Justice in a Time of Austerity: Stories from a System in Crisis

How are poverty and social inequality entrenched through a failing justice system? In this important book, Jon Robins and Daniel Newman examine how the lives of people already struggling with problems with their welfare benefits, jobs, housing and immigration and made much harder by cuts to legal aid and the failings of our creaking justice system. Over the course of 12 months, interviews were done on the ground in a range of settings with people as they were caught up in the justice system: for example, foodbanks in a church hall in a wealthy part of London or a community centre in a former mining town, a homeless shelter for rough sleepers in Birmingham and a destitution service for asylum seekers in a city on the South coast as well as in courts and advice agencies up and down the country The authors argue that a failure to access justice all too often represents a catastrophic step in the life of that person and their family. This powerful, yet moving, account humanises the hostile political debates that surround legal aid and reveals what access to justice really means in Austerity Britain.