Perceptions of Summary Criminal Justice in Scotland

2 Knowledge and Understanding of the System

General Understanding and the Tiers of Justice

2.1 There was an overwhelming declaration among participants that they knew little or nothing about Scottish Summary Criminal Justice. Even when the question was widened to include all tiers of criminal justice (solemn and summary), knowledge and understanding was limited for all those who attended:

“There’s a court case, someone is prosecuted, someone is charged as a result, end of the system as far as I’m concerned.” (Livingston)

“I’m not aware of any of the details. I wasn’t even sure of the difference between this [Summary Justice] and Solemn.” (Ayr)

2.2 The main reasons given for this were a lack of direct involvement or engagement with the justice system:

“I think unless you’ve had first-hand experience of it, you don’t know anything about it at all.” (Aberdeen)

“In general, nobody’s gonna really have an opinion until it affects you.”

(Ayr)

“I think unless you’re actually involved, you wouldn’t know.” (Livingston)

2.3 Instead, people stated that much of their information or knowledge was based on the experiences of others, and the resulting second-hand tales of what the justice system involved:

“I don’t have any understanding at all. … I have no experience whatsoever. It’s all hearsay.” (Livingston)

2.4 People’s main direct contact with the justice system had been either as a result of being called for jury service, as a witness (often not actually resulting in an appearance at court) or as a witness to a minor crime, which was reported to the police but proceeded no further.

2.5 There was, in particular, a lack of awareness of the different levels of court (High Court, Sheriff and Jury, Sheriff Court and Justice of the Peace (JP) Courts). While some people thought that all court cases were heard in front of a judge and jury of their peers, others knew that some were heard in ‘lesser’ courts, but were unable to define or otherwise explain their understanding of what such courts might be:

“I didn’t realise that all of the lesser crimes were dealt with without juries and in a different kind of court. I just simply didn’t know that.” (Livingston)

“’Cause sometimes when you get called for jury duty, they say, “Oh, you can all go away ‘cause he’s pleaded guilty”, so I just assumed that everyone else went to a jury. That’s what I thought.” (Livingston)

“You know there’s a difference, but you don’t know what they’re all called.” (Aberdeen)

2.6 When the differences between solemn and summary justice were explained, some people expressed surprise at the level of seriousness of some cases that were classified as ‘summary’, including dealing in Class A drugs and serious assault. There was particular surprise that such types of cases did not involve a jury.

2.7 The type of court that people knew least about was JP courts, and there was also no clear awareness that Justice of the Peace (JPs) positions were non-paid, publicly filled posts and were open for non-legally qualified members of the public to apply:

“You never hear about any of these [JPs], about how they started. I had read something about Children’s Panels, but I’ve never heard about this [recruitment of JPs]. (Livingston)

2.8 None of those who took part had a good understanding of the presence and role of JPs.

Raising Awareness of JP Courts

2.9 Given the lack of awareness of JP courts generally, it was suggested by some participants that there might be scope for greater public awareness of JP courts, including education around the types of disposals that they could hand out, and the increase in the sentencing powers that took place under the Summary Justice reforms. Indeed, that was considered especially important in order to reassure the public that JP courts would deal seriously with crime:

“I think people need to be aware that it’s not a lesser court. You know, it’s still the justice system. “Well, I’m only going to ‘baby criminal justice’, rather than Sheriff’s court”, but they might just think, “Well, I’ll do it anyway ‘cause I’m only going to that one.” (Aberdeen)

“I think there is a great danger that you would think it wasn’t being taken seriously if you were the victim. It’s when you see the sentence. If it becomes a soft option, and it becomes known that it is a soft option, then it would infuriate you. But, if you know that JPs will treat it seriously, then that would be fine.” (Ayr)

2.10 Given the greater movement of a wider range of low level offences to JP courts, it seems likely that increasingly more members of the public may become aware of their existence and role over time. This may be either due to being cited themselves or through the experience of others cited to attend such courts^[10]. Raising their profile among the public was suggested by a small number of those who took part in the workshops, since they felt that there may be public appetite for such knowledge.

2.11 There was a feeling among a small number of participants that JPs may be particularly credible sentencers for some low level community based offences, when JPs were seen as being representative of their communities, and thus likely to empathise with those involved in the case:

“I think the other positive thing about Justices of the Peace is that cases that go to these courts versus more serious cases that are heard by a jury, it’s introducing the element of an ordinary member of the public, advised by a legal adviser. But again, rather than a Sheriff, a Justice of the Peace is an ordinary member of the public and it’s moving somewhat towards not a professional, legal person and that to me is fairer. It’s the same principle as being tried by a jury. A jury of your peers.” (Livingston)

2.12 Others contested this view and stressed this would only be true if the JP appointment process worked as intended. Some participants were concerned that the voluntary nature of JPs meant the exclusion of those who have to work for a living (perceived to be the majority), leading them to question the ‘worldliness’ of some people who choose to put themselves forward as potential JPs:

“[JPs need to be] people who know what’s going on in their own street. Not someone who just lives in a posh house.” (Livingston)

“The altruistic side of giving yourself for no reward, invariably falls for those with time, which supports the ‘life experience’ element...but it precludes those who, out of necessity and I for one, have to go to work to earn money” (Livingston)

2.13 Thus, it seems that reassurance about the selection criteria for ensuring fitness-for-purpose was crucial to some of the participants’ acceptance of a system that relies upon volunteers, assisted by legal advisors, for administering justice. Overall, however, the notion of JP courts, although not well understood, was something the participants seemed to engage well with and view as a reasonable way of administering localised, community sensitive disposals.

Sources of Knowledge

2.14 Data from the pre-event questionnaires provided a summary of the main sources of information that informed participants’ knowledge and understanding of the justice system. Table 2.1 below shows the main sources of information that were cited. It is important to reiterate that those with direct recent experience of the justice system were deliberately not recruited to the groups.

Table 2.1 Sources of Information about the Summary Criminal Justice System^[11]

Source	Number of Responses
TV - factual programmes such as the news or documentaries	32
Newspapers	29
TV - drama, e.g. Taggart	9
Friends’/family’s experience	9
Own personal experience	6

Base: 56

2.15 Although many people cited TV programmes as a main source of knowledge, they also stressed that they were unsure about the factual accuracy of the programmes they viewed:

“You get information from TV dramas but you don’t know how exaggerated that really is.” (Ayr)

2.16 For example, when the word ‘bail’ was mentioned, participants thought this referred to a sum of money that was paid by the accused for their temporary freedom - based on televised American films or dramas - rather than a means of protecting victims, witnesses and the public through the setting of special conditions placed on the accused, or restricting their liberty through standard bail conditions.

2.17 The second main source of information was newspapers, both local and national:

“I don’t really know much about it, just stuff you read about court in the papers, the ‘Evening Express’ and stuff like that.” (Aberdeen)

2.18 Again, there was some suspicion that the media was responsible for wrongly presenting the justice system, and presenting a negatively biased view of the justice process and outcomes. This included presenting all young people as deviant, and only ever reporting cases where the accused was found guilty, instead of cases where accused were found not-guilty:

“I think it would be good to publicise when people are not guilty, so you know that they are not guilty. All you hear about in the press is that they are guilty.” (Aberdeen)

2.19 Some people suggested that media reporting of ‘good deeds’ would help to provide a more balanced view. As one of the expert panellists explained:

“You don’t get the ‘Robin Hoods’, you just get the ‘Hoodies’.” (Aberdeen)

2.20 Such one-way media reporting was viewed as having a role in fuelling public concern about crime, and even to create an impression of rising crime rates, and overall perceptions that the majority of crime was of a more serious nature than is the case. This was evident from comments that were made by many of the participants once factual information had been presented to them at the events:

“Quite surprised that the crime rate has dropped, I thought it was getting worse. And I didn’t know that the High Court dealt with such a small percentage of cases. I thought that serous crime was perhaps a higher percentage.” (Ayr)

2.21 Several views were also expressed which suggested that they felt that media publicising of high profile cases were unfair to both victims and accused:

“I think it maybe should be kept confidential in terms of for the victim and the offender. Again, he [the accused] may not be guilty and the victim may not want it all through the papers. I think it should be kept more confidential than it is until the outcome of the case. I don’t think it should be written about every day, what has happened.” (Aberdeen)

“I don’t think they should be reporting on cases that are still being heard and things….I don’t think the press should be able to report things when they’re still being investigated. (Ayr)

2.22 Interestingly, therefore, whilst there seemed to be an interest in factual crime and justice information, and a hunger to learn about the system, there was also an expressed preference for cases only to be reported on conclusion, in fairness to victims and witnesses, and to be more balanced in terms of their reporting, such that ‘good news’ also reaches the wider public.

Assumptions about Effectiveness, Efficiency and Fairness

2.23 Discussions with participants had a specific focus on the extent to which people considered the system to be fair, effective, efficient and quick and simple. Overwhelmingly, people did not convey feelings that they perceived the system to be fair, and this was mostly because their knowledge base was informed by ‘bad news’ stories and vicarious experience of poor treatment in court, where people had no direct court experience themselves. The system itself was seen as largely inaccessible and, in some cases, operating at a bureaucratic level rather than to serve the ends of justice:

“When you learn that someone has been let off because of the process, as opposed to they did or did not do the crime”. (Livingston)

2.24 Similarly, people generally did not express views that the system was effective, and this was largely linked to perceived high levels of re-offending:

“There isn’t a day that you don’t open a paper and you see that people have re-offended again.” (Livingston)

2.25 This is interesting because reconviction rate data held by the Scottish Government^[12], which can be used as a proxy for re-offending rates, shows that there has, in fact, been a decline in reconvictions over the past seven years. This ‘real’ change was not reflected in people’s perceptions, which seemed almost unanimously to be that repeat offending was on the increase. Indeed, the ‘revolving door of re-offending’ was taken as evidence that the system as it currently stands is not effective:

“If the system was effective there wouldn’t be any re-offending.” (Aberdeen)

“Effective, to show something is effective would be that people are not re-offending because re-offending is minimal, I guess.” (Livingston)

“’Cause, you do hear about people getting 20, 30 convictions and they keep getting more and more and what happens to them? How long does it take before they do something about it? Do they just keep letting them add up?” (Aberdeen)

2.26 Despite a lack of knowledge, there was an assumed efficiency of the system, with most people stating that they knew that the system was ‘in the background’ and simply trusting that it was working:

“Thousands of cases must be heard successfully every week, month, you know. So, it must be working in the background or else it would be total anarchy.” (Livingston)

“Probably, I think it’s like a lot of these things that, in the background you know it’s there and it works, but if you don’t have personal experience, unless you’re really bored you never think, “I think I should find out more about the criminal justice system” but you want it to be there and working just in case you ever do need it.” (Livingston)

2.27 On quick and simple, there was again limited awareness of how long cases would take to progress through court yet there was a shared desire for case processing to be quicker than was perceived to be the case at present.

2.28 When informed of typical duration between incident and day in court, many participants were surprised. Perceived slowness of the justice process eroded their confidence in the system, and they thought that the (seemingly) protracted process must be a further burden on victims and witnesses. There was speculation that slowness must play into the hands of the accused, as it meant victims had to put up with the pressures for longer, as well as making it harder for the witness to remember what had happened:

“If cases fail either because: the victim walks away, the accused is able to find a method of getting out of it, or the witnesses forget, it would be interesting to discover how many cases fail in those three areas. And then note if we run on for six or more months, we invariably lose it because the victim is unwilling to carry on with the pressure or the witness fails to remember, we would then get better results by contracting the duration” (Livingston)

“Maybe just to be quicker, short time between the offence and the actual outcome of it. ‘Cause, it seems to take an awful long time, you read about things that have happened and it seems to be quite a long time after it. I’m not sure why it takes that long for it to get through court to be honest.” (Aberdeen)

“It seems to be a problem generally. You go to court and they plead guilty/not guilty, and they defer the case for two months, three months, whatever, till they appear again, and it seems a waste of resources - police time, court’s time, solicitors’ time. Just a waste of resources.” (Aberdeen)

2.29 That said, most people also did not want to see speed at the cost of effectiveness, as the following discussion among two Livingston participants highlights:

P1: “I just read quick and simple and I think “cheap and cheerful” and I don’t want that. If someone was to say, “The Scottish Summary Criminal Justice is quick and simple”, it’s a bit negative is it not? It’s just the use of words. It just triggers my blood. “Quick and simple”, it’s like a ready-made meal.”

P2: “The only thing is that we live nowadays in an awful instant world, and people are wanting answers right away… You can’t get quick and simple answers as to why something happened. ’Cause that can tend to mean that we’re sitting in this society where you press a button on a computer and you get an answer right away, and we’ve kind of evolved into a society like that, and everything isn’t quick and simple.” (Livingston)

2.30 The main message therefore, seemed to be that, although almost all participants did not feel sufficiently well informed to comment on the efficiency of the system they quite confidently expressed that the system was not fair, effective, quick or simple despite having little or no direct personal experience of it.

Appetite for More Knowledge and Accessible Justice

2.31 Overall, there was a general agreement between, and within, groups that lay people would like to know more about the system:

“But, don’t you think the overall combination of what we’re talking about is that if the general public knew the details of what was going on they would appreciate and accept the JP system, the Sheriff Court and the High Court system. I would say, at the moment, 90% of people wouldn’t know. So, people need to be informed.” (Livingston)

2.32 Indeed, people asked for more accessible sources of information about the system, other than those that are currently available, and more proactive awareness-raising of the system in communities, to counteract some of the perceived biases presented by the popular press.

2.33 In order for people to achieve a greater understanding, participants stressed that there was a need to remove the antiquated terms and existing technical language that create barriers for the public in terms of understanding how the system operates. As it stands, existing sources of information were considered inaccessible:

“Before I came here I went online to have a read about it and I was really surprised. It was too difficult to understand.” (Aberdeen)

“Please would you translate the word ‘diet’?” (Livingston)

2.34 Continued use of jargon that has no use anymore in the outside world was seen as ensuring that barriers would remain between the lay person and the legal profession. Many of the participants perceived the use of jargon to be precisely for this purpose (i.e. to make it difficult for ‘ordinary people to understand’). Participants found it difficult to see how anyone could justify the use of antiquated terms, such as: ‘Procurator Fiscal’; ‘diet’; ‘Summary’; and ‘Solemn’ in this day and age. There was no direct support for the continued use of such terms among those who took part.

2.35 Use of ‘ordinary language’ and proactive awareness-raising would, it was suggested, result in a more transparent and open system and, therefore, one which was perceived to be more fair and meeting the needs of the public:

“…everybody that is involved in it, victims and accused as well, people need to understand the process, without them using complicated jargon that people will not necessarily understand. Just an uncomplicated process.” (Livingston)

2.36 Overall, when exploring knowledge and understanding of the system, all of the participants demonstrated a shared and level footing of having relatively little or no knowledge or understanding of the system. Ideas for improving its transparency were also uniform.

2.37 The following chapter goes on to explore the particular types of information that people expressed a desire for as well as their perceptions of the current system based on the limited exposure that they had had, and the information presented to them during the workshop events.