Criminal Law Reform Now Network

The Criminal Law Reform Now Network (CLRNN) represents the creation of a new and flexible route for academics and other legal experts to take the lead in collaborative criminal law reform projects: proposing topics; defining policy recommendations; team-writing reports; and working with reform institutions to take recommendations forward.

Academics and other legal professionals have always played a valuable role in reform of the criminal law, both through critique of the current law as well as advocating or consulting upon reform options. However, established roles/routes of this kind come with significant restrictions - they may be reserved within a small pool of consulted experts; they may be restricted by the questions consulted upon; they may arise only once or twice in a life of a reform project; and in almost all cases, the start and end point for the consulted expert is defined narrowly. Without rejecting established routes, the CLRNN identifies and facilitates an alternative. Here, having proposed an area in need of critical attention, project specific teams of experts will work collaboratively over the full life of a project, creating reform recommendations, and communicating these directly to target reform institutions.

The CLRNN operates a cyclical structure, establishing new projects as others end. Following an open-call and meeting, the first two projects have been selected:

1) Review of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (CMA): When we consider the speed of technological change, including personal devise use and the increasingly sophisticated threat from hacking, it is little wonder that this 27 year old statute requires attention. Despite some amendment, proposers of this topic highlighted the potential need for a 'public interest' defence within the legislation (potential legislative reform), litigation surrounding the meaning of 'authorised' computer use (potential legislative reform), inconsistent sentencing of offenders (potential reform of sentencing guidelines), as well as a number of other precise concerns.

2) Review of the Private Prosecutions Regime: The potential for an individual or private group to instigate criminal proceedings (ie, as opposed to the state) operates a peculiar role within the current law, and has developed without systematic or principled review. Here, proposers were keen to explore the various ways private prosecutions are discontinued (eg, through CPS intervention and court practices), the involvement of police in investigation, the application of evidential rules, and so on. There is agreement that the law and practice in this area are inconsistent and can lead to unfairness, and so there is clear scope for reform recommendations: focusing potentially on legislation, CPS and Police practice, and court practice.

The CLRNN aims to unlock the potential of individual researchers whose reform ideas may not otherwise gain wider recognition, as well as creating an inter-disciplinary forum for testing those ideas with experts from across the relevant area (eg, including academics, practitioners, members of special interest groups, and so on). The CLRNN will not be tied to a single topic or institution, but will rather consider working on reform proposals across the criminal law piste (eg, substantive, procedural, evidential, sentencing), as long as a clear public need can be demonstrated, we can build a team with the relevant expertise, we are clear about the reforming institution targeted, and we believe that there is a real prospect of creating positive change.

We will create a cyclical self-sustaining Network that will continue to operate on new topics well beyond the life of our initial funding. Members of the CLRNN will be able to contribute through Project Team membership (when a project focuses in their area of expertise), evaluative comment at symposiums, as well as facilitating links and contacts relevant to project impacts.

The CLRNN is academically conceived as an outward looking collaborative project, both in terms of our research partners (eg, legal practitioners and other relevant experts), as well as our ultimate audience (eg, target reform institutions, as well as the public and press). Through collaborative reform projects, we aim to create practical and theoretically sound reform recommendations to be published widely, but crucially, we will also be working closely with the relevant reform institutions to maximise the chances for those recommendations to be taken forward.

Relevant impact therefore includes:

* NON-ACADEMIC PROJECT PARTNERS - Core to the CLRNN model is collaboration between academics and other legal experts across every stage of a project, and CLRNN Committee member Simon McKay (Barrister) has been particularly good at bringing practitioners into the Network. Within the first two CLRNN projects, for example, we already have a range experts committed to events: including legal practitioners, computer experts (including former hackers), public interest group representatives, and representatives from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Like their academic partners, these experts are attracted to the CLRNN as a flexible and open route into reform projects that they care about; as well as the opportunity to work with academics who may have a greater theoretical appreciation of the field. For both sides, it is about developing a project over a period of time with experts who think about the same problem in different ways, and to debate routes forward;

* TARGET REFORM INSTITUTIONS - There are numerous institutions involved in criminal legal reform, from the primary law debated in Parliament and the courts to the guidelines and procedures developed by the Sentencing Council, CPS, Police and others. Each of these rely on legal research and recommendations to pursue their roles effectively, and each may be targeted within a CLRNN Project. Our first two projects, for example, are likely to involve recommendations for changes to primary legislation (targeting Parliamentary reform), issues of sentencing consistency (targeting the Sentencing Council), as well as prosecution procedures (targeting the CPS, Police, and the National Cyber Crime Unit). The clear advantage for these groups is to receive fully worked reform recommendations from a multi-disciplinary expert group, and a CLRNN Committee willing to work with them to take those recommendations forward (both during and after the research and writing stages of a project);

* BROADER PUBLIC AND PRESS - All CLRNN projects will be conducted and published openly, and summarised for a broader public audience (eg, Reports, summaries, video talking-heads, website material, etc). The public have a strong interest in positive reforms to the criminal law, as well as seeing and understanding the collaboration of experts to achieve them. Therefore, as well as a consultative resource, the public becomes a central target for impact - in the drafting and dissemination of materials, and in the realisation of our recommended reforms. The press will be vital here as a way of communicating our work; with the CLRNN Committee working with the press for mutual assistance;

* OTHER JURISDICTIONS AND DISCIPLINES - The CLRNN represents a new and exciting structure for collaboration and policy development, and it is already a system that is being bought into by a range of experts across our first two projects and beyond. The opportunities offered here are extremely attractive, to both academic and impact beneficiaries and partners. It is also a structure that can be exported: to other criminal law jurisdictions (eg, we are discussing with Scottish academics), and to other legal disciplines (eg, our initial conferences in 2016 included 'Public Law Reform Now', and a possible network is under discussion).