Part 2: Double Jeopardy and Beyond

For our last official criminal justice class, we heard from five more teams of students about their research projects. (At the students’ request, we also scheduled an extra evening session to watch the third best movie ever made about the law and lawyers—answer at the end of this post.) Once again, the students worked on a wide range of topics and, once again, I learned from the students. Here are some quick takeaways along with a brief discussion of one of the topics—double jeopardy, or more accurately, the absence of double jeopardy protections in the UK. Presentations. I continue to be impressed by the availability and transparency of official UK government reports about its criminal justice system, even when critical of the government. For example, in 2017 the National Audit Office released its report on mental health care in UK prisons, one of the topics of the student presentations. The report did not pull any punches. It stated simply that the government does not know how many people in prison suffer from mental illnesses. Consequently, government officials “do not know the base they are starting from, what they need to improve, or how realistic it is for them to meet their objectives.” Similarly, the student team presenting on police encounters easily located UK government reports on racial disparities in stops and searches, such as here, here, and here. The findings are disturbing, but their frankness reflect a commitment to addressing the problems and provide a common basis for moving forward. I [...]