Achievements
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Timeliness
Persistent Young Offenders
All criminal justice agencies have been charged with putting actions in place to reduce the amount of time it takes to deal with persistent young offenders from arrest to sentence. Performance for the quater August-October 2007 we had achieved 49 days against a target of 71 days.
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Ineffective Trials
A trial is deemed as being ineffective when it is unable to proceed on the day that it was scheduled to start and has to be re-listed for trial on another day. There are various reasons for this, but the main ones are the non-attendance of a prosecution or defence witness, the failure of the defendant to appear; or the parties not being ready to proceed with the case.
Magistrates Court: Excellent performance has been maintained since June 2007 where monthly performance has met the target and at the year ending December 2007 we had exceeded the 18% target with just a 10.7% ineffective trial rate.
Crown Court: Improved performance has been seen since September 2007 and we have achieved the local target, set at 12.5%, in November and December.
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Narrowing the Justice Gap
The justice gap - the difference between the number of crimes which is recorded and the number which results in their perpetrator being brought to justice - is the key measure of the effectiveness of the criminal justice system, and a crucial indicator of success in reducing crime.
An offence is said to have been brought to justice where an offender has been cautioned, convicted, issued with a penalty notice (in pilot areas) or had an offence taken into consideration by the court, for a crime that has been recorded by the police.
In Cheshire we are charged with increasing the number of offences brought to justice to reduce the Justice gap. The year from April to November 07 Cheshire had brought 15,615 offences to justice, which is on course for us reaching this year's target of 23,409 .
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Confidence
Our target is to improve the confidence that the public has in bringing offenders to justice to 45% by March 2008 (as measured by figures produced from the British Crime Survey). For the year ending September 2007 the number of people who feel they are confident or fairly confident that the CJS is effective in bringing offenders to justice rose to 49.1%
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Justice Awards
Two nominees gained success in the national justice awards 2007.
Ewan Easton of Thorn Cross Young Offenders Institute was a runner up in the Daily Mirror sponsored People's award and Brian Hughes of Cheshire Police was awarded the individual award for Commitment to Diversity.
Vale Royal Community Safety Partnership named Partnership of the Year in the Justice Awards 2006.The team works to ensure people with mental health problems are included in the community by empowering them to take responsibility for the impact of their behaviour on their communities.
The Partnership is made up of the Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service, Cheshire Police, the Probation Service, the Youth Offending Team, Vale Royal Borough Council, Cheshire County Council, Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service, the Primary Care Trust and Weaver Vale Housing Trust.
For further details on any of these winners please visit our Justice Awards section on the left hand side.