Misjustice: How British Law is Failing Women

Product Information

Organised by the campaign group Joint Enterprise Not Guilty By Association (JENGbA), which is threatening a legal challenge against the justice secretary, Robert Buckland, the rally was attended by about 200 family members and supporters of young people serving long sentences after joint enterprise convictions. This may encourage a rush to judgement - in a process described by psychologists as involving a high need for cognitive closure (NFC) - the desire for a clear-cut solution which avoids confusion and ambiguity. Twenty-five years have passed since Kennedy published Eve Was Framed, the groundbreaking precursor to her latest work.

While the synonyms wrong and injustice are close in meaning, wrong applies also in law to any act punishable according to the criminal code; it may apply more generally to any flagrant injustice. Measures include widening important laws which prevent adults in ‘positions of trust’ from engaging in sexual relationships with young people under the age of 18, bringing sports coaches and religious leaders in line with other occupations such as teachers and doctors.

For example, Misjustice’s section on honour killings lists two full pages of recent cases, alongside distressing details such as how the victim was killed. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) brought significant budget cuts and partially or wholly removed entire areas of civil law from the scope of legal aid – including most benefits, debt, housing, employment and immigration advice, as well as family law that doesn’t involve domestic violence. A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, [1] such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. With the exception of the accused, the key roles in the criminal justice system were the sole preserve of men until after the end of World War One. And going by the litany of horrors that Kennedy details in this relentless, often disturbing book, no wonder.

It’s a similar story in the adult courts, where there has been a “shocking escalation in the numbers of women being sent to prison” despite the already low proportion of women committing serious offences falling over the same period. Major streaming platform service Netflix has added our documentary series, 'Conviction' to its site.Wrongful convictions appear at first to be "rightful" arrests and subsequent convictions, and also include a public statement about a particular crime having occurred, as well as a particular individual or individuals having committed that crime. This occurs when forensic experts inadvertently or deliberately misrepresent the significance, validity or reliability of scientific evidence. Two Icelandic studies based on self-report conducted ten years apart found the rates of false confession to be 12. How can you be in prison because you were in the park but were nowhere near the murder that was being committed? English law has no official means of correcting a "perverse" verdict (conviction of a defendant on the basis of insufficient evidence).

The words grievance and injustice can be used in similar contexts, but grievance applies to a circumstance or condition that constitutes an injustice to the sufferer and gives just ground for complaint. In Western philosophy and jurisprudence, injustice is very commonly—but not always—defined as either the absence or the opposite of justice. As well as this , she talks about her first – hand struggles navigating through the legal sphere and trying to find a pupillage.

Despite many individuals needing access to lawyers, the cost of a lawyer can often be financially burdensome – and this is where legal aid is often needed. Women – whether criminals or victims – are still subject to the most antiquated of double standards. The Criminal Appeal (Scotland) Act 1927 increased the jurisdiction of the Scottish Court of Criminal Appeal following the miscarriage of justice surrounding the Trial of Oscar Slater. Three days before he was due to hang, the House of Lords ruled that defendants should be considered innocent until proven guilty, and Woolmington walked free. He was convicted in 2018 of robbery, attempted robbery and perverting the course of justice, with joint enterprise forming part of the prosecution’s case.

To be paroled, a convicted person had to sign a document in which, among other things, they confessed to the crime for which they were convicted.Both Hambrook and White were housed according to their gender identity rather than their genitals – can Kennedy really claim that this was inarguably the right choice and that there are no competing rights at stake here? A legal duty on local authorities, the police, criminal justice agencies, health and fire and rescue services to tackle serious violence through sharing data and intelligence. The embarrassment and loss of prestige that follows from admitting erroneous decisions may motivate investigators to continue down a chosen path and disregard evidence that points in a different direction.