The prison system is in crisis: Let's not look to Hollywood for the answer

Recently, the Justice Secretary, Liz Truss, suggested the prison system in England and Wales should mirror the Shawshank Redemption. Truss intimates that the system should be a place of hope and reform. This article points out the option to focus on reform has been available since the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The article intimates that we should go further than political grandstanding and by focusing alternatives to custody, we could focus on reform and help cure the 'prison crisis'

The innocent cannot afford to plead guilty: The impact of the criminal court charge

The article examines the impact of the controversial criminal court charge. The article suggests there are wide ranging consequences of the charge which exacerbate the already over crowded prison system. Furthermore, the charge is in direct conflict with the overriding objective of the Criminal Procedure Rules

The early guilty plea: The need for adequate disclosure

This paper examines the implementation of the early guilty plea scheme. Furthermore, the paper highlights the potential ramifications the scheme holds for both defendants and adversarial criminal justice in England and Wales

The adversarial defence lawyer: Myths, disclosure and efficiency—A contemporary analysis of the role in the era of the Criminal Procedure Rules

© The Author(s) 2019. This article contends that piecemeal changes to the adversarial process since the dawn of the new millennium have transformed the CJS. The advent of (near) compulsory disclosure means the defendant has to reveal many elements of his defence. This dilutes the adversarial battle and leaves a process which is managerialist in nature. The Early Guilty Plea system is a mechanism to increase the efficiency by stemming the amount of cases reaching the trial stage. This has an impact on the defence lawyer’s role and renders him conflicted between advancing the best interest of the client against other pre-trial obligations. This small empirical study suggests that classic adversarial lawyers are seen as a relic of a bygone era. The modern criminal justice system prioritises speed and efficiency. If a case reaches court, the defendant is treated as an ‘informational resource’ of the court reminiscent of his position in the 17th century

The Adversarial Lawyer and the Client’s Best Interest: Failures with Pre-Charge Engagement

The role of the defence is one of a zealous advocate, acting in the bestinterests of their client. However, a substantial body of evidencesuggests that lawyers often operate as components within a proceduralmachinery that primarily processes the guilt or innocence of defendants.This phenomenon has led to the gradual erosion of the concept of azealous advocacy and adversarialism. Over the 30 years, the adversarialprocess in England and Wales has experienced a steady transformationthrough incremental adjustments to the criminal justice system.The advent of the CrimPR marked a notable shift in the handling ofcriminal cases, ushering in a culture of cooperation where bothprosecution and defense collaborate with the shared objective ofupholding the CrimPR's Overriding Objective: to deal with cases justly.This transformation has steered the criminal justice process away fromits adversarial origins and toward a more managerial and process-drivenframework. An additional manifestation of this managerial cultureemerged with the introduction of Pre-Charge Engagement (PCE) in 2021.PCE sought to divert cases trial by initiating a dialogue between defenselawyers and the police. If effectively employed, PCE could offer help toreduce the backlog of cases in the criminal courts and expediteresolutions for complainants, suspects, and witnesses. However, it isconcerning that PCE is underutilised. This article contends that defenselawyers, by not fully embracing PCE, may not be acting in the bestinterests of their clients and certainly deviate from the conventionalconception of a defense lawyer's role

All rise for the interventionist: The judiciary in the 21st century

This paper will examine the changing role played by the judiciary in criminal trials. The paper examines the genesis of the adversarial criminal trial that was born out of lifting the prohibition on defence counsel in trials of treason. The paper will chart the rise of judicial passivity as lawyers dominated trials. Finally, the paper examines the rise of the interventionist judiciary in the wake of the Auld Review that launched an attack on the inefficiencies of the modern trial. To tackle the inefficiencies, the Criminal Procedure Rules allowed the judiciary to reassume a role of active case management. The impact an interventionist judiciary has for adversarial criminal justice is examined. The paper finds that a departure from traditional adversarial has occurred; the criminal justice process has shifted to a new form of process, driven by a managerial agenda

Influential Article Review- The Implications of Authoritative Leadership and Mission Outcomes

This paper examines leadership. We present insights from a highly influential paper. Here are the highlights from this paper: This study examines how and when authoritarian leadership affects subordinates’ task performance. Using social exchange theory and power dependence theory, this study proposes that authoritarian leadership negatively influences task performance through leader-member exchange (LMX). This study further proposes that the effect of authoritarian leadership on LMX is stronger when a subordinate has less dependence on a leader. A two-wave survey was conducted in a large electronics and information enterprise group in China. These hypotheses are supported by results based on 219 supervisor-subordinate dyads. The results reveal that authoritarian leadership negatively affects subordinates’ task performance via LMX. Dependence on leaders buffers the negative effect of authoritarian leadership on LMX and mitigates the indirect effect of authoritarian leadership on employee task performance through LMX. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed. For our overseas readers, we then present the insights from this paper in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and German

Matter in Toy Dynamical Geometries

One of the objectives of theories describing quantum dynamical geometry is to compute expectation values of geometrical observables. The results of such computations can be affected by whether or not matter is taken into account. It is thus important to understand to what extent and to what effect matter can affect dynamical geometries. Using a simple model, it is shown that matter can effectively mold a geometry into an isotropic configuration. Implications for "atomistic" models of quantum geometry are briefly discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, paper presented at DICE 200

Contact matters: voters like to be asked personally for their support

Ed Miliband has announced that to counter the Conservative party’s financial advantage during the 2015 election campaign Labour will outnumber them in supporters out on the streets engaging with voters – and will benefit accordingly. Is that a sensible strategy? David Cutts, Ed Fieldhouse, Justin Fisher, Ron Johnston and Charles Pattie have done a lot of research into the impact of local campaigns and use data from the 2010 election to assess whether Labour’s strategy will bring the hoped-for benefits