Institute for Criminal Policy Research, Birkbeck, University of London
Abstract
The criminal justice system of England and Wales relies heavily on members of the
public – ‘lay participants’ – in administering justice. The roots of lay participation lie in
the notion of participatory democracy, specifically ‘judgement by one’s peers’ (Sanders,
2002; Crawford, 2004; Gibson and Cavadino, 2008). The use of juries and lay
magistrates offers an inclusive form of justice involving people without legal education
passing judgement on fellow members of society. Any member of the public aged
between 18 and 65 can apply to become a lay magistrate, and as Crawford (2004) has
highlighted, it is important that lay participants in criminal justice adequately reflect the
communities which they serve. This paper questions the representativeness of lay
magistrates in their locality, through analysing existing evidence on the lay magistracy’s
composition and linking that to trends in the recruitment of magistrates. The paper
argues that lay magistrates are in some ways less diverse than they were at the turn of
the century; being older, less representative of England and Wales’ BAME population
and possibly more middle class
