PACE in a digital age – can an app help to enhance legal safeguards? (ESRC Festival of Social Science)

PACE in a digital age – can an app help to enhance legal safeguards?

Digital technology is being used by HM Courts & Tribunals Service to transform the criminal process. Many court buildings have been sold with the intention of having online-courts, with guilty pleas to be entered digitally. It is essential that the police investigative stage keeps up-to-date with advances in technology, particularly if helping to enhance legal safeguards.

This event will present research findings to show how legal safeguards are currently being undermined, particularly in times of austerity with budget cuts reducing the number of police officers, and with cuts to legal aid funding. Digital legal rights is a fascinating concept and this event will examine how innovation can help to transform the way that suspects are dealt with in the criminal process. When informing suspects of their legal rights, for example, Vicky Kemp will show how interactive videos could be used to test for understanding of those rights instead of using text. Lesley Laver, a consultant legal psychologist and registered intermediary with the Ministry of Justice, will consider issues relating to assessment of vulnerability of suspects brought into custody. This will include considering how an app can incorporate a self-assessment screening to help highlight issues of vulnerability early on in the criminal process. This event will provide an opportunity to discuss ethical issues arising, both from a practitioner and users’ point of view.

A half-day seminar for the police, lawyers, Legal Aid Agency, appropriate adults and intermediaries.

2.30pm: Networking and refreshments
3pm: Seminar

Organiser: Dr Vicky Kemp, Principal Research Fellow, School of Law