What Matters To Us

Our priorities are;

  • Strong support for victims and witnesses
  • Fair, just and effective progression of cases through the system
  • Apprehension, punishment and rehabilitation of offenders
  • Promotion of joint work that reduces the number of people entering the criminal justice system

We will also engage nationally to shape debate and influence decision making.

Our success will be a safe community, confident in its criminal justice system.

Our Structure

There are four LCJB subgroups which deliver the work on behalf of the board

 

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Victims and Witnesses

We want to provide the best support possible to victims and witnesses in Northumbria.

The National Victims Code of Practice and the National Witness Charter are standards of care and support which victims and witnesses are entitled to receive. We are working to improve delivery of these and are also introducing an increased level of support for those victims of crime who need it most.

Prevention and Rehabilitation

We want to move people out of the criminal justice system.

One of the ways we will achieve this is through Integrated Offender Management (IOM). Together, our partners will work with offenders whose behaviour is causing the most concern in their communities.

We will also focus on first-time offenders to prevent further offending.

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Performance

We want to improve our performance by reducing delays and focusing on getting things right first time.

Good quality police case files will support this and encourage early guilty pleas, where appropriate.

This will reduce the need to keep victims and witnesses ‘on hold’ for a trial which, on the day, is unlikely to proceed due to a late guilty plea.

Public Confidence

We want the public to feel confident that we are working together to improve the criminal justice system locally.

Through a variety of ways we are seeking to improve awareness and understanding of our work.

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Domestic Abuse

Domestic Abuse is a cross cutting theme in all of our work. Sometimes we have time limited groups to focus on specific issues such as implementing a Domestic Abuse Best Practice Framework and the work of Specialist Domestic Violence Courts.

Success

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Our priorities are ambitious but will have the greatest impact locally.

We will measure and monitor success in every board meeting and in the subgroups.