Bringing More Offences to Justice
One of the Government's key Public Service Agreements seeks to improve the delivery of justice by increasing the number of crimes for which an offender is bought to justice to 1.25 million by 2007/08. To support delivery of the national target, each local criminal justice board (LCJB) has a target to increase the number of offences brought to justice.
An offence is said to have been brought to justice when a recorded crime results in an offender being convicted, cautioned, issued with a penalty notice for disorder or a cannabis warning, or having an offence taken into consideration.
A provisional estimate shows that 1,446,520 offences were brought to justice in England and Wales in the 12 months ending March 2008. This represents a 44% improvement on the 12 months ending March 2002.
Bringing more offences to justice requires improvement throughout the entire criminal justice system, and as such is a key performance measure. By bringing more offences to justice and delivering justice more effectively, we will help to provide satisfaction to victims and witnesses, and increase public confidence in the criminal justice system.