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26.1 Custody Plus
26.2 Identity Cards
26.3 New laws to deal with animal rights protestors
26.4 Arrestable Offences
26.5 Search Powers
The Criminal Justice Act 2003 contains wholesale and sweeping changes to the criminal justice system, many of which are beyond the scope of this booklet not least because several of the provisions have yet to come in to force. These changes will be contained in future editions of this booklet when they have come in to force.
One of the new provisions is the system of punishing offenders known as “Custody Plus”. All offences currently punishable with a maximum of six months' imprisonment become punishable with a maximum of 51 weeks. All offences triable either way which are punishable on summary conviction with imprisonment will be punishable in the magistrates' court with a maximum of 12 months. Magistrates’ powers of sentence will correspondingly be increased to 12 months for a single offence.
For any of the above offences the term of any custodial sentence must be at
least 28 weeks. When passing a sentence of imprisonment the court must specify
a period (the “custodial period”) at the end of which the offender
is to be released on license (“the license period”). The custodial
period must be at least 2 weeks and not more than 13 weeks in respect of any
one offence. The license period must be at least 26 weeks in length.
License conditions will include requirements to do community service, curfews
by electronic tagging, supervision orders and exclusion orders.
In conjunction with the above new powers, certain summary offences punishable by 4 months imprisonment or less will in future be punishable for up to 51 weeks. These include inciting people to breach public order conditions on assemblies and processions and refusing to comply with a Section 42 direction to leave the vicinity of a dwelling (all currently 3 months). They also include refusing to remove a face mask and obstructing a police officer (both currently 1 month).
Other specified offences will no longer be imprisonable, but only one of these which is ever likely to affect activists, is the offence of “vagrancy”, which will no longer be an imprisonable offence.
Under this provision a court may on sentencing specify periods during which an offender may be released temporarily on license. Similar conditions to those described above may be attached to the license period.
Under this provision, as an alternative to prison offenders may receive a community service or be released subject to some other license condition eg a supervision or exclusion order.
The new laws described above are truly draconian in their extent. Under the current law, for example, if you obstruct a constable in the execution of his duty, you face a maximum sentence of 1 month in prison, of which you will only serve a maximum of two weeks. Under the new system a custodial sentence for the same offence could be for up to 13 weeks, followed by a license period of a minimum of 26 weeks. If you breach any of the conditions attached to the license period you could be recalled to prison.
The idea supposedly behind this radical change in sentencing powers is to allow magistrates to tailor a sentence to the specific offence. In practice we envisage that the new powers will be abused to impose even harsher penalties on activists engaging in minor public order offences.
As of August 2004, none of the provisions have come in to force and no date has been announced.
The government has introduced draft legislation for a national identity card. The card system will cost at least £3 billion and is likely to become a part of every day life for everyone living in the UK. While the government’s current proposal is for a voluntary scheme, if you choose not to apply for an ID card you may not be able to leave the country, drive, get a job and get basic health care. So the ID card will be compulsory in all but name.
For more info on the campaign against ID cards check the following websites:
http://www.no2id.net/
http://www.defy-id.org.uk/
In the wake of the media hysteria over supposed “animal rights extremism” in July 2004, the government announced that there would be several changes to the law designed to deal specifically with animal rights protests.
The first of these proposals is to amend Section 42 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 so as to make demonstrations outside homes illegal, where the purpose of the protestors is to persuade the resident not do something which he is entitled to do. This will effectively make all home demos illegal. It is proposed to make this an “arrestable offence”, enabling the police to arrest you after the offence was committed.
The second law directed at animal rights protestors is again aimed at preventing home demos. As the law currently stands, where someone has been required to leave the vicinity of someone’s home, they may return again the next day. Under the proposed law it is proposed to make it an offence to return to the vicinity of a dwelling within 3 months of being required to leave. Given that the police sometimes interpret the term “vicinity” as comprising an area of 50 square miles surrounding someone’s home, this power is certainly open to abuse by the police.
Under current law it is not possible to harass a large group of employees under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, as the Act was only designed to protect individuals and not companies. So someone could, for example, send 200 emails to 200 different employees and they would not engage in a “course of conduct” as each employee would only receive one email. The government is proposing to amend this legislation so as to make it possible to “harass” groups of employees within the meaning of the Act, so that an act of harassment against the one can amount to an act of harassment against any of the others. This would mean that you could, to use the above example, send as few as two emails to two separate employees and commit an offence under the Act.
The real reason for changing the law on harassment is that the current law is causing major problems for Huntingdon Life Sciences in their case against SHAC. In the most recent High Court ruling a judge identified grave difficulties with the use of the Act to prohibit lawful protest. The government is, therefore, proposing to change the law to make it easier for companies to stifle protest against them. The new laws will probably go through Parliament in autumn 2004 and become law in early 2005.
The Home Secretary, in his infinite wisdom, wishes to abolish the distinction between “arrestable” and “non-arrestable” offences (as outlined in pages 15-16 of this booklet). In a consultation document issued by the Home Office it is proposed to make all offences arrestable! It is argued that the current distinction is too confusing and bureaucratic and that it would be much more simple and straightforward to have the same arrest powers available for every offence.
In practice such a new power would clearly be yet another tool of oppression for the police to use against activists. Fortunately the government is not proposing to enact these proposals at the moment and it is to be hoped that they will be received with the widespread opposition they deserve.
In the same consultation document, the Home Office is also suggesting that the powers to search property become “more flexible” and more easily available to the police. As the law currently stands, the police can only get a search warrant under a limited number of enactments or where a “serious arrestable offence” has occurred. They can only search after charge if you have been arrested for an “arrestable offence”.
It is being proposed that the power of search be extended to anyone who has been arrested for an indictable or either way offence. The paper considers that the power could be extended to persons under arrest for any imprisonable offence, but considers this to be a step too far at present.
Again what is being proposed is a breathtaking assault on peoples’ civil liberties. The safeguards currently in place with regard to searches of dwellings are there for a good reason – to prevent the arbitrary use of power by the police.
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