A well-functioning justice system is fundamental to social well-being, supporting an inclusive and secure society and underpinning wider trust in the state. The justice system in England and Wales has been changed dramatically over the last decade through large-scale reductions in funding and a sequence of major procedural reforms intended to modernise the system. Despite the scale of change, and the central importance of justice to everyday social and economic life, to date there has been limited systematic economic and quantitative analyses of the impacts of these changes on access to justice, people’s pathways through the justice system, and wider effects on well-being for those experiencing the justice system. This project will address these knowledge gaps using research drawn primarily from the administrative datasets curated through the Ministry of Justice’s ‘Data First’ programme, funded by ADR-UK. The project will range across many of the system’s jurisdictions including administrative, civil, family, and criminal.
