Target Justice

Politicians politick. Police police. Prosecutors prosecute. Different roles, different functions, different people. Mix them up and watch out. That is all that I think when I read in The Guardian that the government is about to set targets for the police and the CPS in relation to the number of rape cases that are prosecuted. If the reporting is accurate this will amount to the government telling the CPS how many cases of rape it should prosecute a year. In my 15 years of practice as a barrister I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like this before.

What I have seen, repeatedly, is police and CPS budgets cut again and again. So what I will say clearly and at the outset is that if you perceive there to be a problem with the investigation and prosecution of serious sexual offences look at the funding and demand more of it. Money isn't everything but enough of it means enough police officers, properly trained, properly investigating, providing proper files to proper prosecutors with proper caseloads. That's a lot of propers but if we don't do it properly we're just pretending.

Any real police officer and any true prosecutor knows that there is only one target that matters and that is a just outcome. And not justice in some of their cases or even in most of them but for all of them. If you attach numerical targets to the work of the police and prosecutors you're a long way down the track to suborning them. The electorate exerts a populising force on politicians that is far removed from the requirements of diligent detective work and at odds with prosecutorial independence.

The dizzying explosion in the quantity of digital information that rape cases now routinely involve cries out for exceptional funding and personnel. Without that investigations will take much longer than they should and charging decisions will be delayed. That is what has been happening. Imposing targets will not rectify that situation it will simply and disastrously result in cases and defendants coming before the courts that have no place being there.

This naked political interference is not normal and it is dangerous. Nobody of conscience and understanding should welcome this proposal. If it is implemented the only real target will be justice herself and she'll be a sitting duck.