Criminal Conviction Rate in England - Essay Example

Criminal Conviction Rate in England Conviction rates in England and Wales were 90.6% in 1992-93, 90.2% in 1993-94, and 90.3% in 1994-951. In subsequent years, the Crown Prosecution Service was granted the power to withdraw cases and decline prosecution under certain outlined circumstances. The new prosecutorial power has contributed to the further reduction of the number of delayed trial cases. Moreover, over 85% of defendants usually plead guilty to lessor included offences, further ensuring the efficiency of the judicial system in England. Based on the aforesaid statistics showing a better than 90% conviction rate and 85% negotiated pleas, it would appear that the English judicial system delivers justice at an acceptably speedy rate and therefore has fewer number of detainees on remand awaiting trial for an inordinate number of years. However, the judicial process still takes considerable time and questions arising over the denial of the right to trial within a reasonable time remain relevant. Strong criticisms on how the British government handles terrorism-related cases have been expressed in more recent times. For instance, in 2004, the British House of Lords took exception to the way the government took inordinately long periods of time to deal with terrorism cases2. According to data released by the Ministry of Justice, there has been a general decline in the rate of convictions over the past decade. This is deducible from figure1, which is a graphical representation of the conviction rate in England and Wales for the decade between 2002 and 2012. Figure1: Convictions Rates in England and Wales from 2002 to 20123 Figure 1 demonstrates that convictions were low in 2002 but dramatically increased to peak in 2004. Nonetheless, from 2004 to 2012 the convictions continued to decrease with a slight increase between 2008 and 2009 during the global financial crisis, but nevertheless continued on a downward trajectory thereafter, reaching the bottom at roughly 1.2 million convictions in 2012. Table 1: Persons Entering the Criminal Justice System in 2011 and 20124 Based on the figures delineated in Table 1, it appears that there was a statistically significant decline in the number of persons coming into contact with the judicial system for the years 2011 and 2012. These figures include prosecuted cases and control for cases that were settled out-of-court. For 2011, 2.03 persons came into contact with the judicial system which is 8.4% higher than the numbers for the year 2012. These statistics were drawn-off the 13 % fall in out of court settlements from 444,441 persons to 386, 95756, as well as the 7.1 % downfall from 1,583,373 to 1,471, 304 in the defendants proceeding to court when comparing the figures for 2011 to 20127. For the year 2012, the courts convicted 1.23 million persons out of the 1.47 million taken to court. In comparison with the conviction rate for 2011, there has been a 6.8 % decline from 1.32 to 1.23 million convictions8. Table 2: Sentencing of Offenders9 For a 12 month period ending in September 2012, it is important to note that fines were the most common sentencing tool accounting for 66.5 percent of the convicted cases, which represents a 5.2% decrease over the year 2011. Subsequently, 12.5 % of those convicted in 2012 received community service sentence, which is a 8.8 percent decline from 2011 where only 3.6% of persons convicted were sentenced to community service. The aforementioned statics demonstrate that only 7.93 % of the convicted individuals were sentenced to immediate custody, which is a decline of 4.9 % when compared to 2011. Figure 2: Shows the ACSL from 2002 to 201210 However, despite the decline in the convictions rate the Average Custodial Sentence Length (ACSL) has increased by 0.6 months. A close analysis of the graphical representations in figure 1 reveal that the ACSL has continued to increase progressively with 12.4 months in 2002 to 14.9 months in 2012, representing a 20.2-percentage increase. This upsurge in the ACSL is attributable to mixing of the court cases with persons getting custodial sentences as well as an increase in the length of sentences of individuals convicted for indictable offences. Failed Hearings and Delayed Criminal Trials in England’s Court Rudimentary administrative errors are to blame for the augmenting number of failed cases in England and Wales. Cases continue delaying or at times even halted due to over-listing of hearing, unavailability of judges, and even equipment failure11. Table 3: Effectiveness of Magistrate Courts in England and Wales 2003-201312 Nevertheless, an analysis of the trials in the magistrate courts over the past decade reveals a systematic decline of ineffective trials from a peak of 29 percent in 2003 to 17 percent13, which culminates in an overall of 12 percent decline. However, despite such a significant decline in ineffectiveness of cases, the percentage of cracked trials continues to stagnate between 37 and 39 percent whereby it remained unchanged from 2010. Additionally, the last column of table 3 represents vacated or failed trials. A cursory glance will give the impression that the figure is oscillating. Figure 3: Graphical representation of the Vacated or Failed Cases It is important to note however that a graphical representation of the vacated hearings reveal the trend was rising from 2008 only to reach its peak in 2010. Since then, the number of failed cases has declined to bottom of 45,873 cases in 201214. The Financial Implication of Persons in Custodial Remand in England Custodial remands are commonly used for people on pre-trial charges. According to a 2009 research conducted by the Office for National Statistics, 55, 207 people were remanded in custody as they awaited trial, while 37,003 people were put on remand after conviction, waiting for their sentence. Thus a staggering 18,204 were denied their liberty while awaiting trial and were not subject to post-conviction remand. This emphasizes the significance of ensuring that defendants remanded in custody pending trial are brought to trial as quickly as possible. Even so, in reviewing the most recent data, published by the Ministry of Justice in January 2014, it reveals that there has been a significant increase of the number of persons in remand when compared to the previous year. Table 4: A breakdown of the Prison Population in the UK by December 201315 The total number of person in Remand by December 2013, were 11,256 out of the 84,163. Thus the persons in remand accounted for 13.74 of the prison population. Additionally, the number of prisoners in remand increased 6 percent from the figure in 2012. Subsequently it would denote that the government needed to increase their budget spending in 2013 to accommodate the increase in the number of remanded individuals. Table 5: Average no of days taken to complete a Criminal Trial in England and Wales 2010 to 201216 In carefully reviewing the averages, it appears that the mean number of days from the time of the offence to the completion of the case increased from 151 to 158 in the period between 2010 and 2012. This increase has some financial implications for the taxpayer who bears the burden of the expenses for prisoners. The average time that elapsed between custody and the commencement of the trial was reported as 12.3 weeks, which was an increase in waiting time from the 10.1 weeks average in 2001. There portal so indicated that the average cost of keeping a single young person in a Secure Training Centre hit £160,000 per annum by 1st April 2009 (excluding VAT). Another research conducted by the Prison Reform Trust in 200717indicated that remand prisoners took a massive 16% of the total population of prisoners in England. Of the remanded persons, over 40% were subsequently acquitted. Conclusion A review of official statistics discussed in this section indicate that there is an appearance of greater efficiency in the criminal justice system with a progressive decline in conviction rates. However, under closer scrutiny, official statistics demonstrate that the criminal justice system has become increasingly less efficient with the wait time for trials increasing at the expense of the accused person’s liberty and the taxpayers. Far too many persons await trial on remand who are subsequently acquitted, while the wait time between remand and trial has increased. In the meantime, taxpayers cover the cost of remand. Thus, the right to trial within a reasonable time is very important to both accused persons and in the public interest. Yet, it appears from the statistics cited herein, that attempts to relieve the court docket have only resulted in greater delay. Read More