Experiences of criminal justice: Perspectives from Wales on a system in crisis By D. Newman, R. Dehaghani, Bristol: Bristol University Press. 2023. pp. 270. £80.00 (hbk); £26.99 (pbk); £26.99 (ebk). ISBN: 9781529214222; 9781529214239; 978152914246

Abstract

From austerity to Brexit to Covid-19, the UK is facing a series of interlinked crises. Regarding austerity in particular, public services like the National Health Service, local government and social security benefits have been affected. Even the criminal justice system has not been spared from financial cuts. Yet, the impoverished status of these key public services defies the logic that the UK is currently the sixth largest economy in the world (World Bank, 2023).

The progressive underfunding of the UK criminal justice system is pushing it to a breaking point. In fact, the position that the system is at breaking point is the one thing on which all our politicians seem to agree. What has not been settled, however, is how the system is being pushed to this state, and at what costs? Does the criminal justice system still serve its purposes to maintain law and order and ensure that offenders and victims receive justice?

Essentially, these are the dilemmas that Daniel Newman and Roxanna Dehaghani explore in their recent book, Experiences of criminal justice: Perspectives from Wales on a system in crisis. Their findings – contextualised in the criminal justice system in Wales – illuminate how austerity blights social safety nets for individuals, and how existing issues that run against the backdrop of the criminal justice system compound their experiences. Again and again, the text in this book reminds me of Callinicos's (2012) observation: those who engineered or profited from the asset bubbles do not bear the brunt of the resulting austerity; rather, workers and the poor do.

Operationalising austerity, Experiences of criminal justice is the result of qualitative research that Newman and Dehaghani undertook in 2018 and 2019. The study involved 69 participants who reported on how they experienced a criminal justice system in crisis. These findings were presented thematically in the concerted effort to champion the voices and experiences of those marginalised by institutionalised state practices.

Newman and Dehaghani put forth a compelling case for the uniqueness of Wales from geographical and cultural perspectives in their opening chapter. The authors also remind us of the slow burn of inequality experienced by people in Wales through increased poverty, social disadvantages and marginalisation, all of which further support the latest statistics: Wales has the highest number of individuals living in relative income poverty (23%) compared with England, Scotland and Northern Ireland (Welsh Government, 2021). Despite these idiosyncrasies, Wales continues to be treated as a silent partner of England in the criminal justice system, while power over this system remains centralised despite the devolution of power in this nation.

Equitable access to justice is characteristic of a healthy state-citizen relationship. Yet, as Chapter 2 progresses, Newman and Dehaghani offer kaleidoscopic views of how such a relationship is increasingly tarnished, mainly through the rollback of state formations manifested through cuts to criminal legal aid and the low fees paid for criminal defence work. As a result, the authors cite the following consequences: a one-third reduction in the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) workforce that enforced the use of paralegals and police to construct the prosecution case; a decline in firms offering criminal legal aid work; and the imposition of case management on the part of the defence. These shifts indicate a more managerialist and punitive mindset of the criminal justice system in Wales that exposes individuals to further vulnerability. From the authors’ evidence, the balance of the criminal justice system is certainly further tilted toward Packer's (1964) crime control model: an efficient system takes precedence over individual rights and freedoms.

All of these issues cast doubt on the future of the criminal justice system, and in particular, the future of publicly funded criminal defence in Wales. These concerns are visited by Newman and Dehaghani in the successive five chapters. For instance, in Chapter 3, the authors describe how the efficacy of social agenda and vocation to serve the public, by some research participants who served as legal practitioners, is being tarnished by their low pay. Essentially, it is the system that forces them out to the more lucrative areas of law practice. Meanwhile, the insufficient opportunities, social and economic deprivation and negative view of the police culminate into a general lack of trust among the accused and their family members who were interviewed by the authors. Further, the low threshold of £12,475 for legal aid prevents people from getting the legal aid they deserve. This, then, impacts the quality of case preparation that ultimately compromises justice for these individuals, which the authors explore further in Chapter 5.

Indeed, the theme of injustice continues in the following chapter. Proximity, Newman and Dehaghani argue, matters in Wales. Illuminative examples were used that stayed with me as a reader. One example is how the accused was not tried by people from their locality given the court closures in South Wales. The court closure, as depicted by the authors, removed the sense of local justice and sparked further distrust of people in the criminal justice system. Another story surrounds the difficulty of travelling to the nearest court, especially if the accused are already experiencing financial hardship. Furthermore, there are no prisons for women in Wales, and this forces the relocation of female offenders to HMPs Eastwood Park and Styal, both of which are in England, preventing them from receiving visits from their children and family members.

Chapters 6 and 7 explore the relationship that the legal practitioners have with the criminal justice system and how family members of the accused feel they are being let down by their lawyers. While the participants’ narratives are insightful, I found myself questioning the data in these chapters, specifically asking myself: What have these data got to do with austerity? As admitted by the authors: ‘… underfunding is not the only factors that impact lawyer-client relationship’ (p.163). Other factors include how the assumption of client guilt by their lawyers destroys their trust, and how empathy and fairness in the process trump the legal expertise of the lawyers. A better framing of how these long-standing issues in the criminal justice system have been exposed, exacerbated, or intensified by austerity would have been ideal, especially when such vulnerability in the system hints at the miscarriage of justice, which can be costly in the long run.

The book ends with a chapter on enacting criminal justice differently. The authors support the transfer of power in the justice system to Wales with the trajectory that this would dovetail into other public services, such as in the social, health and education sectors. Compelling reasons ensued, including the expected result of clearer and improved accountability, innovation and bringing justice closer to home. The authors also convincingly recommend that we ‘dismantle the notion of the criminal justice process as a battleground and instead to reconceptualise it as one of mutual support, where the state and individual are not at odds with each other’ (p.207). Additional recommendations include expanding not-for-profit defence organisations, introducing mandatory minimum salaries for trainee solicitors, incentivising the practice to curb advice deserts, providing funds to attend court hearings, and reversing court closures.

While these recommendations provide contemporary solutions to the existing criminal justice system in Wales, I would wish to see more elaborations of abolitionist perspectives. For instance, the need to divert people out of the criminal justice system and consider more financially sustainable solutions, such as restorative justice. Rather than demanding more money be funnelled into the criminal justice system, we should acknowledge and maximise the recommendation of non-criminal justice interventions. Indeed, this is the paradox with which the government must contend: given the lack of resources, we should use the criminal justice system less and focus on finding cheaper, proportionate and sustainable solutions that often sit outside such a system.

The authors duly acknowledge that probation and youth justice perspectives were missing from the narratives. Additionally, I feel that the perspectives of policymakers – who are also directly affected by the central direction of Whitehall – would have provided a more rounded view. No book can do it all, though, and the authors may explore these perspectives in their future work. Finally, I found the signposting to different chapters in various parts of the text to be excessive. While signposting is a great compass for readers, it tends to annoy impatient readers (like me!).

Without doubt, the book's main contribution to knowledge is the experiences of people within the criminal justice system in Wales during the time of austerity. Newman and Dehaghani were determined to give a voice to those who experienced the pains of the criminal justice system, and they have succeeded in doing so. There is a sense of their lives being changed – sometimes repeatedly in such a complex system – since austerity was introduced in 2010. This book is a must-read text for those who wish to understand how underfunding impacts key public services against a long-standing backdrop of poverty, marginalisation, exclusion and deprivation, all of which remain in our backyard despite our status as the sixth largest economy in the world.