A study in the need for reform

Today's study offers a fascinating view of a day in the life of the justice system - and provides ammunition for police, politicians, prosecutors and prison chiefs seeking reform and extra resources to combat crime.

Scotland Yard chiefs will consider that the time spent by frontline officers processing paperwork on arrests makes a compelling case for ensuring that patrol duties are handed over to the new breed of dedicated civilian beat bobbies they want to introduce.

The historically underfunded Crown Prosecution Service can also argue that they can only hope to improve the quality of cases getting to court if they are given better resources. And prison service director general Martin Narey will in turn be grateful that the public can see the extraordinary burden jails face in getting inmates to and from courts in their thousands every day.

For Home Secretary David Blunkett, the most important underlying fact is that recorded crime has doubled in 20 years.

However, over the same period, the proportion of offenders convicted has halved.

This means that only nine out of every 100 crimes recorded by police ends in a criminal being brought to justice. The Government believes much greater effort needs to go into proper supervision of convicted offenders to end the justice system's record of failure in reducing re-offending.

However - with public pressure building on Labour to live up to its "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" mantra - the Government's resolve will harden to force through a complete overhaul of court procedures, in spite of opposition from the legal establishment to changes.

This overhaul in procedures could see juries told of previous convictions and defence lawyers forced to disclose information which could help the prosecution.