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Topic for May/Jun 2026 - Redesigning the Justice System
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Our topic for May/June is Redesigning the Justice System. An introduction and the Agenda for the discussion is set out below.
Reinventing the Justice System
The justice system is central to a safe, fair and well-functioning society, yet many people experience it as too slow, too costly, too complex and too difficult to access. With growing pressures on courts, policing, legal processes and public trust, this may be the moment not just to improve parts of the system, but to rethink more fundamentally how justice is delivered in the UK.
It is important to be clear about our objectives for a rethought justice system. As a strawman and backdrop to the discussion we suggest that it should not be built only to process offences, but to prevent harm, establish truth, deliver fair outcomes, reduce reoffending and maintain trust.
Agenda
- Is the justice system working satisfactorily in the UK today? What are the main problems? Are our strawman objectives the right ones? What can we learn from how other countries perform and from approaches that appear to work better elsewhere?
- Is justice achieved and seen to be achieved? Does everyone have equal access to justice? How do we ensure the system establishes truth and works fairly for victims, defendants and society, not just procedurally but in lived experience?
- What is causing delay, backlog and friction across police, courts, prisons and probation? How could the system become much faster and more effective without compromising fairness?
- Are current sentencing approaches delivering justice, deterrence, rehabilitation and trust? Are prisons, probation and wider rehabilitation efforts working as a joined-up system? How should the system help more people leave crime behind and return to society successfully?
- Is justice achieved and seen to be achieved? Does everyone have equal access to justice? How do we ensure the system establishes truth and works fairly for victims, defendants and society, not just procedurally but in lived experience?
- How could the justice system do more to prevent harm and offending, not simply process cases after the event? Is there an international dimension to this?
- How should the justice system adapt to digital evidence, online harms, fraud, deepfakes and new investigative tools? How do we ensure these changes improve truth-finding, speed and fairness without weakening rights, safeguards or public trust?
- If we were designing the justice system for the UK over the next 20 years, what would it need to look like? What would we keep, change or replace? How would we establish trust?
- Is the justice system working satisfactorily in the UK today? What are the main problems? Are our strawman objectives the right ones? What can we learn from how other countries perform and from approaches that appear to work better elsewhere?
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The output for this topic is now available at: Justice System Redesign