The criminal justice systems in Britain, the home of “the rule of law”, are broken. England and Wales together spend more on prisons than any other country in Europe except Russia. There is a backlog of almost 65,000 cases as defendants wait for years to have their day in court, and with recent figures showing 42% of prisoners who take their own lives are on remand – meaning they haven’t been sentenced – this purgatory is costing not just money, but lives.
At a time of dwindling resources, here are concrete manifesto commitments that an incoming Labour government should make.
