The use of lay judges in England and Wales to preside over criminal cases is pretty unusual in the western world and although this system has been in place for many hundreds of years it seems that the magistracy is in crisis. This enlightening report by Penelope Gibbs of Transform Justice looks at…

The government has recently released data from the 2013 Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS), which examines the extent of crime against businesses in England and Wales. The CVS was previously run in 1994, 2002 and 2012, and is planned to be repeated in 2014. The 2013 CVS focused on premises in…

This interesting piece by Nigel Morris appeared in the on-line Independent on 3rd March A year-long parliamentary inquiry has concluded that laws criminalising women working as prostitutes should be scrapped and replaced with tough new penalties targeting customers and pimps who fuel the…

A new report by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) presents results from the world's biggest-ever survey on violence against women, revealing the extent of abuse suffered by women at home, work, in public and online. As well as demonstrating the wide prevalence of violence…

This press release from West Mercia makes for depressing reading, but emphasises how these organised telephone scams appear to be on the increase. Please follow the link at the end of this item to my new page on Nuisance (and fraudulent) Telephone Calls Press release: A Droitwich woman has lost…

This is the headline for a new You Tube video uploaded by Roger Evans, Greater London Authority Assembly Member for Havering and Redbridge In this short video about crime in London's High Streets Mr Evans talks about the findings of interviews with 32 retailers across London about their crime…