Top judge points to “little confidence” in justice system
The British public has little confidence in the criminal justice system, according to Lord Chief Justice Woolf.
The country’s most senior judge said: “Unfortunately, it has to be accepted that, for many years now, the public have had little confidence in the ability of our criminal justice system to ensure that justice is done.
“Regrettably, each part of the system has appeared to be failing the public.”
“We are not being sufficiently tough on the causes of crime,” he added.
There was bad news for the prison system as well. Lord Woolf pointed to the “huge gap” separating the planned capacity in the country’s prisons and the projected jail population rising to 106,000 by 2010.
Lord Woolf commented: “My primary concern in painting this sombre picture is not with the offenders who often find their regimes undermined by overcrowding, but with those who will be the victims of crimes because of our inability to tackle offending behaviour.”
He told an audience at University College London that the new Sentencing Guidelines Council could make penal policy “less of a political issue”.
