Stage 2 in the penal revolution

startledcod

If, as would appear to be the case, Court facilities are stretched then one way to get more out of them it to sit through the night. The same dhould happen with the very expensive pieces of NHS equipment like MRI scanners - keep them working.

Do more for less, every little helps.

Chris lancashire

Why is trimming the bloated legal aid bill "politically difficult"? Could it be that so many members of the legal profession end up in the Commons or the Lords?
£2.1bn for overpriced lawyers is outrageous.

TrevorsDen

Problems everywhere in cutting spending. Pity it was overspent in the first place. It shows the problems of letting the spending genie out of the bottle.

perhaps the fairest thig would be to cut the programmes which got the spending we could not afford?
But if we did that then there really would be claims of spending cuts affecting the poorest.

The reality is that programmes which do not deserve to be cut are now catching the blame for past extravagance (and civil servants will of course promote the most unpalatable in order to actually put off the cuts).

What I hope for is not 'cuts' but better ways of doing things. Perhaps the Spectator could do something useful ...?

HJ

"The government's position is that prison doesn't work"

Is it? I thought that their position was that short sentences are rarely effective since they don't keep the offender away from the public for very long, not do they allow opportunity for reform.

So there are two possible routes - extend the severity of previously short custodial sentences (expensive and therefore not favoured) or pretty much do away with short sentences and find other ways of punishing and reforming (favoured because it is cheaper and possibly more effective).

This is very different from saying that prison doesn't work in the case of longer sentences.

And we should close courts - we have far more than we need because the court system is so inefficient. Trials could be much faster than they are.

Yosemite Sam

Incentives for an early guilty plea already apply. 33% at first opportunity to plead, 25% at later hearings, and 10% at the door of the court on trial day. Magistrates have the power to reduce these reductions, but must state reasons for so doing. As far as I can tell, the proposal before us today is for the maximum reduction to apply from a plea given in the police station on charge, rather than from first court appearance. Since the defendant will still have to come to court for sentence (unless the proposal is to give the police sentencing powers!), I can see little benefit. I know many of the magistrates courts that it is proposed to close. In my view, this is long overdue. A large number are not fit for purpose - to be frank some are almost slums. Many do not have the workload or variety of work to justify the cost of staffing, never mind the capital costs for altering buildings and the backlog maintenance needed. There is a sentimental attachment to 'local' courts, but we have to be honest and realistic. Whether we were in a period of financial stringency, or a period of plenty, these adjustments to the court stock would need to be made.

John Richardson

"The government will incentivise confession, awarding lags a 30 percent sentence reduction if they plead guilty at the first opportunity; 25 percent if they plead guilty after the trial date is set; and 10 percent at the door of court.

It is a good idea....."

We all now know what sort of society these 'values' and these 'initiatives' create.

What would indeed be a good idea is if journalists such as this, personally themselves, attained the fruits of such a 'progressive justice' system.

Would that not be a truly just outcome Mr Blackburn ?

And cheap too.

Dixon

Even the existing bias against either a plea of not guilty or election to jury trial is a presuppostion of guilty BEFORE proof of any such thing. These proposals simply throw yet more "justice" under the bus. Why not simply take the presuppositions of guilty-if-accused to their logical conclusion and abolish trials altogether. That would save a few quid too! After all, youve already declared that everyone accused of a crime is a "lag".

And while at it, just declare that any man accused of rape is guilty unless he can prove he is innocent. That would also boost the convictions in that hard to prove area of accusation the way Labour harpies were demanding as well.

John Richardson

"What a waste! Taxpayers foot the £190,000 bill for bridge over busy road... for DORMICE Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council decided to protect the dormice by erecting the three highwire walkways over the new Church Village bypass, but the Taxpayers Alliance branded the bill 'unjustifiably large'....."

The above is from today's 'Daily Mail'.

Yet, David Blackburn regards closing courts in this, the crime capital of the Western world, as legitimate.
Despite describing the savings made as above 'paltry'.

What truly twisted thinking.

Perhaps he regards not building the bridge would be 'Dormousist' or some other 'progressive' madness.

I only hope you get what you....oh wait...I already said that.

PayDirt

Sounds like a version of OFWAT, OFCOM etc is needed: OFLAW to regulate the amount legal types get remunerated. Being clever at arguing the toss is a very highly paid I understand, and not really valuable in many cases I would hazard. The CPS comes up in the news too frequently as disorganized and wastefully inefficient. Why, where's the balance?

Private Schultz

Glad to hear Legal Aid being reviewed. The news that those MPs who were so dodgy on their expenses that even the DPP took action were claiming Legal Aid made it clear how much a radical rethink is needed!

Might another area to be reviewed be the libel laws? There seems to be an increasing amount of court time taken up with various libel suits. There should be very strong incentives (eg punitive costs for the losing side) to encourage settlement out of court.

For example, much as I love Top Gear, the BBC's case against some publisher over the identity of the Stig seems to me like a total waste of public money and court time!

Privacy laws too perhaps - a lot of wasted time and money here too, on super-injunctions and the like. Perhaps do away with them, or make them more difficult to obtain, but at the same time, make mass doorstepping an offence too, to curb the ravening hoards of journos.

David Blackburn

John Richardson,

Not quite sure what you're on about. I wrote:

'It (shortening expensive legal proceedings) is a good idea, riven with difficulties.'

Essentially, the policy's aim is reasonable but it's execution is imperfect as a glance at the brief list of difficulties illustrates. Therefore, I'm against it and would prefer an examination of legal aid.

As to Clarke's court closures, £15m out of £1.1bn is a paltry saving, but every little helps as they say. You seem perturbed that these cuts may deepen Britain's crime wave, but courts, especially not inefficient or remote local courts, do not fight crime. £15m can now be spent to limit the impact of cuts on frontline policing.

Hope that's a little clearer for you.

denis cooper

Government closes courts, saves £15 million a year.

Those who need to attend court now have further to travel, costing them both time and money.

In some cases, they'll be able to recover all or part of their travel costs from the public purse, directly or indirectly.

I bet that wasn't taken into account when the £15 million a year saving was calculated.

For the others, they'll pay the increased costs of their travel to and from court - as far as the government is concerned, the costs have been "externalised".

Nobody can recover the extra time spent on travel, which at least in some cases could have been used more productively.

Then there are the small knock-on effects - on traffic congestion, road accidents, road wear, car wear, energy imports and carbon emissions (I don't care about the last, but the government does).

The budget deficit has to be drastically cut, but I'm afraid that small economies like this could turn out to be false economies in the longer term.

Tarka the Rotter

mmmmmmm well I don't think the reduction in magistrates' courts is something to celebrate - the Justice Secretary wants to replace many of them with appointed Distric Judges - magistrates drawn from the ordinary people seem preferable to another layer of well-paid legal eagles (leeches) under direct central govt control, but hey that's me!

John Richardson

'Hope that's clearer for you.'

No, it is not.
'Clarity' is not the issue.
I may write something later but I've finally started some work..........

Rabyrover

Why is trimming legal aid politically difficult? It would be better to label it as lawyer's aid, so we know who the true beneficiaries are.

Noa Zrk

"Today’s reports do not mention the legal aid budget - an obvious candidate for trimming but one that is politically difficult".

Why? It's a form of social benefit. Where crime pays for the lawyers and criminals at the expense of honest citizens.

So, let every citizen have the right to one criminal trial supported by legal aid. After that, they should pay for their own legal defence.

Successful criminals won't be affected, unsuccessful ones will naturally go out of business.

Oh and outsource prison services. Somalia seems a reasonable option.

IXION

The Criminal Legal Aid Budget is falling in real terms, and has declined in absolute terms as well, there has been no significent increase in a decade in the rates, and when you add the little business of 3000 odd new offences created under Labour, it is in fact the ONLY Public service that has being doing significantly more with less for the last decade.

Defence solicitors make so much money that virtually all the defence lawyers in the country now work from specialist firms because real lawyers (you know the ones that sue for personal injury, and do tax law etc); kicked them all out in the 90's because they could not make enough money to be in the partnerships.

I spend at least one day a month in a police station with some terrified young man, accused (after a night out), of some serious offence, and then go out and talk to, anxious parents.

Funny, I used to endure the "You lawyers bleeding the system" from friends.

Of course when it was their son in custody arrested on supected rape, they never mentioned it again.

Old Lawyer saying

"Nothing turns a red neck into a liberal quiker than being arrested".