Data and diversion: Why we need better data on offences resolved out of court
This post is the latest in a series from our project to map and fill data gaps in criminal justice.
Let’s imagine the police have caught you shoplifting and take you to the police station for charging. It’s the first time you’ve offended, you admit it and are deeply sorry. The police officers have a choice. They could charge you and escalate your case to a magistrates’ court. Here, you’ll probably have to wait months, alongside more serious cases, and only receive a fine or caution. This begs the question: is this delay, pressure and cost really in the public interest?
If the police decide the answer is no, they have another option: an out of court disposal (OOCD). Here officers can choose from various rehabilitative, reparative or restorative interventions, where you may be sanctioned, but importantly not referred to court. Instead, the police might require you to apologise to the shop owner, pay a fine, or attend a course.
Essentially, an OOCD is a faster, more proportionate and more effective way of serving justice for low-level offences.
OOCDs have positive outcomes - the evidence shows victim satisfaction rates are high and reoffending rates are lower than court disposals. They’re also cost-effective and reduce pressure on overloaded courts.
Why are CfPD looking at this?
OOCDs are an important (if little-known) part of our criminal justice system, and could really help tackle the court backlog. They’re also widely used - more than 200,000 are handed out each year. So it’s important we know how they’re applied, who receives them, and what happens afterwards.
It just so happens that last year’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act introduced the most significant reforms to OOCDs in a long time. The traditional six formal types of OOCDs were scrapped and replaced by a new, theoretically simpler system.
So as this new framework is rolled out later this year, it feels like a good time to reflect about what we do and don’t know about OOCDs, and the ways that data can help.
What are OOCD data gaps, and how can we solve them?
From research and conversations with justice experts, we were pointed toward some basic data gaps. Stakeholders wanted to answer simple questions such as: who receives OOCDs? What types of OOCDs are issued? What’s their effect on reoffending? These questions can’t be answered fully by the statistics currently available.
Having identified these concerns, and studied the underlying data, we’re making three recommendations to help fill these data gaps.
1. Better data on informal schemes
Although they make up the majority of all OOCDs, little data is published on informal OOCDs (aka diversionary schemes). Anecdotal evidence suggests that police forces use them very differently, and there is no clear national picture of what is going on.
Last year, the National Police Chiefs’ Council issued some welcome guidance on how informal OOCDs should be recorded consistently. And encouragingly, new rules come into force this year mandating forces to send the Home Office data on diversionary schemes.
We think the Home Office should commit to using this new data as the basis for better statistics on diversionary schemes nationwide. The crucial information that experts would like to see is:
What type of informal OOCDs are being used?
Who is receiving diversionary schemes?
For more detail, you can read our full briefing here.
2. Add OOCDs to reoffending statistics
There’s currently no comprehensive national data on reoffending rates for OOCDs - the MoJ’s proven reoffending statistics only cover cautions and disposals made in court.
But adding OOCDs to these would give us much better insight into how well these disposals help reduce reoffending nationally, and protect the public. Justice inspectorates have called for similar statistics to be published at the youth level.
We recommend that OOCDs should be added to these statistics, which we think the MoJ can do using its existing data sharing agreements with the Home Office.
3. Publish a meaningful evaluation plan
Stakeholders have been quick to raise concerns about the new reforms, particularly around the cost of the schemes. But the reforms’ impact assessment has little detail on how the regime will be monitored and evaluated - a significant missed opportunity.
We call on the MoJ to publish a meaningful monitoring and evaluation plan. This is an opportunity to produce much better evidence on how OOCDs are working, which will give police forces more confidence in them.
What’s next?
Stakeholders are confident about the benefits of OOCDs. Victims support them, outcomes for offenders are positive and they’re efficient. In youth services, OOCDs are widely used and have been credited with reducing the backlog in youth courts and diverting children away from the CJS.
But all too often OOCDs exist “under the radar”, with minimal public understanding of what they are, how they work, or who receives them.
We think the Home Office and MoJ now have an opportunity to do more to answer some of the simple questions stakeholders have. Hopefully, that can support a system that has clear benefits for victims, offenders, the police and the public.
For more details, download our full briefing.
This is the latest in a series of deep dives from our justice data gaps project and is funded by the Justice Lab, an initiative of the Legal Education Foundation, as part of their ongoing programme of research and advocacy to improve the quality and availability of justice system data.
If you’re interested in this or any of our other work, please get in touch. Thanks to Lucy Slade and Phil Bowen at the Centre for Justice Innovation for feedback on a draft of our briefing - any errors are our own.