infringements of civil liberties may occur. The Royal Commission in 1978 (also
referred to as the Phillips commission) on Criminal Procedure (1981) reported that
the prosecution system in England and Wales was un-uniform, a lack of consistency
in prosecution was being produced and this needed altered,the police were 'too
close' to the crime and a more ' objective' approach would be more beneficial, also
because of too many unsuccesful cases being took much money and court time was
wasted as there was lots of cases thrown out of court as a result of lack of evidence
and a final comment was that they believed a prosecution service seperate from
that of the investigation team could solve this.
The CPS was established as a result of this report and a white paper was
issued in 1983 which led to the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985. The Crown
Prosecution Service is not involved in the detection of crime, as that is seen as the
job of the police. The police pass cases on to the Crown Prosecution Service who
then review them and make the decision whether to follow them on or not(this being
the area that they are regularily criticised upon). In theory the formation of the CPS
was seen as an ideal solution to the problems presented above however in reality
the Crown Prosecution Service was problematic and has been greatly criticised,
such examples include in 2001 when Labour man John Prescot lashed out at a
protestor in 2001, the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute which
resulted in bad publicity, which in theory went against the key concept of the Crown
Prosecution Service which is "to contribute to the reduction both of crime and the
fear of crime and to increase public confidence in the criminal justice system by fair
and independent review of cases and by firm, fair and effective presentation at
court" The Crown Prosecution Service are completely independent of the police
although they work closely with them at all times. Finially the most obvious roles of
the CPS is to prosecute criminal cases fairly and effectively by: advising the police
on cases for possible prosecution ,reviewing cases submitted by the police
,preparing cases for the magistrates' courts and the Crown Court ,efficient and
effective advocacy at court and the instruction of private sector advocates where
appropriate and working with others to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of
the criminal justice system. However before proceeding with a prosecution, Crown
Prosecutors review each case against the Code for Crown Prosecutors ( The DDP
(at present- David Calver-Smith) is required by statute to produce and publish the
Code for Crown Prosecutors ), which lays down two tests.
These are:
* whether there is enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of
conviction against each defendant on each charge and, if so,
* whether a prosecution is needed in the public interest.
The tests are applied in this order, therefore the CPS cannot prosecute a case
unless there is sufficient evidence. To conclude i believe it has been made evident
that the general role to the operation of the CPS is: "to contribute to the reduction
both of crime and the fear of crime and to increase public confidence in the criminal
justice system by fair and independent review of cases and by firm, fair and
effective presentation at court", with all other jobs simply being seperate branches
to help and accomplish this task.
