Seven lead-in statements on public confidence in the fairness of the Criminal Justice System: England and Wales
British Crime Survey respondents are given a set of seven statements covering common attitudes towards issues around 'fairness' in order to provoke consideration of these different aspects before asking the general question on confidence in the fairness of the CJS as a whole. These seven lead-in statements are not used to measure performance.
| 6 months to March 20081 | 12 months to September 2009 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unweighted Base | Aggregated percentage of | Unweighted Base | Aggregated percentage of | ||
| Question2 | Total | Strongly/Tend to agree |
Total | Strongly/Tend to agree |
|
| CJS gives witnesses and victims the support they need | 8,458 |
49 |
37,740 |
56* |
|
| CJS treats those who have been accused of a crime as 'innocent until proven guilty' | 9,137 |
78 |
40,665 |
78 |
|
| CJS takes into account the views of victims and witnesses | 8,936 |
69 |
39,563 |
71* |
|
| CJS takes into account the circumstances surrounding the crime when handing out sentences | 8,895 |
63 |
39,313 |
66* |
|
| CJS achieves the correct balance between the rights of the offender and the rights of the victim | 9,081 |
33 |
40,170 |
36* |
|
| Strongly/Tend to disagree |
Strongly/Tend to disagree |
||||
| CJS is too soft on those accused of committing a crime | 9,486 |
21 |
42,290 |
21 |
|
| CJS discriminates against particular groups or individuals | 8,500 |
64 |
38,032 |
65 |
|
| Very/Fairly confident |
Total | Very/Fairly confident |
|||
| Criminal Justice System as a whole is fair | 9,787 |
56 |
43,748 |
59* |
|
* Denotes a statistically significant change (at the 5 per cent significance level) from the PSA24 baseline.
1. Comparisons are made between estimates based on 12 months of data (October 2008 to September 2009) and on six months of data (October 2007 to March 2008). Six months to March 08 data are based on interviews with a representative half of the sample for this period. Previous questions on the CJS have not shown seasonality effects therefore it is not anticipated these comparisons will be influenced by this.
2. Analysis excludes don't know/refusal responses.