Criminal Justice System Trauma

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Funded by the National Lottery Community Fund

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What is the Criminal Justice System?

 

The criminal justice system is a system of law enforcement that is directly involved in apprehending, prosecuting, defending, sentencing, and punishing those who are suspected or convicted of criminal offenses.

 

In simpler terms, it is a set of government institutions and systems that aim to apprehend, prosecute, punish, and rehabilitate criminal offenders. These institutions include Police, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Services (HMCTS) and Prisons.

 

UK Crime Facts:

 

​  8.4 Million crimes were recorded against households and people aged 16+ years in England and Wales in the year ending December 2023 (Office for National Statistics, June 2023)   87,000 sexual offences against children were recorded by the Police in the UK during 2022-23(NSPCC, 2024)    Fraud is the most common crime in the UK with 3.5 Million incidents in 2022-23(National Crime Agency, 2024)

​   There were 602 murders recorded in England and Wales in 2022-23(Statista, 2024)   Over 5 Million offences recorded in the year ending March 2023 (excluding fraud and computer misuse) were assigned an outcome(Gov.UK, 2024)  For the year ending March 2023, 5.7% of crime offences resulted in a charge or summons in England and Wales, so over 90% of crime goes unsolved(Statista, 2024)

 

The extent of unreported crime in the UK is unknown!

 

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Crime impacts the lives of everyone in the UK in one way or another:

directly

as part of community safety

financially and

many other ways!

 

Crime impacts on some people more than others so let’s look at how the criminal justice system impacts on some of those people…

 

Click on the four tabs below to find out more

 

Victims

 

Witnesses

 

Defendants

 

Their Family and Friends

 

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