The criminal justice systems in Britain, the home of “the rule of law”, are broken. England and Wales together spend more on prisons than any other country in Europe except Russia. There is a backlog of almost 65,000 cases as defendants wait for years to have their day in court, and with recent figures showing 42% of prisoners who take their own lives are on remand – meaning they haven’t been sentenced – this purgatory is costing not just money, but lives.

At a time of dwindling resources, here are concrete manifesto commitments that an incoming Labour government should make.

Since Uruguay became the first nation-state to fully legalise cannabis in 2013, Canada and half of the states in the US have followed suit, with a number of other countries having decriminalised the drug. Now the trend has come to Europe, with Malta and Germany having passed bills through their legislatures legalising the drug. The Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg are closely behind.

Interestingly, these countries are being........

© The Guardian