Performance Tracker 2025: Criminal justice system

Introduction

Criminal justice is coming apart at the seams and the mood across the sector is bleak. Performance problems in policing, criminal courts, prisons and probation mean services have been in crisis management mode for years. This makes it hard to do longer- term strategic thinking, leads to inefficient use of public money, and creates frayed and adversarial relationships between services and departments.

The Starmer government has earned itself some goodwill from the system. It acted early and decisively on entering office to tackle the problem of prison capacity, and launched dual reviews on sentencing and criminal courts soon after. These, accompanied with the appointment of experienced prison reform campaigner Lord Timpson as prisons and probation minister, have been well received and generated much-needed hope.

But the situation is still grim. Backlogs in the criminal courts continue to grow quarter on quarter and long-term reforms to get the system back on a sustainable footing have yet to be announced. Depending on how quickly the Sentencing Bill moves through parliament and how successfully it reduces demand on prisons, further emergency prison releases may be necessary as prisons again approach capacity. Details of promised police reforms, originally due in spring 2025, have been delayed – and the home secretary replaced in the interim. And there is the prospect of how the system would cope with any further violent disorder, like that seen in July and August 2024 and threatened in Essex this summer.

But there are some reasons for optimism. Despite rises over the last two years, crime remains at historic lows. As justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood emphasised the importance of a systemic response to criminal justice, recognising the interdependence of the different parts of the system. ¹ House of Commons, Hansard, ‘Courts and Tribunals: Sitting Days’, vol 763: debated on Wednesday 5 March 2025, https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2025-03-05/debates/04627A5E-E10E-4D14-98EF-9164949B89F4/CourtsAndTribunalsSittingDays  She has since become home secretary, and changing secretary of state in the midst of major reforms is far from ideal. But taking this recognition of interdependence and an appreciation of the scale of the challenges in the justice system into the Home Office is very welcome. And the principles of public service reform set out in the 2025 spending review ² HM Treasury, Spending Review 2025, Cp 1336, The Stationery Office, 2025.  offer a solid foundation for an ambitious ‘safer streets’ mission.

To get there, the government needs to reduce demand across the criminal justice system, both to stabilise the system itself and to allow for longer-term thinking and partnership-building by organisations within and outside it.

The system cannot currently cope with the level of demand

No part of the criminal justice is currently meeting demand. The best performing of the justice services we look at is policing – but even that is dogged by recurrent problems, with frequent failures on professional conduct and standards ³ His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, State of Policing: The Annual Assessment of Policing in England and Wales 2023, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, 2024, https://hmicfrs.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/publication-html/state-of-policing-the-annual-assessment-of-policing-in-england-and-wales-2023/  and the police inspectorate repeatedly criticising forces for “failing to get the basics right” on things like answering the phone, investigating crime and bringing offenders to justice. ⁴ His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, State of Policing: The Annual Assessment of Policing in England and Wales 2023, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, 2024, https://hmicfrs.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/publication-html/state-of-policing-the-annual-assessment-of-policing-in-england-and-wales-2023/

In prisons, failure to ‘meet demand’ does not just take the form of insufficient spaces and emergency releases, though these naturally get the most coverage. It also results in prisons failing to provide access to education and courses for prisoners, ⁵ HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Annual report 2024–25, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, 2025, https://cloud-platform-e218f50a4812967ba1215eaecede923f.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/19/2025/07/Annual-report-FINAL.pdf  or even to meet prisoners’ most basic requests, like more toilet roll for their cells. ⁶ HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Easier said than done: resolving prisoners requests, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, 2025, https://cloud-platform-e218f50a4812967ba1215eaecede923f.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/19/2025/03/Easier-said-than-done-web-2025.pdf

Inability to cope with demand has led to serious delays across the system. This is most acute in the crown court, which deals with the most serious criminal cases, and leaves defendants, victims and their families in limbo for months or years. But this is a problem well beyond the crown court. The mean case in a magistrates’ court in 2024 took six and a half months to be brought to justice from when the offence was committed – 42% longer than in 2010 and 23% longer than 2016. This increase has occurred at every stage of the process: it takes longer from offence to charge, from charge to the first court hearing, and from the first hearing to case completion.

Demand on each criminal justice service is heavily affected by activity in others

Demand on one part of the criminal justice system is typically the output of another. The number of cases entering the court system is heavily influenced by charges brought by the police, the prison population is determined by courts remanding or sentencing people to custody and the probation service recalling people to prison after release, and probation caseloads are in turn determined by prison releases and court sentencing practices. All too often, this eventually circles back round again with the police investigating and arresting repeat offenders that the system has failed to rehabilitate.

Some of this is ‘failure demand’, where performance problems in one service have knock-on effects for others. This can most clearly be seen with the growth in the crown court backlog and the number of prisoners on remand (awaiting trial or sentencing). As the backlog has grown rapidly since 2019, the remand population has also shot up and now accounts for 20% of all prisoners. ⁷ Ministry of Justice, ‘Offender management statistics quarterly, January to March 2025’.

This has been a key source of the prolonged prison capacity crisis since 2022. While many of these people would be in prison anyway, as they will ultimately be given a custodial sentence, some 30–40% will either be acquitted or receive a non-custodial sentence.^* Even for those who do go on to get a custodial sentence, many serve longer on remand than they would have spent in custody if they had been sentenced immediately (though it is not currently possible to quantify how many defendants this applies to). This has serious human costs to people in prison, as well as taking up desperately needed – and expensive – prison places.

_{*    This proportion varies considerably over time and between magistrates’ courts and the crown court. In 2024, 60% of defendants in closed cases who served time on remand received an immediate custodial sentence, 70% of those remanded and sentenced in the crown court and 33% in magistrates’ courts. Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal justice system statistics quarterly, December 2024 (Remands data tool 2017–2024)’.}

Services are also highly reliant on other parts of the system to do their job well

Criminal justice agencies are highly interdependent and good or bad performance in one reverberates across the criminal justice system. The relationship between the police, the CPS and the criminal courts provides several helpful examples of this.

Efficiency and effectiveness in the courts is heavily reliant on the availability and preparedness of CPS prosecutors. Trials are frequently delayed and sometimes dropped altogether because prosecutors are not sufficiently familiar with the details of the case or simply not in court: 5% of all scheduled crown court trials in 2024 were rearranged on the day because the prosecution was not ready or failed to disclose evidence to the defence (3%) or the prosecution advocate was absent (2%). ⁸ Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, January to March 2025’.  The prosecution dropped the case on the day in a further 6% of crown court trials, and 16% of magistrates’ court trials.

Delay may be appropriate if a prosecutor is picking up a new case, and if a trial is unlikely to lead to a conviction it should not go ahead, even if that means a last-minute cancellation. But these have serious knock-on effects for court productivity. There are similar problems affecting the defence. The total proportion of trials rescheduled because one side was not ready or had no advocate present has doubled from 5% in 2016 to 10% in 2024. ⁹ Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, January to March 2025’.

But the CPS is in turn reliant on high-quality investigations and case files from the police. In recent years, there has been a push for the police to seek more pre-charge advice from the CPS, ¹⁰ Hopkins M, Ayres T, Burton M and Hodgkinson S, Progression of cases submitted by the police to the CPS for charging decisions, Home Office, 2025, www.gov.uk/government/publications/progression-of-cases-submitted-to-the-cps-for-charging-decisions/progression-of-cases-submitted-by-the-police-to-t…  as well as changes to procedures for how the police prepare case files. This may have improved charging decisions and case file quality, but has also substantially increased the CPS caseload, as well as the work that has to be done by the police to prepare files for sharing. ¹¹ His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services and His Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, Joint case building by the police and Crown Prosecution Service, 2025, https://cloud-platform-e218f50a4812967ba1215eaecede923f.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/24/2025/07/HMCPSI-HMICFRS-Joint-Case-Building-Inspection-Repor…  There are similar interdependencies between prisons and probation in terms of appropriate preparation for release and effectively managing risk in the community.

These dependencies can be a source of significant tension. A recent joint inspection by the police inspectorate and the CPS inspectorate on joint case-building highlighted frustrations in the relationship between the police and the CPS, in spite of recent efforts by senior leaders to improve this.

Difficulties arise from differing priorities, overly bureaucratic systems, multiple processes and poor information technology. There is no clear strategy for improvement being driven across the system and there is a lack of shared performance metrics. The data used by police and the CPS to measure performance is not trusted, incomplete and stokes tensions at a local level. – Police and CPS inspectorates ¹² His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services and His Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, Joint case building by the police and Crown Prosecution Service, 2025, https://cloud-platform-e218f50a4812967ba1215eaecede923f.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/24/2025/07/HMCPSI-HMICFRS-Joint-Case-Building-Inspection-Repor…

Some of this is driven by common problems across services. Workforce challenges, including shortages of key skills and staff inexperience, leave many criminal justice agencies struggling to manage their workloads. Technology platforms for inter-agency working are often not fit for purpose and exacerbate barriers rather than overcoming them. ¹³ Comptroller and Auditor General, Progress on the courts and tribunals reform programme, Session 2022-23, HC 1130, National Audit Office, 2023, www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/progress-on-courts-and-tribunals-reform-programme-1.pdf ^{, 14} His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services and His Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, Joint case building by the police and Crown Prosecution Service, 2025, https://cloud-platform-e218f50a4812967ba1215eaecede923f.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/24/2025/07/HMCPSI-HMICFRS-Joint-Case-Building-Inspection-Repor…  These problems mean that partnership working is too often seen as a source of increased work and frustration, rather than a means of achieving shared outcomes.

There is a lack of system leadership and no aligned strategic vision across criminal justice

The criminal justice system is a complex web of government agencies, private companies, charities and individual practitioners. Some of these are under the direct control of central government, like HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), or commissioned by them (including private prisons). Some operate under various local government structures – local authorities, combined authorities and police and crime commissioners – such as victim support, community safety and anti-social behaviour. Still others operate at arm’s length, like the CPS and HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS), or entirely independently, including defence lawyers and other prosecuting authorities like TV Licensing and the BBC.

This disparate web of authority and decision-making has crucial benefits, helping to ensure the independence and public legitimacy of the police, courts and lawyers. But it can also make it challenging to oversee and shape the criminal justice system as a whole and limits the immediate and direct control central government can exercise. Different agencies and actors have different and sometimes conflicting goals and incentives, and there is no strategic vision that aligns everyone across the system.

Improving strategic governance and coordination in criminal justice is crucial to better performance and productivity. The national Criminal Justice Board, a multi-agency partnership intended to provide strategic oversight and accountability,^* has failed to deliver this in recent years – and did not even meet for two years between July 2021 and 2023. ¹⁵ Comptroller and Auditor General, Reducing the backlog in the Crown Court, Session 2024-25, HC 634, 2025, www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/reducing-the-backlog-in-the-crown-court-1.pdf

“Unless the justice secretary has been in place for a long time, has the backing of the prime minister and is a big hitter, the Criminal Justice Board tends to be a place where the lowest common denominator prevails rather than where strategy is driven.” – Michael Gove ¹⁶ Gove M, ‘Justice and Home Affairs Committee corrected oral evidence: Prison culture: governance, leadership and staffing’, Tuesday 17 December 2024.

The safer streets mission should provide the energising framework needed to get all criminal justice partners signed up to a single vision. Goals on knife crime and violence against women and girls are well suited to this, as there is a long history of effective partnership working on some of these issues, from multi-agency risk assessment conferences (MARACs) for high-risk domestic abuse victims to Violence Reduction Units tackling public space and youth violence.

But the current Plan for Change ‘milestone’, an additional 13,000 police officers and community support officers (PCSOs) in neighbourhood roles, is of no use for this purpose. Increasing neighbourhood policing may help prevent crime and improve trust and confidence in the police, but mission goals should be based on outcomes, not inputs. It is also entirely policing focused, completely neglecting the other agencies – within and outside the criminal justice system – which are key partners in reducing crime and improving public safety.

Many of the current problems in criminal justice have their roots in failures to join up the dots across the system. Rebuilding the system requires a revitalised multi-agency partnership to set strategic direction, improve working relationships and provide a clear set of principles and priorities to galvanise activity across the system.

_{*    The Criminal Justice Board is chaired by the justice secretary and includes relevant justice and home office ministers, as well as senior representatives from the CPS, HMCTS, HMPPS, the Metropolitan Police, the National Police Chief’s Council, the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, the senior judiciary, the National Crime Agency, the Youth Justice Board, the Bar Council, the Law Society, the Victims’ Commissioner, the Criminal Justice Action Group and the Criminal Justice Board for Wales.}

Major sentencing and court reforms require investment and a more joined-up approach across the criminal justice system and beyond

The government has laid out plans for substantial reforms to sentencing, increasing the use of community sentences, ¹⁷ Ministry of Justice, ‘Sentencing Bill impact assessment’, The Stationery Office, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68b6a680b0a373a01819fd02/SIGNED_SR_Bill_IA_1_Sept_2025_FINAL__SIGNED_.pdf  expanding specialist intensive supervision courts^* and introducing stricter probation supervision. ¹⁸ Ministry of Justice, ‘Sentencing Bill impact assessment’, The Stationery Office, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68b6a680b0a373a01819fd02/SIGNED_SR_Bill_IA_1_Sept_2025_FINAL__SIGNED_.pdf  It is still evaluating its response to Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations for structural reform of criminal courts, but major changes are likely here as well.

Successfully delivering these reforms will require a joined-up approach that recognises the interdependencies of the different organisations involved and the ripple effects changes in one part of the system will have elsewhere, as described above. Additional investment, including in the workforce and in commissioned support services outside the formal criminal justice system, will also be crucial to handle the volume of work and deliver the potential benefits of reduced reoffending and better outcomes for victims, offenders and the public.

The most crucial example of this is in sentencing reform. The planned ‘earned progression’ model in prisons will see thousands of prisoners released after a third of their sentence, rather than 40% as now, and be subject to more intensive supervision once in the community. At the same time, the government is introducing a presumption to suspend all prison sentences of 12 months or less, meaning offenders avoid prison unless they breach the terms of their sentence, as well as expanding options for suspended and deferred sentences and the use of intensive supervision courts.

Altogether, these will ease pressure on prisons. But they will also substantially increase the caseload for the probation service, which is responsible for setting and monitoring requirements for offenders serving sentences in the community or after release from prison, and for responding when offenders breach these conditions.^** Managing this increased workload safely will require more probation officers and staff; ¹⁹ Ministry of Justice, ‘Sentencing Bill impact assessment’, The Stationery Office, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68b6a680b0a373a01819fd02/SIGNED_SR_Bill_IA_1_Sept_2025_FINAL__SIGNED_.pdf  in a service currently 30% below its target staffing level for qualified probation officers even before these changes are implemented this may prove difficult. Reforms or changes in priorities in other services, such as courts and policing, will similarly have knock-on effects elsewhere in the system.

The government has recognised some of these interdependencies and the need for investment. When then-justice secretary Shabana Mahmood announced emergency early prison releases just after entering government, she committed at the same time to hiring an additional 1,000 trainee probation officers by March 2025, to support the probation service to meet the additional demand. ²⁰ Ministry of Justice, ‘Lord Chancellor sets out immediate action to defuse ticking prison ‘time-bomb’’, press release, 12 July 2024, www.gov.uk/government/news/lord-chancellor-sets-out-immediate-action-to-defuse-ticking-prison-time-bomb  Having successfully hit that target, the government is now recruiting a further 1,300 by March 2026. It has also substantially increased funding for probation: in the 2025 spending review, the probation service was promised up to £700m a year of additional funding by 2028/29. ²¹ HM Treasury, Spending Review 2025, Cp 1336, The Stationery Office, 2025.  This is an increase of around 45% from 2025/26.

But we do not yet know how this money will be spent. The government plans to use electronic tags to monitor tens of thousands more offenders, ²² Ministry of Justice, ‘Tens of thousands more to be tagged under biggest ever expansion’, press release, 2 September 2025, www.gov.uk/government/news/tens-of-thousands-more-to-be-tagged-under-biggest-ever-expansion  which will require substantial investment in more tags and staff to monitor them. This is likely to take up a sizeable proportion of that overall increase in funding.

So will hiring new probation officers. Effectively managing more offenders in the community and trying to address the causes of their offending relies, however, not only on more probation officers to supervise them, but also on available support services – such as drug and alcohol, mental health, housing and employment support services. ²³ Comptroller and Auditor General, Improving resettlement support for prison leavers to reduce reoffending, Session 2022-23, HC 1282, National Audit Office, 2023, www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/improving-resettlement-support-for-prison-leavers-to-reduce-reoffending.pdf

Probation capacity cannot feasibly be scaled up fast enough to deliver these services itself, and in many cases is not best placed to do so. Instead, it will rely both on other public services (for example those provided by local authorities) and services commissioned from the third or private sector. Other proposed reforms, such as increasing neighbourhood policing and expanding out-of-court resolutions, would likewise place greater pressure on these other services. But as we show in our local government overview, councils are already facing acute financial challenges. Without knowing more about how the government plans to spend the cash injection for probation, it is impossible to know if it will be enough to meet demand for these support services and deliver the promised benefits of reform.

Criminal justice services cannot currently cope with the level of demand they are facing, particularly in criminal courts, prisons and probation. The Labour government has taken the right steps in its first year to try and reduce and redirect demand to make it more manageable, and to scale up capacity. The reforms being considered on the whole address the right problems and should improve performance – but only if they are adequately resourced and part of a joined-up, cross-system approach. Without this, the risk is an even greater crisis than the system was experiencing when Labour entered office last summer.

_{*    Intensive supervision courts are a type of problem-solving court that aim to take a rehabilitative approach to offenders with complex needs, diverting them away from prison sentences while addressing the causes of offending. Offenders are provided with support to address needs such as drug use and have regular reviews with the judge who sentenced them to assess their progress and apply incentives and sanctions as appropriate. Ministry of Justice, ‘Crime cutting courts to target prolific offending hotspots’, press release, 25 July 2025.
**    This increase will be partially offset by other changes to probation, such as allowing supervision to be terminated early if all requirements in the sentence plan have been met.}