ABSTRACT
Every year roughly 40 in every 1,000 people become defendants in magistrates’ courts. Since the last century criminologists have sought factors which distinguish ‘criminals’ from law-abiding citizens, but with a singular lack of success. Personality differences between defendants may, for example, mean that they respond in very different ways to the experience of being brought before the court. The extent of their knowledge and previous experience of the criminal justice process may also affect in different ways their reactions and their decisions when confronted with the possibility of a criminal conviction and punishment at the hands of the magistrates. In 1975 there were 680 adult magistrates’ courts in in England and Wales involving about 20,000 magistrates and providing approximately a quarter of a million court sittings every year. Whenever magistrates, whether lay or stipendiary, sit in court they must have a court clerk to assist them.
