Website reviews

Review of the CJ Scotland site for criminal lawyers

The Journal, January 2008, page 44

CJ Scotland

www.cjscotland.org.uk

CJ Scotland bills itself as “an independent resource about criminal justice in Scotland” and it has been running for a little over four years. It began (as many of the best websites do) as a small, individual effort but has grown in that time in both popularity and stature. While it is primarily a one woman labour of love, there does appear to be an editorial team of no fewer than six, and this contributes to a very useful website – especially for the criminal practitioners among you.

The website has recently begun publishing brief articles on various aspects of criminal law in Scotland. These can be viewed in HMTL or PDF and the site’s managers are always keen for more contributors. Most of the current authors are academics of one sort or another and thus the articles have a certain scholarly feel to them, but there are also interesting insights from those at the front line including a fascinating recollection of what it was like to be a teenager in Hamilton at the time the curfews were introduced for young people.

The main focus of the site is found closest to its original role as a news monitor. On a daily basis the news media are scanned and gutted for any content relevant to criminal justice in Scotland. The hyperlinks are then provided together with other links germane to the topic in question and sometimes a brief commentary from the team. Archived news items are available ordered by date, topic and alphabetically. There is also a search function, which is simple and works well, but limits you to one search every 30 seconds (somewhat frustrating).

A more in-depth service is provided in relation to criminal justice matters discussed in the Scottish Parliament. CJ Scotland’s Parliament correspondent provides a weekly report of the ruminations in the Justice Committee, relevant debates in the main chamber and any pertinent questions to the First Minister or other written questions. The report is a good summary of proceedings with some commentary and analysis included. There are good external links provided and (where available) links to the Parliament’s Official Report and Holyrood TV (www.holyrood.tv).

Both the news and Parliament sections are available to subscribe to using your RSS reader, so you can keep up to date as the site is updated.

During last year’s elections to the Scottish Parliament an election blog kept track of what the parties were saying on criminal justice issues while campaigning. This is primarily of historic interest now, but may be useful if you want to check up on whether the politicians are keeping to their manifesto promises.

There is an events calendar, which lists a few events – mostly seminars and the like discussing criminal justice matters. This page is sponsored by the Scottish Association for the Study of Offending (www.sastudyoffending.org.uk) and this organisation seems to be the organiser of most of the events listed here.

Various ongoing projects on the sites, including the human rights page and the James Devon project (which aims to provide the full text of Dr Devon’s 1912 work The Criminal and the Community) appear works in progress but will be well worth keeping tabs on.

A very few (seven) books grace the book review section, but the reviewers have done a good job of précising and commenting on the books that are included. Again a plea is made for further contributions (authors take note). There are two links pages, one covering links to sites on the history of criminal justice in Scotland, and the other with more contemporary links. Both seem to be well maintained and with only a few broken links. The survey of Scottish witchcraft may not be of immediate or pressing concern to many criminal lawyers, but it is an interesting read at least – and the modern links cover the full range of criminal justice issues in Scotland and further afield.

When compared with the variety of websites on civil law topics applicable to Scotland, there is a shortage of online resources for criminal law. This website is probably the best that is available in this limited field at the moment and also boasts a great deal of further potential. One to watch.