increasingly stringent legislation having reached the statute books under the guise of security against terrorism. Blunkett and Clarke as Home Secretaries have overseen laws that increase the powers of the State and reduce the oversight placed upon it. The reliance on collecting statistics, performance data and ranking the results with new Police powers is leading to a situation that justice is now not being served.To investigate institutional corruption there is no method for an investigation to take place unless the State wishes it.If you complain about an officer or department in a Police Force you must complain to that particular Police Force, as no other area will start an investigation. For an independent force to start an investigation the Chief Constable must invite them in.The Police Reform Act 2002 enables the police to be free of any oversight of their activities. All police officers have to justify their activities to senior personnel, and in-depth internal statistics are kept to show how officers and departments are performing. If mistakes are made, it is kept ‘in-house’ so they are not recorded.The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has no statutory power to investigate the police except when a death has occurred. The Home Office is responsible for the IPCC’s budget. As senior Police officers are employed and Senior Crown Prosecution Staff are used as commissioners it is not in the IPCC’s interest to find any fault with way the Police conduct themselves except when blame can be laid on an individual officer.The Local Police Authority has no power to censure or investigate any Police matters. It consists of local worthies who are not going to query a police force for which they are theoretically responsible for, but can only rubberstamp the position of Chief Constable. The Police Authority is mainly responsible for the ‘Independent Police Station Visitors’ scheme and advising on budgetary matters and local concerns.In the Criminal Justice System, a series of initiatives have been set in place to assist in the administration of justice. The Local Criminal Justice Board (LCJB) is an organisation that enables the judges, police, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Police Authority and others to make the justice process more ”efficient”. At regular meetings it is discussed how to – increase convictions and conviction rates, decrease problems involved with poor evidence and poor investigations which lead to ‘cracked’ trials(cases which collapse because of errors by the prosecution)In the case of Legally Aided defendants, defence Solicitors and Barristers make more money if they convince the client to plead guilty, as they are paid the same whether a guilty or not guilty plea is made. If an accused person pleads guilty the work that the defence has to perform is reduced to a minimum, which allows more client fees to be collected. An innocent accused person is a burden on both the defence and prosecution. If a trial is halted due to problems involving evidence or witnesses, they are only paid a fraction of the fees due to them than if the case had been successfully tried. The client is instructed to trust the legal system and is discouraged from questioning any part of the process.In Northamptonshire the CPS have police ‘case-builders’ in the same office as CPS ‘case-builders’ to aid efficiency. The lowly paid case-builders have the responsibility to ensure that the case that is sent to defence and then to the courts is going to provide a conviction whatever the evidence indicates. A variety of standard techniques are used to provide a trouble free prosecution: -Police Statements-To ensure that statements are consistent the case-builder ensures that police officers are issued by email with copies of each others statements which they can then ‘copy and paste’. If they are not sufficient the case builder returns the statements with ‘suggestions’ on how they should be improved. It is considered good practice to flood the case with police statements even if the officer had
©Susanne Barron 2005nothing to do with the case. Signitures on statements are optional which means electronic statements cannot be verified as original.Record of Tape Interviews- are edited to provide only evidence that supports the prosecution and admissions of guilt are put in where none were made.Disclosure of Evidence- Only evidence which supports the prosecution is disclosed, anything else is denied and if disclosure is ordered by the court, it is declared ‘accidentally destroyed’ In the Northamptonshire courts the CPS regard The more disclosure of investigation documents the greater the chance that errors will be discovered, (Northamptonshire has a satisfactory disclosure rate of 25% of cases against a national average of 65% and the country’s highest conviction rate - 99%)Police Documents- If prior to trial there is not enough convincing evidence, Police officers are asked to provide additional documents.As with all government agencies the collection of statistics is one of the main (unstated) aims of the organisation. If a case ‘cracks’ at any stage an in-depth report must be completed which assigns blame. The micro-management of the system leads to culture that is rooted in providing convictions and not justice.The Police, Courts, and CPS and increasingly law offices have integrated computer systems which enables privileged information to be shared without any check on the reliability of what is disclosed between criminal justice professionals. Resident Judges are rated on how efficient the court is, not how well justice is served.This means it is in nobody’s interest that a fair trial takes place. The accused person, whatever their guilt or lack of it, is in the position that if there are problems with the case, all organisations best interests are served if that person is found guilty. Once the Police start an investigation about a person, irrespective of the crime, the officer has a duty to ensure a conviction takes place. If a police officer or a prosecutor makes a mistake the fact that the criminal justice system so smoothly glosses over the problems indicates a certain confidence on their part that they will not be challenged or stopped. The actions taken are inconsistent with following the rule of law taking precedence over group loyalty. The term “Innocent until Proven Guilty” is a concept that is merely window dressing on the multi-billion pound juggernaut that is the legal system in the United Kingdom. Nowhere on the literature produced by any members of the Criminal Justice System does it proclaim that they are seeking the truth or justice for the people.“Innocence” is not a tick box option in today’s integrated and efficient legal system