Blog

The country knows that its public services are falling apart. People know it because they have personally spent hours and hours waiting in A&E, or because they are among the millions and millions of people currently on NHS waiting lists. They know it because their children have been kept home from school because their classrooms were deemed unsafe.

It stands to reason that the criminal justice system is falling apart, too, but most people don’t see it. Everybody, or almost everybody, at some point uses schools and hospitals. Most people go a whole lifetime without setting foot in a courtroom or a prison, which unsurprisingly tempts governments to allow the criminal justice system to be the most neglected public service of all.

That trials for the very worst crimes, rape and violence, have been delayed because no judges are available to hear them is shocking, but arguably not surprising. News that a suspected terrorist was seemingly able to escape through the front gates of Wandsworth prison by strapping himself to a food truck (though he pleaded not guilty in court) also drew attention to the clear fact that one of the country’s best-known prisons is not fit for purpose.