§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department by what criteria the level of public confidence in the criminal justice system is to be measured under the 2002 Public Service Agreement for which he is reponsible; and, using the same criteria, what the level of public confidence was in each of the last five years. [71611]
§ Mr. Hilary Benn[holding answer 19 July 2002]: Responses to six questions in the British Crime Survey (BCS) will be taken as indicating the state of public confidence in the criminal justice system. The relevant questions are whether the public is confident that the criminal justice system:
— respects the rights of the accused and treats them fairly;— is effective in bringing people who commit crimes to justice;1460W— deals with cases promptly and efficiently;— meets the needs of victims;— is effective in reducing crime;— is effecting in dealing with young people.A target was set for the first time in SR2000 and we therefore do not have information before that period. Our first set of findings (31 January 2001) were:
— 69 per cent. of people are confident that the system respects the rights of the accused and treats them fairly (the confidence rates were 70 per cent. for white people, 52 per cent. for black people and 66 per cent. for Asians);— 46 per cent. are confident that it is effective in bringing people who commit crimes to justice (46 per cent. white, 51 per cent. black and 55 per cent. Asian);— 34 per cent. are confident it deals with cases promptly and efficiently (34 per cent. white, 38 per cent. black and 48 per cent. Asian);— 26 per cent. are confident it meets the needs of victims (25 per cent. white, 37 per cent. black and 42 per cent. Asian).New questions, which address crime reduction and tackling youth crime, were included in the most recent survey and findings will be published in the Autumn. Therefore, due to changes in the collation of the BCS, we do not have two sets of directly comparable data available.