Legal aid cut that will hit young is seen as a false economy | Jon Robins

Knock-on costs of £ 350 Youth Crime fuel cut and leave victims unprotected, activists

a point several times by "access to justice" as ministers consider hall thread of the legal aid system by eliminating £ 350 £ 2.2 billion cost of the plan are linked to d other government departments, taxpayers and ultimately to society. As legal assistance, conviction and punishment of offenders Bill passed by the House of Commons this week, it's worth making this point again.

is the social law that supports the weight of the cut. Of the ? 350 to be cut, just £ 280m civil, then goodbye to the law of social protection -. Advice on welfare benefits, employment, debt, immigration, and most of the houses (except for the homeless)

research to be published next week leading legal academic Professor Pascoe Pleasence establishes the link between the inability of youth to address issues of civil law and his own crime. According JustRights, a coalition including the Federation of Centres of law, youth access, the Howard League for Penal Reform and the Alliance for Children's Rights in England, reductions in legal aid will be "the fuel juvenile delinquency and youth out of crime victims unprotected. "

Due to cuts in some 69,000 young people between 18 and 24 and children of 6000 will no longer receive the legal aid funding. Covering 9040 cases of debt (£ 2.1 million) and 1990 cases of employment (500,000 pounds), 5680 cases of housing (£ 1.4 million). Advantages and 9130 cases (1.8 million pounds)

It will not surprise anyone that most of the same vulnerable children come into contact with the wrong side of the law. The study found that 55% of youth who had recently been arrested, and 63% of young victims of crime, have also experienced a problem of civil justice, often linked to poor housing, lower the debt problems and claim benefits. The dangers of disenfranchise young people came to light in the riots of the summer, according to Mandy Wilkins, director of youth in the program in the Law Centres Federation and co-chair of JustRights. "If there was ever a time for a unified approach to the justice system, it is clear," he said. In the current system, which costs the taxpayer £ 6,000,000 a year to advise the 25,840 children who are cut off from the pension scheme of law. This is a cost that is, as he puts JustRights, the equivalent of "42 juveniles in custody." It would cost the Department of Justice, more than that (relatively speaking) if only a small amount of each 445 of these young people are denied legal aid ended up in jail.

• cut legal aid was a false economy that affect the most vulnerable and socially excluded, warned the Commission of Inquiry into legal aid earlier this year in unequal before the law. The committee comprises three non-lawyers, the first Liberal Democrat Evan Harris, Diana Holland, Unite the union, and the Reverend Professor Nicholas Sagovsky, former canon of Westminster Abbey
"When combined with the human cost of the vulnerable and socially excluded from the reduction of legal aid, we find this increase in economic costs are unacceptable," the authors write. It was a point made more forcefully by the Citizens Advice. are calculated for each ? 1 spent on legal advice, housing assistance, the state saves £ 2.34 in costs and chain for every $ 1 spent on benefits a huge £ 8.80 is saved.

Finally, if you are looking for evidence of the common thought on legal aid policy by the government back now. Mediation is cited as a magic panacea for the problems afflicting the civil courts. While the legal aid system is hacked again, the ministers reached an extra £ 10 million to promote evangelical belief in the untapped potential of off-court agreement. "We give priority to mediation, which may be cheaper, faster and less sour than contested litigation," said Djanogly Parliament Monday.

You might be surprised to learn that his ministry has chosen this month for the ax to the National Mediation line, created in 2004 to direct people to a conflict of accredited mediators. On the other hand, maybe not. Earlier this year ministers pulled the plug on the site ADRnow, another important resource for the management of public mediation and public legal education organization PLENET.

The reasons for closing the helpline quoted by the Ministry itself could Djanogoly reason to question the minister of their faith in the mediation. Just as the ongoing costs of operating the hotline (£ 90 000 per year), citing "its effectiveness and its use by the courts." A spokesman said that in recent years calls, referrals and mediation settlements had continued to decline and that about two-thirds of all calls to the online help has nothing to do with the mediation. Frankly, this does not bode well.

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