The Better Justice Partnership aims to increase government support for early intervention and diversion by building an alliance to advocate for evidence-based policymaking.
This report discusses research undertaken in 2023 by UCL Associate Professor Tom O’Grady and research consultant Gemma Buckland. It is an attempt to see the world of criminal justice reform through the eyes of politicians and advisers. The researchers discuss what they think is politically feasible, and why they sometimes resist changes that reformers see as common sense. They make suggestions about how the Better Justice Partnership could go about achieving its aims of a more evidence based approach to crime and justice which prioritises early intervention and diversion.The central message of this report is that if it wants to be more impactful, the criminal justice charity sector needs to become more politically savvy.