CourtWatch London project

Transform Justice seeks to create a better justice system in the UK, a system which is fairer, more open, and more compassionate.  The charity uses research and evidence to show how the judicial system works and what needs to change - then persuade politicians and policy makers to make those changes.

The request
Transform Justice trains volunteers to visit courts in London and record what they see in terms of good and bad practice.The request was for statistical consultancy.The charity wanted advice on whether their courtwatch data were suitable for quantitative analysis and the potential to link quantitative and qualitative findings.

The approach
Data from nearly 900 court visits were shared with the Statisticians for Society volunteer, consisting of quantitative and qualitative data about the judiciary, the hearing, the defendant and the environment.  The quantitative responses were reviewed for data quality, consistency and missingness.  Advice was provided on quantitative analysis that could be undertaken such as data summary methods, statistical tests and visualisations and on using qualitative data to provide contextual illustrations of quantitative findings.
 
The result
The advice was provided to the charity in a written report and was discussed in a meeting.  Illustrative examples of some of the concepts discussed in the meeting were also subsequently provided.   Overall, the charity received reassurance that the data gathered were suitable for analysis, guidance on methods and advice on the extent to which insights from observations can be generalised.

Impact and benefits
Input from an expert statistician helped Transform Justice feel confident they were getting the most out of their dataset without overgeneralising the findings. The Statisticians for Society volunteer also gave suggestions for how the data collection forms could be tweaked to improve the quality of some of the quantitative data. The charity is now taking this on board as they prepare for the next phase of courtwatching.

Volunteer: Jenny Thomas 
Transform Justice Research & Policy Lead: Fionnuala Ratcliffe