Political and economic upheavals open up opportunities for more radical reform of the justice system. But reformers have struggled to come up with proven alternatives to incarceration which are cost effective, progressive and able to secure public confidence.
Turning the Corner provides an overview of both the challenges and the potential solutions. It looks at the misaligned incentives that block effective prevention and at the results of over-reliance on incarceration. It argues that reformers need support to get better at designing, rapidly testing and then scaling innovations. Finally it puts forward ideas which could pave the way for a fairer and more effective system, from the creation of a Centre for Justice Innovation in the UK which would assess, scale and disseminate innovative approaches to justice, to the creation of ’employment deployers’ to help former offenders into work. The spending crisis will put huge pressures on the criminal justice system – but it’s also an opportunity to put right some of the system’s worst, and most expensive, failings.
Posted on: 1 August 2010 Authors: Anton Shelupanov, Neil Reeder, Robert Patrick, Rushanara Ali,