The Centre for Justice Innovation seeks to build a justice system which all of its citizens believe is fair and effective. We provide hands on support to front-line practitioners, conduct research into how things work, and could work better, and promote evidence-based policy solutions.

We are looking to recruit an enthusiastic intern to support the work of the Centre’s Women In Justice Programme. The position is full-time for a fixed period of four months starting in September 2024 and pays the London Living Wage.

What will I be doing?

Evidence review

One of the primary roles you will undertake is a review of the existing evidence base around the profile and vulnerabilities of women engaged in the criminal justice system. This review will seek to synthesise evidence about both the prevalence of vulnerabilities of justice involved women and the mechanisms between those vulnerabilities and their offending. Findings from this evidence review will be key in supporting the development of messaging for policy makers, as well as contributing to the milestones below.

Analyse data to extract meaningful insights around the complex needs of women who come to court.

Our previous research into the vulnerabilities and unmet needs of people who come to court, and people’s experiences of the court process, all suggest that we must do much better to make the court process fairer. This is especially the case for women, who often have disproportionately high complex needs, and who often also have contact with the child protection system. This work will bring together evidence on the needs of women who come to court, in part by exploiting existing Community Advice service data to identify the number and profile of women attending court with support issues, as well as developing case studies. The evidence review will also play a core role in developing a picture of the evidence around the needs of women coming to court.

Contribute to the delivery of Women in Justice policy and practice priorities:

You will also support the delivery of our strategic aims in this area, in part through the findings of the evidence review. In particular, you will work with others to deliver the following milestones:

• Analyse findings from recent fieldwork to develop recommendations to promote long-lasting change for community support for women with substance use disorders. Findings from the evidence review will ensure the recommendations are concrete and practical for policymakers, local authority commissioners and service providers.

• Support the event management of a workshop convening practitioners working in, and interested in working in, problem-solving courts for women. Findings from the evidence review will be shared within the workshops to stimulate and inform discussions.

• Promote the evidence for the use of problem-solving courts for women with policymakers. Summary findings from the evidence review will support the development of messaging for policy makers.

Development and engagement

Beyond these milestones, you will also support the development of the Centre’s Women in Justice programme, helping us develop our capacity to articulate the links between our work on women in contact with the criminal justice system and other relevant areas of work including family justice, women’s substance use and violence against women and girls. This work may involve working on the development of funding bids and supporting the Women in Justice area of focus leads in their work and stakeholder engagement. You will also attend any relevant events and parliamentary meetings that happen during this time, such as APPGs and VAWG conferences.

Support across the research team

In addition to working on the evidence review, you will support other members of the research team with research activities as required. This might include activities such co-facilitating interviews, coding transcripts, and holding an online workshop with participants.