Hull leads the way to give local people more say in justice

Hull is leading the way across England and Wales and pioneering new ways to improve the criminal justice system.

New initiatives announced this week in the Engaging Communities in Criminal Justice Green Paper aim to give people more of a say in how justice is delivered in their neighbourhoods and make local criminal justice agencies more accountable to the people they represent.

Hull will be one of 30 areas across England and Wales to test the new initiatives. Other areas sit within: Greater London, Merseyside, South Wales, Leicestershire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Lancashire, West Midlands, Cleveland, South Yorkshire, Nottingham, and Greater Manchester.

The Green Paper sets out new ways of making the justice system more responsive to the needs of local communities. Labour wants the people who play by the rules to be able to influence how their justice system works. This would mean being able to:

Get more information about justice outcomes in a format that suits them, linked to information on crime maps

Find out about outcomes of cases of particular local concern on-line and in other ways

Have a say in how initiatives like Community Payback are run in their area

Feed their views into the heart of the justice system through face-to-face meetings with Community Prosecutors, magistrates and neighbourhood policing teams and through Community Impact Statements

Benefit from problem-solving techniques pioneered through Community Justice

Get feedback on how their information has been used and what happened in the case;

Get involved, through more joined up and effective engagement activities or by taking up one of the many volunteering opportunities with criminal justice organisations.

These Labour Government plans to give communities more say in how the justice system works have been welcomed by Hull North's local MP.

Speaking after the Green Paper's publication, Diana Johnson MP appealed to local people to join a consultation aimed at generating more ideas to ensure that the justice system is run for the people it serves the law-abiding public.

Diana Johnson MP said: "This new initiative by the Labour Government will give Hull people a greater chance to have their say on fighting crime.

"I believe that people should be able to get more information about crime and justice in their area, and have more say in what happens to those who break the law.

"Our opponents call this sort of thing a 'gimmick'. But I don't think there is anything gimmicky about giving communities a greater voice in the justice system.

"Crime nationally is down by a third since 1997, but it is also crucial that the law-abiding majority has confidence in the system. Justice must not only be done, but be seen to be done."

Labour is planning to develop:

Websites which will allow local people to see what happened in particular court cases in their area

More Citizens Panels to allow communities to decide what work offenders on Community Payback sentences should do,

New Community Prosecutors closely linked to local communities

New Community Impact Statements so that when a crime is committed, local people can feed their views into the prosecution process.

Labour's Justice Secretary Jack Straw said: "I want everyone to have a voice in their justice system. I hope the people of Hull will feed in their ideas for how they can have more of a say, and new ideas on how justice can be seen to be done.

"I really urge everyone to get involved it's your justice system, so we want your views."