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SmartJustice is a fresh approach to crime and punishment, focussing on demarketing prison and promoting effective community solutions to crime for nonviolent offenders. It reaches out to the public using sections of the media not utilised much before by the prison reform sector including daytime TV, radio phone-ins and the tabloid press.
Initiated by the Network for Social Change, and run under the auspices of PRT, SmartJustice draws on the strengths of the Jubilee 2000 Cancel World Debt campaign. Since its launch in 2003 SmartJustice has built up an alliance of committed supporters including the National Union of Students, Business in the Community, the Prison Officers’ Association, the Churches Criminal Justice Forum and influential women’s organisations including the Soroptimists, the National Council of Women, the Catholic Women’s League and the Townswomen’s Guild.
SmartJustice informs government and briefs MPs and peers on community solutions to crime. By developing the SmartJustice campaign, PRT is able to increase public confidence in alternatives to custody.
Promoting alternatives to custody
Over the last two years SmartJustice has organised scores of positively evaluated talks about crime and punishment to community and civic groups and public events around the country involving ex-offenders and an acclaimed SmartJustice ‘revolving door’, a visual representation of the revolving door of prison and crime using street theatre and public art. Events have been staged in the North East, Birmingham and Manchester. A partnership was developed with Hackney council to market their crime prevention work. The campaign has succeeded in profiling innovative community service schemes. For example, SmartJustice coverage of Donna’s Dream House was used to inform all judges, magistrates and probation officers in training in Blackpool about the effectiveness of community penalties and also attracted significant funding to enable this project to work with offenders on a wider scale. In 2005 SmartJustice sustained work with local Women’s Institutes led to a motion on alternatives to custody being included in the top five annual resolutions debated at the WI national congress.
Reaching out to the public
SmartJustice has developed a website receiving 1,200 hits a day, a network of nearly 2,000 supporters and a wide-ranging database of best practice projects and effective community alternatives to prison. Thousands of people have signed SmartJustice pledge cards supporting alternatives to custody. We have now established an office in the North East that has had major success in promoting alternatives to custody in the local media and amongst the community and created a template for regional initiatives to improve public confidence in community penalties.
SmartJustice for Women
Building on PRT lobbying and research, SmartJustice has devised a targeted campaign to reduce the number of women in prison. SmartJustice for Women is fronted by Michelle Collins with two other celebrities, Sheila Hancock, and Clare Rayner. In Parliament the SmartJustice for Women EDM was signed by 87 MPs. The campaign has gained widespread support from major women’s organisations and considerable press coverage. | |
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