HOW EFFECTIVE IS CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Chris Lewis, University of Portsmouth, UK.
Helsinki conference of the European Society of Criminology, August 2003.
Different countries have different ways of ensuring that their justice systems are effective. Some
have official inspectorates: some have national councils with an inspection function: others have
built in quality control and more perhaps have informal mechanisms: these exist in parallel with
audit functions to ensure value for money: and with mechanisms for ensuring human rights, such
as Ombudsmen and boards of visitors. There has been little discussion within the literature of the
value of such different mechanisms. The author suggests that such discussion is overdue and a
full study is needed of the value of informal mechanisms against formal inspectorate structure.
There are different ways of addressing the twin questions:


How effective is criminal justice?
Is criminal justice more effective in one country than in another?
2.
The traditional way is to look at the problem of measuring effectiveness and what output
measures to use. eg:
 Public confidence in criminal justice agencies
 Public confidence in other government agencies
 Public fear of crime
 Proportion of taxes/national expenditure going to justice agencies
 The crime rate
 The proportion of the population who are criminals
 The recidivism rate
 Number of cases of infringement of human rights by justice agencies
Each of these has its own problems of measurement and usefulness. Many of the papers in this
Helsinki conference deal with the problems of data collection or interpretation.
3.
This paper tries to start a discussion on another aspect of effectiveness. That is, what
machinery do countries have to ensure their criminal justice system is effective.
4.
Broadly, the following possibilities are suggested:
 Informal structures which rely on the democratic and electoral process, including the
growth of voluntary bodies whose role it is to draw attention to poor justice processes
 Build in effectiveness by ensuring the control of quality in justice matters is a
function for local managerial structures of justice agencies and local government.
 Rely on Extra-National Bodies to Monitor the situation
 Set up government funded inspection processes
There are probably other possibilities and various combinations of the above can also exist.
5.
Looking at each of these in turn:
Informal structures:
6.
The logic of these is that the public as a whole knows well whether the justice process
works. People will accept and cope with certain levels of crime and public surveillance but not
too much: they will expect the police and courts to be tough and turn a blind eye to some
practices which may infringe human rights. But only up to a certain limit. Their way of coping
with this is to turn the government out at the next election. The agencies of the public will be the
media and the voluntary organisations in the justice area.
7.
To some people this seems a very weak argument, although it has the benefit of not
costing the government very much.
 Even in well-governed countries, the general knowledge of the justice system is pretty
low.
 There are many countries where the justice agencies are effectively independent of the
political parties, so changing politicians will make little difference. This is the case in
England and Wales at the moment, where the Blair government has continued most of the
policies of the previous Tory government, with the prison population continuing to grow.
 In other countries, the likelihood of changing the government is minimal, because of
inbuilt continuity. This is case in African, where, for many countries, it is not sensible to
think of the electorate voting out a government for poor criminal justice policies.
8.
However, there is no doubt that many countries do have a more informal way of judging
effectiveness of their justice systems. There is a need for some codification of such processes,
followed by some evaluation of their benefits.
Embed effectiveness in local management and local government
9.
This is a growing part of the justice process in many developed countries. Local
management and the local government mayor or counsellors must have effectiveness as
part of their day-to-day work. Only then will value for money be assured. This point is
brought out in a recent paper by the author looking the case for merging current
structures for audit of offender programmes in the British Corrections systems. (Lewis,
2003.) Broadly speaking probation offender programmes are audited by the probation
inspectorate, giving an external judgement: whereas prison offender programmes are
audited by the group who implements them, thus embedding the quality control in the
local management, but not having any external independent voice.
10.
But there is also a need for local management to be accountable to a wider public. This
requires some wider inspection or audit process: or at least some form of publication of
the results of internal audit procedures.
Rely on Extra-National Bodies to Monitor the situation
11.
This would mean reliance on some organisation at a UN level or a UN regional level.
There are several examples of this:


The United Nations, for many years, has set standards and norms for many of the
areas of the justice system : eg against torture, conditions of corrections,
independence of judges.
In Africa, the African Commission for Human and People’s Rights has nominated a
Special Rapporteur on prisons and conditions of detention. He/she meets with the
authorities of the country, heads of prison services, human rights NGOs and
representatives of civil society: makes visits to prisons, makes on the spot

recommendations on most crying problems and produces reports to the government
of the country visited
The Council of Europe has, for many years played an important role in setting
standards for CJ agencies, and various consultants, for example Roy Walmsley from
England, have spent a good deal of time in the last few years, looking at correctional
institutions in many European countries and reporting back to their governments and
the CoE on their effectiveness.
Set up government funded inspection processes:
12.
Some countries have set up inspection processes. England and Wales have approached
the problem of effectiveness in this way, with an inspection authority in each of the justice areas:
HMIP, HMIC, HMIProb, HMICPS, HMIMCS. This reflects the need for a process in other social
areas: such as social services, education and health: and the recent growth of regulators in the
financial sector. However, these have the following characteristics:




12.
Variability of approach
Few measures of success of their inspection process
Not enough strength to follow up their reports to achieve change
High overhead costs of their activities
Few other countries have such Inspection bodies. In a recent UK study in Western
Australia, Sweden and the Netherlands were examples where the inspection process has
been used. However, there is no reason to doubt that the justice system is quite effective
in most developed countries, which poses the question as to how these other countries
ensure effectiveness if there is no external organisation to report on this.
The usefulness of Inspection systems
13.
Research in progress in Britain is looking at the value for money of the Inspection
process as it now stands. Early results show that the Inspection process for police,
probation, prisons and courts costs about 0.4% of the cost of the justice system as a
whole. This is much more than the cost of the Inspection process in other areas of
government regulation: eg. in regulation of the public utilities, which cost around 0.1% of
the industry turnover.
14.
It is difficult comparing costs in Britain with costs abroad, because the responsibilities of
foreign bodies are different from the British Inspectorates. But broadly speaking bodies
such as:



Western Australian prisons inspector
Swedish Ombudsman’s inspection functions
Dutch Council for the Application of penal sanctions (RSJ)
spend less than the British do, as a proportion of whole spend on the justice system, but not as
much less as the regulators in the British public utilities.
Conclusion
15.
Even in Britain, where inspectorates have a long history, there is debate about
whether having inspectorates is the best way to ensure effectiveness in criminal
justice. However, it is difficult to conduct a rational discussion, without more
evidence about how other countries achieve effectiveness. Inspectorates naturally
seek to justify their continued existence, and are sceptical about research which
purports to show they are not very effective, without there being any sensible
alternatives in the offing.
16.
What seems to be needed is an international discussion on what processes exit
throughout Europe to measure effectiveness. It is suggested that the European
Society of criminology could help, through its networks, in helping to conduct
such research, initially by finding out what processes exist in different countries,
and then going on to devise a methodology for comparison of different structures.
17.
However, it is recognised that this is likely to be a lengthy process. Such research
is part of the economic studies in criminal justice that do not, in general receive a
high profile in meetings like Helsinki.
Reference
Lewis C. G. Report on the Scoping Study of Audit Systems for Offender programmes, April
2003, Internal Home Office document, available from chris.lewis@port.ac.uk)