Our refreshed mission for the next two years
I am pleased to announce the launch of our new two year strategy, which was published yesterday. This strategy, which refreshes and builds on our original 2020-2024 strategy and recent impact, was created in consultation with our members and trustees in the past few months. It builds upon the evidence base we have established over the previous years and takes into account the new landscape we find ourselves in today. This includes the impact of the pandemic and the challenges and opportunities this affords, but also low levels of trust and confidence in policing, the creation of integrated care systems in the NHS, and longstanding racism in the system gaining a more acute focus from wider society.
We identified five key areas in which we can make a difference, to best achieve our mission to break the cycle of crisis and crime for the ‘revolving door’ group. This work is guided by the strong, well-founded belief that if we fix the system to address the unmet needs driving people into repeat offending, such as trauma, poverty and discrimination, then we reverse the numbers of the greatest churn in the criminal justice system. And, more importantly, we support them to reach their full potential.
Our primary areas of focus will be:
- Diversion and prevention
- Sentencing and probation
- Procedural justice
- Rethinking and resetting the system
- Organisational resilience
All the evidence points to diversion out of the criminal justice system and early intervention as being key to turning lives around. We will build upon our work in this area for young adults and beyond, working with the police, courts and wider support services to advocate for their availability and suitability for the revolving door group. A person centred-approach, as recognised as a legal requirement within health services, should be mainstreamed across all systems and services to ensure that people are given genuine chances to succeed. We will also work on local practice applying a procedural fairness lens.
We know that we cannot achieve this ambition alone, which is why we will sustain our partnership approach to influencing policy nationally and practice locally. This work will be underpinned by our unique model combining research, policy, and influencing all grounded in recent lived experience of the system – this is our greatest strength. Members across our different lived experience forums are clear on where our focus should be, namely on high level systems change but also honing in at a micro level to treatment on the ground which should be trauma informed, rooted in dignity and respect.
As an organisation working within the multiple disadvantage space, we also know that only focusing on one area won’t address the full scope of reform needed to achieve our ambitions. This is why we will also be taking a step back to reimagine what a wholesale rethink and reset of the criminal justice system could look like from a diversity of voices. If we set our ambitions higher as a society, we can make the revolving door inevitable.
We will soon be sharing more details on how we plan to implement this strategy in practice, and what our new priorities entail. In the meantime, we invite you to sign up to our newsletter to keep up-to-date with our latest news.
To find out more about how you can get involved in our work, please visit our ‘Work with us’ section.
