The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the criminal justice system – a progress report

This report follows up on the ‘state of the nation’ report, published in January 2021, which outlined how the COVID-19 pandemic had severely disrupted services across the criminal justice system (CJS).

It is based on our combined inspection findings during 2021. The structure follows the flow of work through the CJS from policing to prisons. It sets out findings from our inspections, as well as cross-cutting themes, and highlights the successes of the CJS, but also the challenges that it has faced and still faces.

It finds that most agencies are not yet able to recover to their pre-COVID-19 position and warns that without a coordinated whole-system plan recovery is likely to be disjointed and risks further fracturing the criminal justice system in England and Wales.