PSA President Nick Smart has commented on the publication of the Times Crime and Justice Commission report into the criminal justice system.
The full report can be accessed here.
"I was pleased to be able to contribute towards this review by giving evidence on behalf of the association.
"The report covers a huge range of critical areas for the criminal justice system and many of the challenges it explores are subjects we have been speaking out on for many years.
"The recommendations could indeed lead to positive change, but to see true reform in our current system, would require an overhaul and full redesign of the way in which each part of the system works together. Currently, the criminal justice system is broken, we have police, probation, the courts, prisons and many others all working incredibly hard, but with restricted budgets, rising demand and disjointed collaborations.
"Police are often the face of this broken system, picking up the pieces and facing the brunt of declining public confidence and workforce morale. There are ways this can change, which this report details, but reform will take far more.
"There is clear evidence within the report of the diluted police mission and the many hours of police time that is spent dealing with non-police demand. This has been evidenced many times before, in the accountability review, in the report of the Police Foundation, we have stressed it many, many times before. Yet there is still no national appetite for defining the police mission and making it clear what the public and the government want their police service to do. Currently, we try and do everything, with limited staff and limited time, so there should be no surprise that things can go wrong, and that the public can feel under-served. The government must decide and define what they want police to focus their limited resources on, and it is this on which we should be measured.
"We welcome the report and many of the recommendations it defines, yet perhaps the greatest recommendation required is to give policing and the criminal justice system the funding it so clearly needs. Austerity did not end for our sector. Chief constables are still making drastic cuts to their workforce, the service is operating with a shortfall of more than £1bn and the workforce is underpaid. Invest in the criminal justice system, design out the many flaws which are making it ineffective, and design change with the workforce that knows the reality of policing and justice today, and that so desperately wants it to succeed."
The full report can be accessed here.
"I was pleased to be able to contribute towards this review by giving evidence on behalf of the association.
"The report covers a huge range of critical areas for the criminal justice system and many of the challenges it explores are subjects we have been speaking out on for many years.
"The recommendations could indeed lead to positive change, but to see true reform in our current system, would require an overhaul and full redesign of the way in which each part of the system works together. Currently, the criminal justice system is broken, we have police, probation, the courts, prisons and many others all working incredibly hard, but with restricted budgets, rising demand and disjointed collaborations.
"Police are often the face of this broken system, picking up the pieces and facing the brunt of declining public confidence and workforce morale. There are ways this can change, which this report details, but reform will take far more.
"There is clear evidence within the report of the diluted police mission and the many hours of police time that is spent dealing with non-police demand. This has been evidenced many times before, in the accountability review, in the report of the Police Foundation, we have stressed it many, many times before. Yet there is still no national appetite for defining the police mission and making it clear what the public and the government want their police service to do. Currently, we try and do everything, with limited staff and limited time, so there should be no surprise that things can go wrong, and that the public can feel under-served. The government must decide and define what they want police to focus their limited resources on, and it is this on which we should be measured.
"We welcome the report and many of the recommendations it defines, yet perhaps the greatest recommendation required is to give policing and the criminal justice system the funding it so clearly needs. Austerity did not end for our sector. Chief constables are still making drastic cuts to their workforce, the service is operating with a shortfall of more than £1bn and the workforce is underpaid. Invest in the criminal justice system, design out the many flaws which are making it ineffective, and design change with the workforce that knows the reality of policing and justice today, and that so desperately wants it to succeed."