Page 101 - JUSTICE Tackling Racial Injustice - Children and the Youth Justice System

the MoJ engages with academics who research sentencing data and share
the necessary data with researchers to measure bias within judicial
decision-making.

4.57 We understand that the Magistrates’ Association has set racial
disproportionality in the YJS as a policy priority, 277 and intends to introduce
training on this issue, as well as to continue to provide resources to its members
to raise awareness of the issue.

4.58 The initiatives we propose in Chapter 3 would aim to reduce such bias in
decision making. Moreover, evidence shows that peer-review encourages
individuals to check their own work and decision-making. 278 This is the
approach that the courts in the State of New York have taken. The courts
commissioned an internal review and allowed judges, clerks, court watchers,
court officers and lawyers to be interviewed on the topic and for
recommendations to be made. 279 We see no reason why such a review could
not take place within our own court estate, and the Courts of England and
Wales should establish internal peer-review initiatives to increase scrutiny
of judicial decisions.

4.59 The CPS has also established good practice in both internal and external
scrutiny, as highlighted by the Lammy Review. Internal scrutiny includes a
systematic review of charging decisions, with each prosecutor also having at
least one randomly selected case reviewed each month. These reviews are
undertaken by the prosecutor’s line manager. Despite this practice, we note
that improvements can still be made, particularly in the YJS. In a recent
inspection, HM Crown Prosecution Inspectorate found that the CPS’s youth
charging policy was fully or partially applied in only 68% of cases, and not
applied at all in 32% of cases. 280 Moreover, the CPS’s internal scrutiny

277 M. Gammon and J. Easton, ‘Disproportionality in the Youth Justice System’ Magistrates Association,
2019.
278 H. Park and J. Blenkinsopp, ‘The roles of transparency and trust in the relationship between
corruption and citizen satisfaction’, International Review of Administrative Sciences 77(2) 254-274,
(2011).

279 J. Johnson, Report from the Special Adviser on Equal Justice in the New York State Courts, October
2020.
280 HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, 2020 Charging Inspection: a thematic review of the
quality and timeliness of charging decisions, (September 2020), p. 14.

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