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During this essay I will be exploring three different challenges faced by the modern criminal justice system within England in Wales; the first of which is the complexity of the new approaches being used by the individuals working within the criminal justice system that have arisen due to the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic, taking into account the new safety measures put in place and the increase of hidden crimes such as domestic violence that do not take place in a public setting. The second is the quality of life for individuals within the justice system, focussing mainly on those serving custodial sentences, which were worsened by the pandemic and the confusion it caused during its initial stages, I will also touch on the organizations that aim to improve this situation through funding alongside charity work and a focus on the mental wellbeing of those incarcerated during a global pandemic. And lastly, I will explore the well-being of those working within the criminal justice system as the coronavirus pandemic has increased created a high-pressure working environment, especially for those constantly in contact with the public and seen as an authority in these changing times. The aim of this report is to shed a light on the difficulties and changes faced by the criminal justice system and to make informed recommendations as to what could be improved with regard to the future of the criminal justice system and the eventual end of the global coronavirus pandemic.
During a virtual lecture, we were given the opportunity to listen to Joe Matthews, the temporary chief inspector at Devon and Cornwall Police. He is responsible for the management of relations within the force, meaning teams and partnerships that are involved with the police, such as the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). He states that the complexity of the criminal justice system seems to be growing exponentially and it is taking place in a criminal justice system that is elderly but well-respected meaning that they are likely to be behind the curve on current issues relating to the criminal justice system, especially the newer issues risen by technological advances, especially the increase of those caused by the global pandemic and lockdown procedures. This can be seen through Blair (2004) who stated that Of all the public services we inherited in 1997, the most unfit for the purpose was the criminal justice system, which agrees that the criminal justice system was (at the time, at least) behind the curve, an example of this come from convictions and sentencing being inconsistent and failing to protect the public or leave them satisfied with the punishments given to offenders. During this speech, Blair also mentioned that We put an £1 billion investment into CJS technology showing a willingness to improve the quality of the Criminal Justice system and an attempt to get ahead of the curve in technological respect.
The state of the prison system within the UK is currently terrible, with large groups of people and organizations aiming to improve and repair it. One such organization is the Charity Catch 22 which offers a resettlement service to prisoners. In a political viewpoint, Catch-22 is seen as an agency rather than working as part of the prison (Atkins 2021) and is therefore not treated as prison staff, preventing them from doing as much work as they would like, especially as they only have a limited power within the prisons; alongside this, they are bounded by the prison`s rules and regulations, including searches. Catch 22 was said to be well funded but Atkins states that she did not believe that the funding went far enough and suggested that it needed to go further as people working for catch 22 were put under a lot of psychological stress with minimal room for progression after the service had been given. Another example of the well-being of prisoners being affected by covid comes from a separate guest speaker in the same lecture, Peter Chatten, he suggested that realistically, it would be impossible to apply all the changes that would benefit those serving custodial sentences due to the lack of staff in prisons during the pandemic, this is due to a lot of the staff who were experienced, but also vulnerable leaving, prisons experiencing cuts which resulted in early redundancies. This would all affect the physical and mental well-being of prisoners and lead to a system where a group of inexperienced officers were leading equally inexperienced officers, creating more tensions within the custodial system.
The well-being of staff within the criminal justice system can be seen as a huge potential challenge to overcome as if the staff within the system are not well looked after as well as mentally and physically well it could lead to decisions made with poor judgment or mistakes when processing offenders. One such issue that can arise from working within the criminal justice system is the mental stress of dealing with those serving convictions, especially those who have experienced extreme trauma, as it can be difficult to carry on with your workload and disassociate yourself from the experiences that have been dealt with. These have been made apparent by Soo Brazell, the service manager of a local charity in the southwest, Shekinah. She mentions that there is a severe lack of funding and a loss of experienced staff meaning that people working within the CJS are inexperienced and ill-fitted for the job that they need to do.
During the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, the CJS came to a halt, this was very unusual as it has rarely occurred however it does identify the issue that there is minimal room for flexibility within the criminal justice system. There was a large increase in hidden crimes due to the lockdown measures, in fact, the United States national domestic violence hotline recently reported that many callers have indicated that their abusers are capitalizing on precautions related to COVID-19 to further restrict their access to support networks (Godin, 2020). The increased complexity of technology over the past few decades has left police behind the mark; as the police force was often seen as an omnicompetent force, this has been a shock to the system and is deemed a matter that should be addressed as quickly and efficiently as possible. A new challenge for the police force during the time of the pandemic is the obvious risk of contracting the disease and spreading it to others, this has created a new wave of anxiety within the police force (De Camargo, 2021). This fear of worsening the pandemic and having the virus spread through police contact would lead to new laws being put in place, a practice that the police force is all too familiar with, between 1983 and 2009, over 4,000 new laws were introduced, and this number has been constantly and steadily rising. The introduction of Covid-19 has introduced new laws and regulations for the police force, such as social distancing (as to avoid contact) and the wearing of masks.
The well-being of those who are in the Criminal Justice system is of great importance, due to this, the introduction of a global pandemic has made life for offenders serving a custodial sentence extremely difficult as it highlighted the issues of prisons being an incubator of infection diseases, but also reinforces the ideology that Prisoner health is public health (Kinner 2020). This pathed the way for a new outlook on prisoners, as measures had to be taken to improve hygiene conditions in prison as well as the isolation of cases to prevent the spread of the virus. The mental health of prisoners is a glaring issue, as due to the restrictions caused by coronavirus prisoners were not allowed to leave their cells, as seen by the inspectorate for England and Wales, Peter Clark, who stated that prisoners spent 23 hours a day in their cells was ‘normal. Due to prisoners being a vulnerable group who suffer from more complex health issues and often have worse health outcomes than the general population (Fazel 2011) it can be assumed that the lockdown measures put in place due to the coronavirus could lead to an increased rate of mental issues, such as anxiety and depression, however mild or serious. The aforementioned charities such as Catch 22 seek to improve prisoners’ situations by giving them support throughout this trying time.
As well as prisoners, the well-being of staff within the criminal justice system can present its own challenges, especially paired with the pandemic. According to the Ministry of Public Security, as of 11 April 2020, a total of 60 public security police officers and 35 auxiliary police officers nationwide have sacrificed their lives to fight the pandemic and maintain safety and stability on the front line, as one of the most important parts of the pandemics control and prevention efforts (Wang 2020) this is a noble sacrifice and the pressure put upon those working within the criminal justice system is enormous. This issue is only worsened by the behavior of those being apprehended by police officers, with the potential weaponization of covid-19, the act of spitting pre-pandemic was relatively rare, with Metropolitan Police reporting 264 spitting incidents between 2014 and 2016 (Cresswell et al., 2018). Whereas in a report by the Daily Telegraph, 43 police forces were investigated in England and Wales, it was revealed that around 200 cough spit attacks against officers were reported a week since the pandemic. On top of this, the CPS has confirmed that it is dealing with dozens of cases of this against front-line workers daily (The Telegraph, 2020). This can lead to increased fear of disease and damage the mental well-being of those working within the CJS as well as potentially causing staff to be forced to isolate and take time off, increasing the workload and pressure for those who are healthy and not at risk; even pre-pandemic, the fear of contracting a disease or virus could compromise a police officer`s jobs and as leading to stress and anxiety (Bullock and Garland, 2020), with the added risk of a new disease that is potentially fatal, these fears could be magnified and staff within the CJS could suffer from serious mental trauma due to their risks associated with work.
Addressing ways in which these issues could be improved, I would like to attempt to recommend some changes and introduce some new policies or practices, starting with the changes in the regulations and complexity of the police force. I believe that the first major issue would be that there was no national agreement of what was considered appropriate PPE and furthermore, no rules set in place immediately that made PPE required. This was due to poor preparation on behalf of the health security, there was a shortage of PPE due to national panic and high demand, leading to the majority of PPE being given to front-line workers and NHS staff, leaving the police force with a depleted stock of PPE in the first few months of 2020. It was not until later that an actual scheme was set up to assist police with PPE, Operation Talla was put into effect to source PPE for police officers, including masks, gloves, and sanitizer (NPCC 2021). In November of 2020, John Apter, national chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, reported that over 800 police officers had contracted coronavirus, however, this information was gathered from only half of the police forces in the UK.
In regards to the well-being of prisoners during the pandemic, I believe more could have been done in regards to maintaining healthy mental wellbeing whilst being incarcerated, the cuts and loss of experienced staff members was a significant blow to the system, meaning that new staff members would not receive appropriate training as they would not be able to shadow an experienced member, leading to confusion in prisons and miscommunication on the treatment of prisoners during the pandemic. The ideology that prisons are a place of punishment rather than reform could have played a part during this time as if an officer working in the prison held these viewpoints it could be argued that they could believe that a prisoner contracting the virus was a punishment in itself. The rise in mental health issues and self-harm in prisons over the past few years had been aggravated by the introduction of a lockdown and a deviation from the normal routine and rehabilitation of a prisoner (Ministry of justice 2020). I believe a stronger focus on charitable organizations and mental health awareness in prisons, in general, would benefit them greatly, not least of all in a pandemic.
The life of a person working within the Criminal Justice System can be just as grueling as they would be in constant contact with those who are going through the CJS, the current lack of funding and loss of many experienced workers (as mentioned previously) would be a massive blow to the general wellbeing of those who work within the prison. Not to mention the mental pressure endured by those who work within the CJs, they are sworn to confidentiality as to protect the interests of anyone in the system. This is a completely reasonable rule; however, it can lead to feeling alone with no one to reach out to but their colleagues, which then creates a feeling of solidarity within the force, which can quickly become unhealthy if not given the proper respect. I believe a more comprehensible and easily accessed officer support program would be greatly beneficial to those who are working within the criminal justice system, and I believe the effects that this would produce would reflect on both those who take part in it and those in the presence of them as they would be able to deal with the pressures and trauma naturally associated with this line of work in a healthy and effective manner.
References:
- BBC (2020) Prisoners locked up for 23 hours due to Covid rules is ‘dangerous’. Available at:Â Prisoners locked up for 23 hours due to Covid rules is ‘dangerous’ – BBC NewsBrizell, Soo (2021)
- Lecture 11 Innovative Justice [Recorded lecture. CCJS603: Working for justice. Plymouth University. 10th May. Available at: CCJ603 Lecture 11 Innovative Justice (panoptic.eu)Blair, T. (2004)
- Labour’s five-year plan on law and order [Speech] 19th July. Available at: BBC NEWS | Politics | Full text: Blair on law and orderBullock, K, Garland, J (2020)
- The organization doesn`t particularly consider itself responsible for you: organizational support for officers injured in the line of duty and organization (in)justice. Policing and Society 30(7): 818-834. Available at: The organization doesn`t particularly consider itself responsible for you: organizational support for officers injured in the line of duty and organizational (in)justice: Policing and Society: Vol 30, No 7 (tandfonline.com)Cresswell, FV, Ellis, J, Hartley, J, et al. (2018)
- A systematic review of the risk of HIV transmission through biting or spitting: implications for policy. HIV Medicine 19: 532-540. Available at: A systematic review of the risk of HIV transmission through biting or spitting: implications for policy – Cresswell – 2018 – HIV Medicine – Wiley Online LibraryDe Camargo, Camilla (2020)
- It`s tough shit, basically, that you’re all gonna get it: UK virus testing and police officer anxieties of contracting COVID-19, Vol 0, No 0. Available at: It`s tough shit, basically, that you’re all gonna get it: UK virus testing and police officer anxieties of contracting COVID-19: Policing and Society: Vol 0, No 0 (tandfonline.com)Emily Atkins (2021)
- Lecture 5: Catch 22 and counter corruption [Recorded lecture. CCJS603: Working for justice. Plymouth University. 8th March. Available at: CCJ603 Catch 22
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