Labour conference: Neighbourhood policing and rape courts on justice agenda

A Labour government would bring back neighbourhood policing, tackle the root causes of offending and roll out specialist rape courts to restore faith in the criminal justice system and bring down the Crown court backlog, the party has said.

Justice featured heavily on day one of Labour’s annual conference, being held in Liverpool this year.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper MP told a fringe event on policing and justice that the scale of cuts to policing, prosecution, court estate and prevention services over the past 12 years of Conservative rule had ‘undermined’ public services. The police are increasingly picking up the pieces when other services are being ‘hollowed’ out, she said.  ‘It leads to people thinking no one comes about the smashed window in the town centre, no one comes when drug dealer is outside the school’.

‘People are feeling police will not be there. These services we depend on, the things that make our community strong, they are just not there because of the Conservative Party’s approach. It has also hit prosecutions. The prosecution rate has plummeted… even if [the police do] come, the chances of bringing a prosecution, the chances of there being justice are being hit.’

Cooper said an incoming Labour government would bring back neighbourhood policing – a statement that prompted cheers and applause from the audience. Labour’s plan, which Cooper said has been funded, would see 13,000 additional police, PCSOs and special constables on the streets.

Shadow justice secretary Steve Reed MP told the same event that a Crown court backlog of around 60,000 cases means victims are routinely waiting two or three years ‘to get any chance of justice’, and one in 100 reported rapes are making it to trial.

‘We need to fix this broken system. We need a review from end to end of the entire criminal justice system and everything that affects and causes a young or old person to offend and reoffend,’ Reed said. ‘

Trauma-informed practice’ will be a core approach of Labour’s justice strategy and the party appears to be looking abroad for inspiration. Reed said New Zealand had a child and young person’s wellbeing strategy which has ‘trauma-informed practice right at the core’. A ‘compassions in prisons’ project in the UK used therapeutic practice to help offenders understand their issues, which has had a ‘dramatic’ effect on reoffending rates.

‘What would it look like if we reshaped our entire criminal justice system around these understandings? It would look very different,’ Reed said.

Reed said he fully understood the need to punish criminals, ‘but surely there should be a requirement for trauma-informed support if that’s the driver for reoffending?... It means looking beyond the criminal justice system – early years, mental health, housing. This needs to be the theme that runs across the whole of the front bench. Yes, punish criminals but also prevent crime by using these new insights from trauma-informed practice’.

A Labour government would also introduce specialist rape courts in every Crown court in the country - a pledge Reed revealed at the fringe event on policing and justice, and then at a fringe event hosted by the Society of Labour Lawyers yesterday evening.

Shadow justice minister Ellie Reeves MP told the Society of Labour Lawyers event that the specialist courts would prioritise rape cases and be staffed by professionals trained in trauma-informed practice. 

Whether Labour would make any promise on more legal aid funding remains unclear. Shadow legal aid minister Afzal Khan MP told the Society of Labour Lawyers event that the legal aid sector has survived purely on the goodwill of lawyers. Khan said the current system had broken down and was not functioning. ‘I cannot make any commitments sitting here. There is a review taking place… We simply cannot do piecemeal justice. There is a whole process. We introduced legal aid. We think it is fundamental that it is there for everyone. We will do our best.’

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