News Archive: 4
October 26,
2004:Previous Convictions Disclosed To Juries
October 22,
2004: New Crime Figures for England and Wales
October
22: Rise in Gun Crime
October 19, 2004: Targeting the 'Usual Suspects'?
October 15,
2004: Regional Offender Managers Are Here
October 14, 2004:
Towards A More Diverse Judiciary
October 13,
2004: Death in Police Custody: New Figures
October 13, 2004:
Probation Staff Raise Concerns
October 9,
2004: Minister Speaks to Probation Officers
October 26,
2004: Previous Convictions Disclosed To Juries
New measures giving juries the opportunity to hear a wider range of relevant
evidence in criminal trials were announced yesterday by
Home
Secretary David Blunkett. Two categories of offences – theft and child sex
offences – will be introduced. These two categories will help make a defendant’s
previous convictions admissible evidence in criminal trials, if the defendant
has a previous conviction that falls within the same category as the offence
with which he is charged. When a defendant being tried for either a theft or
child sex offence has a previous conviction for an offence which falls within
the same category, the strong presumption will be that the conviction is
revealed to the jury.
This paves the way for the implementation of more general bad character
provisions in the
Criminal Justice Act 2003. The bad character provisions of the Act are due
to be implemented in full by mid-December 2004. The provisions will apply to all
types of offences. They will enable juries to have much greater access to
information about a defendant’s previous convictions and other misconduct, where
such information is relevant and likely to throw new light on a case without
unduly prejudicing the fairness of the trial. This reverses the current position
in which evidence of a defendant’s bad character is generally inadmissible in
criminal proceedings.
The order containing categories of offences for theft and sex offences against a
person under 16 that has been laid in Parliament on October 25th and will be
subject to Affirmative Resolution after debate in both Houses. The government
argues that safeguards will exist to ensure fairness; a court will retain the
discretion to exclude evidence where it concludes the prejudicial effect on the
jury would be greater than its probative value.
According to Home Secretary David Blunkett:
"Trials should be a search for the truth
and juries should be trusted with all the relevant evidence available to help
them to reach proper and fair decisions. The law has recognised for over a
century that evidence of a defendant’s previous convictions and other
misconduct may be admitted in some circumstances. But the current rules are
confusing and difficult to apply, and can mean that evidence of previous
misconduct that seems clearly relevant is still excluded from court. The
categories I have introduced today… will give judges clear guidance in
applying the bad character provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 in
particular areas of offending."
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October 22,
2004: New Crime Figures for England and Wales
Crime in England and Wales has fallen 7 percent compared to last year, according
to British Crime Survey
(BCS) quarterly figures just published. Many argue the BCS is perhaps the most
authoritative and reliable indicator of crime trends. The risk of being a victim
of crime is the lowest since the BCS began in 1981. The BCS also shows that
violent crime fell by 6 percent and violence involving any injury dropped by 12
percent.
However, if we consider crime figures as recorded by the police, then crime has
fallen by 5 percent. Violent crime as recorded by the police increased by 11
percent. Much of this is said by the Home
Office to be due to increased reporting and recording of ‘low level’
thuggery, more willingness to report sex offences, and the effect of new sex
offence laws. Approximately half of all violent crimes did not involve injury to
the victim. The National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) was introduced formally
in all police forces in April 2002. The NCRS has led to increases in some of the
figures as police are now recording crimes that, although taking place, were not
previously recorded.
Other key figures include:
- Domestic burglary:
BCS fall of 2 percent (not statistically significant so stable)
Police recorded crime fall of 23 percent
- Robbery:
Police recorded crime fall of 15 per cent
- Vehicle crime:
BCS fall of 12 per cent
Police recorded crime fall of 18 per cent
- Violent Crime:
BCS fall of six per cent (not statistically significant so stable)
Police recorded crime increase of 11 per cent
- Victimisation rate:
The British Crime Survey shows the risk of being a victim of crime remains
historically low at 25 per cent – the lowest since the BCS started in 1981
A full copy of ‘Crime in England and Wales:
Quarterly update to June 2004’ can be downloaded
here.
According to Home Office Minister,
Hazel Blears:
"We are witnessing the longest sustained
fall in crime in living memory with people less likely to be a victim of crime
today than since the British Crime Survey started more than 20 years ago.
Volume crimes such as burglary, robbery and vehicle crime are continuing to
drop dramatically."
"Progress is also being made on tackling the type of violent crime that
remains a problem. We are getting a clearer picture, mainly due to
improvements in the way police record crimes, which mean low level thuggery,
anti social behaviour and alcohol-related crime which are included in the
violent crime figures are recorded more accurately…"
"The BCS figures show that worry about crime is going down, people are less
worried about burglary, vehicle crime and violent crime than they were last
year and fewer people think that anti-social behaviour is a problem in their
area. "
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October
22: Rise in Gun Crime
New Home Office figures indicate that
gun crime has risen
by 3 percent. The rise is part of a pattern which includes a 2 percent rise the
previous year.
However, the provisional figures, which
cover the year ending in June 2004, show a 15% drop in the number of
shooting-related deaths. Firearms-related deaths are comparatively rare. Last
year the number fell to 81 from 97 in the previous 12 months. The small rises in
gun crimes for the last two years compare with a 34% increase recorded in 2002.
The biggest rises were for offences that resulted in no injury, 28 per cent, and
for the use of imitation firearms. There was a 35 percent rise in crimes
involving imitation weapons.
According to the Home Office Statistical
Bulletin: Crime in
England and Wales 2003-04 which was published in July 2004, the number of
gun crime offences has risen each year since 1997-98, but the 2003-04 rise is
the smallest.
The figures show a decrease of seven
percent in the use of handguns from 2002-03.
Excluding air weapons, gun crime as a proportion of recorded crime has remained
static at 0.17 percent.There has been a 15 percent reduction in the number of
homicides involving firearms (from 81 deaths in 2002-03 to 68 in 2003-04). Eight
percent of homicides involved firearms in 2003-04, which is unchanged from the
previous year. The number of robberies involving firearms has decreased by 13
percent in 2003-04. Firearms were used in four percent of all robbery offences.
Imitation weapons were used in 21 percent of non-air weapon offences. The number
of offences involving imitation weapons was up 18 percent in 2003-04 compared to
the previous year. This is a smaller increase than the year before, which saw an
increase of 46 percent.
Gun crime remains concentrated largely in
three areas – around two-thirds of firearm offences occur in just three
metropolitan police forces: the Metropolitan Police, Greater Manchester and the
West Midlands.
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October 19, 2004:
Targeting the 'Usual Suspects'?
The government’s
crime reduction strategy
risks targeting the ‘usual suspects’ rather than those who cause the most harm
or pose the greatest risk, according to the inaugural discussion paper from the
London based criminal justice policy think-tank the Crime and Society
Foundation.
The paper, entitled ‘Crime, persistent
offenders and the justice gap’, points out that many of those who commit hidden
crimes such as domestic violence, sexual assaults, crimes against children and
white collar crime do not come to the attention of the authorities. This means
that the government’s strategy to target known offenders is likely to ignore
them. When the paper’s conclusions appeared in the “Observer”
prior to publication, it trailed his paper as the “most authoritative and
far-reaching analysis ever of official crime figures”. The paper also argues
that government spin on crime figures is misleading and counterproductive.
Government ministers assert that some
100,000 persistent offenders are responsible for half of all crime. A mere 5,000
prolific offenders are said
to commit nearly 10 percent of all crime. The discussion paper contends such
claims are ‘manifestly incorrect’ as they are based on information about those
convicted of crime, not those who commit it. Less than 3 percent of known crime
results in an offender’s successful prosecution. By focusing attention on known
offenders, the paper argues, ministers ‘risk marginalizing arguably more
important crime reduction priorities’.
The paper also criticises the use made by
the government of the authoritative
British Crime Survey (BCS).
Though a more accurate measure of some crime than statistics recorded by the
police, the BCS tells us little or nothing about a range of crimes, including
sexual assaults, crimes against children, and white collar crime. As a result
the use made of it by ministers as a basis for claims about crime as a whole
stretches credibility, the paper argues.
Among the papers conclusions are:
- What the paper labels as the
‘reassuring myth’ that a small number of individuals commit a large proportion
of all crime should be rethought.
- The government should consider
developing more comprehensive measures of crime in all its variety, as well as
a more nuanced understanding of the various causes and contexts of crime, to
aid policy and debate.
- Politicians and other opinion formers
should be much more honest about the limitations of the criminal justice
system in dealing with crime. Public confidence is not served, the paper
argues, by overselling the capacity of the criminal justice system to deal
with crime.
According to the discussion paper’s author
Richard Garside:
‘Pulling in the usual suspects is not the
same as targeting the most serious offenders, or those who cause the most
harm. Serious offences such as domestic violence, sexual assaults, offences
against children and white collar crime are not adequately measured by
official statistics. They are often never resolved, while many of those who
commit such offences are never held accountable for their actions.
‘Effective crime reduction policy should be based on a clear understanding of
the variety and diversity of crime. Government and opposition spinning on
crime figures neither aids democratic debate nor helps to inform effective
policy.’
The paper is downloadable in full
here.
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October 15,
2004: Regional Offender Managers Are Here
The Home Office has
confirmed that by 2006-2007, the ROMs will:
-
Hold the budgets for the
probation areas and prisons in their regions.
-
Commission services from
prisons and local probation boards and hold both prisons and probation areas
to account for their performance.
-
Improve performance by
developing 'contestability'
- allowing alternative service providers to compete for work so that regions
obtain the very best value for money in managing offenders.
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October 14, 2004:
Towards A More Diverse Judiciary
The
Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) has published a consultation
paper titled Increasing Diversity in the Judiciary. It focuses on judges and
tribunal members (but not Justices of the Peace) in England and Wales.
The paper examines what it frankly
acknowledges is the current lack of diversity in the judiciary, focusing on the
issues of gender, ethnic origin and disability. Currently, only 15.8 per cent of
judges are women, and just 3.4 per cent come from ethnic minority backgrounds.
The paper notes that women tend to leave the profession in higher proportions
than men before they might be expected to apply for judicial appointment. This
reduces the diversity of the pool from which judges will be appointed in future.
According to the DCA consultation paper:
- less than 25 per cent of the judiciary
overall are women
- less than 7 per cent are from minority
ethnic groups
- in the courts (as opposed to tribunals),
15.8 per cent of judges are women, and less than 4 per cent are from the
minority ethnic communities
- in the High Court and above, there are
only 14 women (8 per cent) and only one from a minority ethnic background (by
comparison, women comprise over 51 per cent of the population of England and
Wales, and minority ethnic population nearly 8 per cent)
- it is not known how many judges have
disabilities (numbers are believed to be small)
The questions posed by the consultation
paper are:
- How should the system be changed to
increase judicial diversity – what would be your top five priorities for
change?
- If you are a lawyer who has not applied
for judicial appointment, what has stopped you from doing so?
Significant changes are already planned for
the appointments process in advance of the proposed new Judicial Appointments
Commission. Those changes include the introduction of a single competence
framework for all judicial posts below the High Court "which will cover the
range of skills and behaviours expected of judicial office-holders.”
The Government has stated that it is
committed to increasing judicial diversity as a priority. According to
Constitutional Affairs Minister Lord
Falconer:
“The diversity of the nation should
increasingly be reflected in the diversity of its judges. We need to find out
why people from diverse backgrounds and people with disabilities are not
applying for judicial appointment in the numbers we might expect. This
consultation paper will clearly be of great interest to judges and lawyers and
legal academics … but I hope that people from a wide cross-section of society
will feel able to offer me their comments and suggestions.”
Should you wish to respond to Lord
Falconer’s invitation, responses are required by 21 January 2005. The full
consultation paper is available online
here.
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October 13,
2004: Death in Police Custody: New Figures
A new Home Office statistical
bulletin on Deaths During Or Following Police Contact provides information on
deaths that occurred during or following police contact between April 2003 and
March 2004.The full bulletin can be downloaded here.
There were 100 such deaths during this
period. This was a slight reduction on the previous year (2002/03) when 104 such
deaths occurred. The report provides a breakdown of the Individual Circumstances
of each death. The Home Office officially categorises such death in the
following way:
Category 1 – Fatal Road Traffic Incidents
Involving the Police
Category 2 – Fatal Shooting Incidents Involving the Police
Category 3 – Deaths in or Following Custody
Category 4 – Deaths during or following other types of contact with the police
Those who died as a result of self-harm
during or following contact with the police have also decreased – down from 13
in 2002/03 to 9 this year. Of these, 4 died whilst in police custody and the
remaining deaths occurred after some other form of police contact.
During 2003/04, the report notes, there has been a significant decrease in the
number of people from minority ethnic minority groups who died during or
following contact with the police. There were 10 such deaths this year compared
to 22 recorded in 2002/03.
The 2002/3 total of deaths from people in minority ethnic groups had raised the
issues that there may have an underlying reason linked to ethnicity. The Home
Office commissioned research and the Police Complaints Authority looked at all
minority ethnic deaths in police custody between 1998 and March 2003 to identify
any links or causes. While there were grounds for concern relating to some
aspects of the general treatment of all detainees, there appeared to be little
evidence to suggest that concerns were directly linked to racial stereotyping
and racist attitudes or behaviour.
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October 13, 2004:
Probation Staff Raise Concerns
Napo
general secretary Judy McKnight
in her speech to the Napo conference, voiced the concerns of Napo members about
the way in the
National
Offender Management Service (NOMS) has been introduced. She stated that:
“…the only business case that could be
produced for NOMS is one that says that by bringing the Prison and Probation
Services under a common umbrella, it provides a bigger market for the private
sector to come in and make profits from the delivery of criminal justice.”
Ms McKnight stated that Napo would work
jointly with the Prison Officers’ Association
and other criminal justice system unions “to fight any, and every, attempt to
privatise the delivery of justice.” Napo saw “no case, no rationale, to show
that NOMS will improve service delivery, reduce re-offending rates or contribute
towards reduced prison numbers” though Napo wanted to work with the Government
on measures that truly addressed those objectives.
Ultimately, Napo’s view was that “… no case
could possibly be made to establish a link between privatisation and improved
service delivery”.
Noting that NOMS chief Martin Narey has
sough to assure probation staff that contestability is not about privatisation,
and that contestability has also led to some contracts coming back in house, Ms
McKnight questioned the price of contestability:
"What price would we be expected to pay
in terms of professional standards? In terms of the quality of training? What
price is being paid already to the principles of diversity?"
While welcoming Mr Narey’s assurances on
diversity and his promised action to ban the far right British National Party in
NOMS, Ms McKnight noted that diversity as a commitment is not mentioned anywhere
in the Carter's report which led to the creation of NOMS.
Ms McKnight also noted that in private prisons wages are 25 percent lower than
those in their public sector counterpart.
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October 9,
2004: Minister Speaks to Probation Officers
Continued investment in the
Probation
Service should give rise to improvements in offender management, according
to Home Office Prisons and Probation Minister
Paul
Goggins. In a speech to probation union
NAPO’s conference, he described further investment in probation as
fundamental for ensuring effective supervision of offenders by the new
National
Offender Management Service (NOMS). New funding will bring the total number
of probation staff to 21,000 and continues year-on-year increases in staff
numbers.
According to Mr Goggins:
"This Government has invested heavily in
the Probation Service – this year spending some £300 million more than in
1997, and increasing staff numbers by over 5,000 in the same period. This
investment is set to continue with further recruitment of front line and
support staff. By 2006 the workforce will have increased by fifty per cent.
But I want to be unambiguous about our expectations for this new money. I want
to see a return on this investment, through a reduction of reoffending and
more effective management of the offender through prison and in the community.
The Probation Service has a vital role to play in this goal as a key part of a
single Offender Management Service."
However, Mr Goggins also noted that there
would be no retreat from current policies, including contestability (seen by
some as a euphemism for privatisation).
"… I want to be clear that we are
pressing ahead with reform, including further improvements in performance, the
introduction of contestability, closer work with prisons and more partnerships
with the private and voluntary sectors. This will be vital if we are to
successfully introduce the new sentences under the Criminal Justice Act."
"The ability to deliver high quality
offender management, in collaboration with others, has been powerfully evident
in the development of Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements. While still
relatively new, it is clear that the MAPPA represent a world-leading system
for the management and supervision of dangerous offenders, and protects the
public better than ever before. The ways of working that have been developed
under MAPPA provide a blueprint for close co-operation between the Probation
Service and other agencies, including the Prison Service and Police."
Mr Goggins' full speech to the NAPO
confernence can be downloaded
here.
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The following Crimlinks news archives are
available:
Crimlinks News Archive 15: January-February 2006
Crimlinks News Archive 14: December 2005
Crimlinks News Archive 13:
October-November 2005
Crimlinks News Archive 12:
August-September 2005
Crimlinks News Archive 11: June-July
2005
Crimlinks News Archive 10:
April-May 2005
Crimlinks News Archive 9: March
2005
Crimlinks News Archive 8:
February 2005
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January 2005
Crimlinks News Archive 6:
December 2004
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Crimlinks News Archive 4:
October 2004
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2: June-July 2004
Crimlinks News
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