Pay-As-You-Go Street Justice
| DOI | 10.1350/jcla.2010.74.1.608 |
| Date | 01 February 2010 |
| Published date | 01 February 2010 |
| Author | Gary Slapper |
| Subject Matter | Opinion |
OPINION
Pay-As-You-Go Street Justice
Gary Slapper*
Professor of Law, and Director of the Centre for Law, at the Open University,
door tenant at 36 Bedford Row
Not all disputes require resolution in a law court. If you return a library
book late, and at the desk you are asked to pay a fine, the librarian
would react with surprise if you said you would not pay unless both the
library’s argument and your excuses were arbitrated by an independent
judge after both sides had had an opportunity to put their case with
supporting evidence in an open forum. People behind you in the queue
might also get a little restless.
In some situations we take it for granted that the machinery of justice
is unnecessary. Where, however, a situation involves someone having
been assaulted or raped or having been the victim of theft, instant justice
in the form of a caution or a penalty notice is commonly an in-
appropriate response.
That approach, however, is a progressively common feature of mod-
ern British life. It is bordering on a state of affairs in which officers carry
credit card payment handsets as standard kit. Within sight of an officer,
a football thug might approach a supporter of a rival club, punch him
with one hand and give a bank card to the officer with the other. Pay-as-
you-go offending. That is improbable but when you reflect on exactly
why it could not happen, you can see there is, in fact, not much between
where we are now and the society that could host such events.
Justice is not traduced by this new instant-solution solely in terms of
guilty people getting a soft sanction; it is also traduced because it is likely
that a proportion of innocent people caught in unfortunate circum-
stances are persuaded to accept a penalty notice or caution as a better
risk than going to court and exposing themselves to a full hearing. There
is a significant risk that suspects will feel pressured to accept a caution
(and necessarily admit guilt) unaware that this will remain on their
record.
The truth is that there has been an exponential rise in the use of
penalty notices for disorder (PNDs) since their introduction under the
Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, and this has commercialised
justice. Someone has removed the statue of Justitia with her scales and
sword and supplanted a cash register on top of the criminal justice
system.
Consider theft from shops. Crimes against business cost the UK
economy £19 billion every year according to the British Chambers of
Commerce. The cost to small businesses of shoplifting alone in 2008–09
* The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the views of The Open University or The Journal of Criminal Law.
1The Journal of Criminal Law (2010) 74 JCL 1–3
doi:10.1350/jcla.2010.74.1.608
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