Launching our new Defendants Strategy

From: Baljit Ubhey and Grace Ononiwu

At the CPS it’s our job to prosecute the right person for the right offence.

Of course, a big part of that involves prosecuting people – we bring hundreds of thousands of prosecutions every year. But an equally important part of our job is taking decisions not to prosecute or to prosecute for a different or lesser offence.

We make all our decisions by applying our two-stage legal test.

While the occasional case might be relatively straightforward, for the most part our job involves carefully weighing up evidence and taking difficult decisions which, we know will impact people's lives - often for years to come.

Our role in the criminal justice system

We know that explaining our role in the criminal justice system so that the public understand what we do is important. As an independent service we don’t act for any party in the case but rather we act for our communities, as a whole, by representing the interests of justice on behalf of the Crown.

What that means in practice is that – in contrast to a defence lawyer or a victims’ advocate – we come to each case as an outsider and in doing so we have to work harder to build people’s understanding of what we’re here for and to earn their trust.

We’ve been very vocal over the last few months about our commitment to victims – victims of rape and sexual crimes in particular but also victims of any crimes who feel let down by us, indifferent towards us or even just confused about our role.

Alongside this, as independent advocates we recognise that there are multiple narratives making up every story and two parties in every case. 

Suspects and defendants too, deserve to be treated fairly and with respect throughout the life of any case. Not only is it important for the individuals involved, but it’s essential to the interests of justice in a democratic society that every defendant has the opportunity to engage with and respond to allegations against them. 

That's why we’re proud today to launch our first ever Defendants Strategy which sets out our commitment to suspects and defendants and our vision of where we want our service to be by 2025.

At the heart of this strategy is fairness

It’s a clear articulation of the role we play in contributing to a fair and just system, which prosecutes wrongdoing while enabling those defendants with additional needs, or facing additional barriers, to participate fully in the criminal justice process. We are committed to working with partners to serve victims and witnesses and uphold the rights of defendants in a way that is fair and understood by all communities.

We are also launching our 2022/23 Action Plan which sets out the practical steps we will take towards achieving this over the next 12 months. Our action plan focuses on two key areas: mental health and youth justice. These areas have been the subject of recent inspections and reviews which highlighted the case for change or the need for vigilance. 

On mental health, the 2021 Criminal Justice Joint Inspection concluded that there was poor support for people with mental health conditions as they progress through the criminal justice system in England and Wales. This action plan sets out the steps we are taking to help identify when a suspect or defendant may have a mental health condition and to ensure they get the support they need. 

This includes adding a new flag on our casework systems to help us better monitor these cases, new checklists for police and prosecutors to help our teams make sure we’re always offering the right support and a new mental health stakeholders’ group to help us keep up to date with best practice.

The Serious Youth Crime review found that we could do more to ensure that all our youth casework is high quality. The review found that a more consistent approach to the use of youth offender specialists would have a positive impact on the quality of youth casework. Our action plan sets out how we will achieve this by improving the training, guidance and support we provide to our prosecutors. 

Alongside this we’re also making some overarching improvements to our service. This includes improving our support for litigants in person, reviewing our virtual hearings processes to ensure they take into account defendants’ needs and launching a new guide for suspects and defendants to explain our role and what they can expect from us at each stage of the process. 

This strategy will work alongside our wider CPS 2025 strategy and in particular our Inclusion and Community Engagement strategy which has a key focus on ensuring the way we work – from our recruitment processes to the way we make our decisions – is fair, respectful and inclusive of all the communities we serve. 

We know that issues of disproportionality in the criminal justice system have long been a concern for many communities. While the Lammy review found that the outcomes of CPS charging decisions were broadly proportionate, that review was already some time ago and there is no room for complacency. We’ve commissioned an independent academic review to examine whether there is any disproportionality in the outcomes of our decision making. We will share our findings once this work is complete and we’re committed to taking swift action where we find anything that we, or our partners, need to change or improve. 

Our Defendants Strategy is a first for the CPS, but it’s a firm step in the right direction and we look forward to working with partners across the criminal justice system as we deliver these commitments over the next 3 years.