Planning for the future

In the autumn we will begin work on a new strategy. We are keen to draw on the experience, knowledge and ideas of our many stakeholders as we develop our plans.

In the meantime, we have agreed the main coordinates of our work, both to sharpen our focus in the short-term, and to help guide the development of the new strategy over the coming months.

First, as an educational charity, we take seriously our role in promoting better knowledge and understanding of crime and criminal justice. Indeed, we see improved knowledge and understanding as an inherent good, and as a foundation for effective action to achieve meaningful change.

Our forthcoming report on the United Kingdom criminal justice systems, for instance, will explain the development of the different parts of the criminal justice system, and the interconnections between them. In our mission to promote better knowledge, we are also committed to drawing on, and amplifying, the knowledge and insights of academics, independent researchers, practitioners, and campaigners.

Second, we are committed to challenging the injustices of the justice system. A fair, impartial and proportionate criminal justice system is important for an orderly society. But there is much about today’s justice system that is unfair.

Working with JENGbA, for instance, we are building up a picture of who is being prosecuted under joint enterprise powers, as part of a series of activities to press for change to unjust prosecution practices.

Third, we make the case for long-term transformative solutions to the problems our society faces. We see such transformation as a real and present opportunity, not something to be consigned to an ill-defined future.

Through our After Prison programme, for instance, we are building the case for the redevelopment of land currently occupied by prisons, for the benefit of local communities. After all, there is always a better use for a piece of land than as a place for a prison.