Poll: Should former drug addicts become magistrates?
After a think tank called for former drug addicts to be appointed lay magistrates to sit in specialist courts dealing with substance abuse-related crimes, what do you think?
Policy Exchange said the experiences of individuals who had turned their lives around could not be put to good use because of a ban on ex-offenders.
It also called for magistrates to be forced to step down after ten years in a bid to reduce the average age of a group which remained "overwhelmingly white, middle class and old".
An expansion in the number of "problem solving courts" dealing with drug addiction, alcoholism and mental health would form part of a reform agenda published next month, the think tank said.
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