Debate contribution: Criminal Justice System: Failure to Transform
Debate contribution by Mr Paul Frew on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Frew
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 6 October 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Criminal Justice System: Failure to Transform
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5157404
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I beg to move
Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I propose the motion with genuine concern. The House should also be genuinely concerned, not from a party political stance but because of an absolutely damning report that was published in November 2024 by CJINI, an organisation that exists to inspect the criminal justice elements of the Department of Justice. The House should be concerned that, since that report was published nearly a year ago, very little, if anything at all, seems to have been done to try to improve the situation in our criminal justice system. That is damning in its own right. Not only do we have a report that is damning, but we have inaction from the Justice Minister on trying to improve things. If a state cannot protect its people, it has a massive problem. One of the priorities of any state should be to keep its people safe. That is why the criminal justice system is so important. That is why it will always be a priority in a Programme for Government. There are two Programme for Government priorities in that regard: ending violence against women and girls, and safer communities. All the indicators for the safer communities priority are going in the wrong direction. On personal safety, there is no change. On worrying about crime: no change. Crime prevalence rates are worsening. Processing times for criminal cases: worsening. Safe town and city centres: worsening. That is the Programme for Government. Then there is the CJINI report. The purpose of the criminal justice system is to reduce crime, bring offenders to justice, protect the public, provide victims of crime with justice and ensure that justice is administered in a fair and just way. If that is going wrong, what is the point of a Department of Justice, or the Minister of Justice? She is presiding over failure. The Assembly must step up and take notice, which is why we have tabled this motion. Change has been slow, and strong leadership is not there. The inspectors made three recommendations for improvement, including one at a strategic level, which is:
"Within six months from the publication of this report, the Department of Justice should facilitate Criminal Justice Board members' agreement of a shared future vision and strategic priorities to deliver transformational change and innovation across the criminal justice system. These should be clearly communicated and reflected appropriately in organisations' Corporate and Business Plans."
Where is that? Why has that not been done? It is now over nine months since that damning report was published. Where is the action? Where is the urgency from the Department and the Minister? We see none of it.
Another target that relates to the Department of Justice is:
"Within six months from the publication of this report the Department of Justice, members of the Criminal Justice Board, the Director General of the Northern Ireland Prison Service, and the Chief Executives of the Probation Board for Northern Ireland, the Youth Justice Agency and Forensic Science Northern Ireland should review the purpose and membership of existing programme and project boards, working groups and other fora with the aim of reducing duplication to release capacity. This should be aligned with the prioritisation outlined in this report's Strategic recommendation. Appropriate staff resource capacity and skills required for meaningful participation and decision-making authorities should also be considered."
Where is the action on that target? Why have we not seen it? Why has it not been published? Why has the Assembly not seen any purposeful action from the Minister of Justice and the Department? That is failure. Not only is the report from CJINI damning but the inaction from the Minister is damning. It demonstrates nothing but failure. A lot of people criticise the Executive, me being one of them, for having a silo mentality and for parties working in different ways, but here we have a Department that is working in silos. The PSNI, the Public Prosecution Service (PPS), the courts, Forensic Science Northern Ireland (FSNI), the Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS), the Probation Board for Northern Ireland (PBNI) and the Youth Justice Agency (YJA) all come under —.
Yes, I will give way.
I stand corrected by the Minister. Thank you very much for that education. I would, however, like to hear from you what actions you have taken as a result of the CJINI report. I see nothing being done. That is damning. That is why I stand here today asking the Minister to bring forward her plans to try to fix the justice system.
No, I will not give way, because I am going to run out of time. Where are the Minister's plans to do away with the silo approach? All those organisations play a fundamental role in the Department of Justice and in everyday life. They deal with victims of crime, yet the Department and the Minister are letting those people down. We know that criminal justice is not easy to address. We know that things are really difficult and challenging in the criminal justice field, but it seems that no work is being done to address the findings of CJINI's report. The report basically states that we are presiding over failure: a failure to transform the criminal justice system. Technology has moved on, and it should be being used for the benefit of victims, witnesses and everyone else associated with the criminal justice world, but it is not. If anything, there is a perverse realisation that technology is slowing down and thus hurting the criminal justice system. It is wrong that the technology that is in place to make things efficient is being used incorrectly, thereby creating inefficiencies. That is how perverse the situation is, and it should not be the case. Something is going badly wrong. We want to be assured that the Minister of Justice has things in hand, has both hands on the steering wheel and is delivering the transformation that everyone, including CJINI, wants to see, yet, we are seeing nothing happen. It is therefore really important that the Minister of Justice spell out today to the Assembly what moves she has made and is going to make in response to the CJINI report on transforming the criminal justice system. It is unforgivable that parts of her Department do not work well together or do not come together to create efficiencies. The buck must stop with the Minister, however. She must be the one who is held accountable for the failures of her Department. That is what we want to hear from her today in the House. It is what the public and all the people who are caught up in the criminal justice system waiting for their day in court or all those who are on remand and need to get through the system want to hear.
It is really unfair on victims when they finally get to court and realise that, even though a sentence has been handed down for a criminal act, that person can walk free because of the time that they have spent on remand. Even when people are on remand, they do not get the support from the Prison Service that they need for rehabilitation and justice for the crimes that they have committed.
No, I will run out of time, Minister, but you will have plenty of time to address the House and the points that I make. The report is damning. I hated reading it. I read it, and it is damning. I want the Minister to bring to the Assembly proposals that will improve things. It is on the Minister of Justice and the Department of Justice, and it is about time that the victims of crime saw results.
1,292 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.05 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.93).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- Subject area: Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues.
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.03 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.03 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.03 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.03 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.93 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.05 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.39 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.36 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.24 |
| Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:26 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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