Strategy 2025 to 2028
Our vision
A fair, effective and accountable justice system, in a society less dominated by criminalisation and punishment.
The context of our work
We educate, inform and influence in the field of crime and criminal justice. Our work takes place amid rapid political, economic, cultural and technological change. These forces shape our work.
Political
The criminal justice system requires sustained and systemic reform. Yet the slim popular mandate underlying the current government’s strong parliamentary majority offers a weak political foundation for this work. The fragmentation of traditional party loyalties, and the associated rise of new, insurgent political movements, challenge the long party-political consensus on criminal justice. While this is giving rise to a more unpredictable policy environment, we also see opportunities to shape the terms on which criminal justice is debated and reformed.
Economic
The economic context is testing. Many charities are facing financial difficulties, with competition over grant and other income intensifying. Through careful financial management and diversified income streams we have maintained budget surpluses over recent years, enabling us to invest in our programmes, staff and building. We recognise the need to be agile and strategic to attract financial support.
Cultural
Trust in public institutions and the political process appears to have declined, contributing to fatalism about the possibilities for justice and fairness. A complacent and cynical policy consensus has fed this fatalism, while also being an expression of it. We take this challenging cultural context of our work seriously, resisting the tendency to dismiss it as mere public ignorance to be corrected, or political opportunism to be managed or bypassed. Through public education, research and advocacy, we both listen to these complex cultural cross-currents and seek to influence and inform them.
Technological
The digital shift in civic and working life is reshaping how people engage with ideas and institutions. The supplementation of traditional media by social media and citizen journalism, and the increasing significance of AI tools, are other examples of the fast-moving technological landscape that will influence what we do and how we do it.
Our purpose and approach
Our purpose
We create engaging spaces for collaboration and learning, where conventional criminal justice policy agendas are scrutinised and challenged, fresh knowledge and ideas are discussed, and transformational solutions are developed. We are committed to developing understanding and new knowledge, and to doing something with it.
Our approach
Openness
We prize a willingness to engage with difficult questions, challenging ideas, and honest dialogue. We welcome and encourage scrutiny of our work and are comfortable with the uncertainty that comes from not always having the answer. We recognise the importance of building solidarity and common cause, and reject superficial divisiveness and purity politics.
Collaboration
We work with researchers, practitioners, policy specialists, activists, and service-users to deepen understanding of the way the criminal justice system works, explain and critique existing policies and practice, and map out routes to transformational change.
Action
We synthesise knowledge, ideas and insights into engaging publications, events and interventions, underpinned by innovative communications and movement-building activities.
Impact
We see improved knowledge and understanding of crime and criminal justice as an inherent good. We also apply this knowledge to concrete policy and practice questions, and see it as a foundation for effective action to achieve meaningful change.
We produce knowledge and analysis that shifts debates and creates focal points for scrutiny, decision making, and intervention. We seek to apply this knowledge and analysis practically, for instance, through work with parliamentarians, informing legislation, and through our engagement with journalists and opinion formers.
Over the past decade, work we have incubated has also led to the establishment of three new organisations: Drug Science, One Small Thing, and Community Plan for Holloway. Impact can be as much about what you give flight to as what you hold onto.
Our priorities
- Deliver a connected programme for change. We will lead projects that:
- improve knowledge of crime and the criminal justice system;
- highlight significant injustices, and areas of strong public interest.
- Enhance our capacity. We will invest in our ability to generate, curate and share knowledge, and to diversify, broaden and deepen our collaborations with our members, supporters, partners and collaborators, and with the beneficiaries of our work.
- Invest in people and infrastructure. We will continue to invest in our people, organisational infrastructure and our building, as a foundation for a resilient organisation and strong platform for change.
Governance and oversight
Our trustees, who are elected by our wider membership, are responsible for the effective governance and oversight of the charity. They are guided by our charitable objects, prevailing laws, regulations, statutory guidance and good practice guidelines.
We understand that strategy needs to be adaptive and reviewed regularly to respond to these volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times. We include regular strategic oversight discussions in our trustee meetings, and review of our strategy on a regular basis.
We will invest in supporting our trustees in their work, support the capacity of the trustee body to operate in a strategic, cohesive and focused manner, and support the process of trustee recruitment, induction, development and renewal.
