The British justice system is not only the parent of its American counterpart; from habeas corpus to the right to a fair trial, it has yielded many of the ideas that are now seen as foundational to the rule of law in the rest of the democratic world.
But since the United Kingdom's last general election, in 2010, British justice has undergone some of the most profound structural changes in its thousand-year history. And unsurprisingly, not everyone is happy about it. In fact, the government's record on this area has been so divisive that the entire future direction of the crime and justice landscape in the United Kingdom may well be up for grabs in 2015.
The current coalition of the Conservative and the Liberal Democrat parties entered power after 13 years of a Labour administration known both for its belief in a strong central state, and its willingness to back it up with new legislation. And these were perhaps nowhere more evident than in that government's approach to crime and justice. Reflecting at least the first half of his anthemic pledge to be "tough on crime; tough on the causes of crime," the 10 years of Tony Blair's premiership saw the creation of as many as 3,000 new criminal offenses in British law.
By contrast, however, the David Cameron-led coalition government combines the state-shrinking instincts of the Conservatives with the longstanding enthusiasm of Britain's third party, the Liberal Democrats, for devolution to local government, where they have historically had a more realistic chance of holding power. In crime and justice policy, this radical shift is most strongly seen in the creation of directly elected local police commissioners throughout England and Wales, with the exception of London.
This highly contested move handed most budgeting and strategic decisions down from the central Home Office to a new level of local political leadership. Partly inspired by similar models in the United States, enthusiasm among the reformists was so unguarded that the new roles even started out with the name "sheriffs" - a word that in modern-day Britain conjures images of the Wild West and Robin Hood. Despite strong resistance from Labour, civil society and rebels in the House of Lords, who felt the changes placed too much power in the hands of one largely unaccountable individual, the rechristened Police and Crime Commissoners were elected in late 2012.
A big change, apathetic electorate
It would be an understatement to call this a difficult birth. Voter turnout set a new low bar for apathy, at an overall 15.1 percent, and dipping to as little as 11.6 percent in one area. The first crop of candidates is best described as a mixed bunch, with few apparently combining the practical knowledge and the political nous necessary for the job. Several chief police officers resigned after finding themselves at odds with their new bosses immediately following their election. Many PCCs made early gaffes, including one who appointed a 17-year-old "youth PCC" to help reach out to young people, only to stand her down a week later when she was found to have made racist and homophobic comments on Twitter.
Within two years, the Labour opposition had promised that they would ditch the posts altogether, given the chance. This means that as the 2015 election approaches, there is an entirely unprecedented level of uncertainty over the basics of how policing in the United Kingdom is to be governed in future.
At the same time, the Home Office's sister department, the Ministry of Justice, has also been stirring up controversy. Under previous governments, privatization of what would be called correctional services in the United States has been comparatively limited in the United Kingdom, with just 12 percent of the prison estate not run by the public sector. As of February 2015, however, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has completed the outsourcing of around 70 percent of Britain's probation service to private providers, most notably to partnerships led by giant multinationals Sodexo and Interserve. Grayling says the market has better incentives to drive down reoffending, while the probation unions and Labour say a fractured system in inexperienced hands is a threat to public safety.
If that were not enough controversy for one term in office, another of Grayling's reforms has gone even further. His stewardship of significant cuts to the availability of legal aid on the basis of affordability has performed one of the rarest feats in British politics: It has radicalized the lawyers. The independence of the judiciary, who are unelected and largely of no interest to the public, is deeply embedded in Britain's constitutional settlement. Over time, this has led to a culture in which the entire legal profession makes a virtue of its disconnection from the sullying influence of politics. Against this background, it has been an authentic culture shock to see mass public protests by lawyers carrying a giant papier-mache effigy of the justice secretary through the streets - the media has been unable to resist poking fun.
The political reality is that however voluble their opposition, Labour is unlikely to reverse or significantly alter the changes to probation or legal aid. They are bound by signed multi-million pound contracts on the one hand, and the imperative not to make unfunded spending promises on the other. Even so, there is much to learn from the extraordinarily polarized narrative on crime and justice that has emerged over the last five years.
At a time when crime no longer appears in the top five issues of concern to British voters, reformists should note that justice as a public service still matters enough to wake sleeping giants like the legal profession, or the House of Lords, if changes are ill-considered or overly divisive. Meanwhile, those now defending what they see as essential rights and protections should ask themselves whether complacency and a failure to adapt of their own accord have contributed to the case for more dramatic change. And commentators, psephologists and even amateur election-watchers should note that, for the first time in a long time, Election 2015 will see the justice system, one of the oldest and proudest of all British institutions, decidedly in play.
