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 are made much
harder by cuts to legal aid and the failings of our creaking justice
system. Over the course of 12 months, interviews were carried out on the
ground in a range of settings with people as they were caught up in the
justice system, in a range of settings such as foodbanks in a church
hall in a wealthy part of London; 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 the person concerned 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.