The second part of Lord Leveson’s Independent Review of the Criminal Courts contains 130 efficiency reforms designed to stave off systemic collapse.
But efficiency alone will not save the criminal justice system. The crisis in the criminal courts is not primarily an administrative failure, it reflects a deeper structural reality: the justice system has become a clearing house for unresolved social harm.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the Magistrates’ Courts, where prosecution increasingly functions as a substitute for effective social policy where vast numbers of cases are rooted not in organised criminality, but in untreated mental illness, undiagnosed neurodivergence, addiction, homelessness and poverty.
The Ministry of Justice’s own research suggests public policy is needed that addresses the criminogenic needs of prolific offenders (as a group) to reduce reoffending rates. The charity, Revolving Doors, has found that a small group of 30,000–50,000 people are responsible for at least 130,000 offences a year, driving a direct criminal justice system cost of £242m and £5.2bn in annual socio-economic costs across the NHS, councils and social services.
These figures expose an uncomfortable truth. The criminal justice system is increasingly used as a substitute for effective social policy. It is tasked with managing the consequences of state failure in housing, healthcare and welfare, rather than addressing criminality in any meaningful preventative sense. Addressing these needs early is essential to reducing reoffending and the court backlog.
Rather than looking directly at the justice system’s role in this carousel of crises, Leveson’s Recommendation 175 simply calls for a comprehensive cross-government strategy on mental ill-health and its relationship with the justice system. While welcome in principle, we need to embed solutions within the justice system itself and there is already compelling evidence that integrated, preventative approaches work.
Many defendants cycle repeatedly through courts, prison, and release, without ever receiving sustained support for the conditions driving their offending. Each appearance consumes scarce court time. Each prosecution reinforces systemic backlog. And each conviction increases the likelihood of future contact with the system.
There is an alternative. Holistic defence models – where legal teams work alongside housing advisers, mental health professionals and social support services – have demonstrated measurable success internationally. These approaches do not excuse criminal behaviour; they address its causes. By stabilising individuals early, they reduce reoffending, shorten case progression and improve outcomes for courts, victims and communities alike.
This is not a radical proposition. Lord Bellamy KC’s Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid in 2021 recognised the value of this approach, noting that simply defending a criminal case often fails to address the underlying issues that produce offending behaviour. Yet the current legal aid framework actively discourages this preventative work because defence practitioners are not remunerated for crisis intervention or diversionary work. The result is a system structurally incentivised to respond to crisis rather than prevent it.
This is not merely inefficient. It is costly, both financially and socially. Court backlogs grow. Prison populations expand. Vulnerable individuals are criminalised without meaningful intervention and the underlying drivers of offending remain unchanged.
Against this backdrop, proposals to restrict defendants’ rights to elect jury trial, advanced in the first part of the Leveson review, appear particularly misplaced. Limiting procedural rights may accelerate case throughput, but it does nothing to reduce the volume of individuals entering the system in the first place. Efficiency reforms may process cases faster but they cannot, on their own, reduce demand. Instead, the government should immediately pilot holistic defence models in Magistrates’ Courts, with dedicated funding and outcome evaluation.
The Leveson reviews provide a comprehensive diagnosis of operational inefficiency but the focus on procedural reform without embedding solutions to the social drivers of offending, treats symptoms rather than causes. It is striking that so much attention has been devoted to restricting jury trial rights, while far less consideration has been given to why so many vulnerable individuals enter the criminal justice system in the first place.
Efficiency may manage a crisis. Only social justice can end it.
