Notification requirements and serious crime prevention orders factsheet (accessible version)
Updated 15 September 2020
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What are we going to do?
- The Act provides the police with strengthened powers to manage individuals convicted of terrorism or terrorism-related offences on their release from prison.
- These measures will help to close identified gaps in our current ability manage terrorist offenders following their release from prison.
Key quote
The long term management of terrorist offenders is critical to our ongoing responsibility to keep the public safe. The proposed changes will assist the police to identify and manage risk posed by convicted terrorist offenders.
Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, National Lead for Counter Terrorism Policing
How are we going to do it?
- By strengthening the existing notification requirements on Registered Terrorism Offenders (RTOs), police and other operational partners will be provided with important additional information which will help them to assess any ongoing risk posed by RTOs, and where necessary, to take appropriate action to manage and mitigate this risk. The Act also applies existing notification requirements to offenders convicted of terrorism-related offences in Northern Ireland, giving the Police Service of Northern Ireland the ability to better manage offenders.
- By ensuring that Serious Crime Prevention Orders (SCPO) can be applied for in connection with terrorism offences, we can impose conditions to protect the public from risks posed by individuals who are considered to have been involved in and to pose a continuing risk of involvement in serious crime.
Background
- Part 4 of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 provides a notification regime for individuals sentenced to 12 months’ or more imprisonment for a specified terrorism offence or (in England, Wales and Scotland) an offence with a terrorism connection. The regime requires notification of information about individuals’ names and dates of birth, addresses at which individuals stay and foreign travel.
- Operational experience has shown that these requirements should be strengthened to provide the police with additional information to enable risk to be managed. Mirroring existing requirements for Registered Sex Offenders, these gaps are being addressed to ensure that RTOs provide the police with the information required.
- Serious Crime Prevention Orders are used to prevent and disrupt further serious criminal activity, by those who have previously been involved in serious criminal activity. They were introduced by the Serious Crime Act 2007 but at present the list of serious offences does not expressly include terrorism offences.
What is a Serious Crime Prevention Order?
SCPOs are not punitive but preventative, and can be applied if there is a real risk that an individual will be involved in further criminal conduct from which the public requires protection. SCPOs may contain such prohibitions, restrictions, or requirements on an individual that the court considers appropriate for the purpose of protecting the public by preventing, restricting or disrupting serious crime.
What are notification requirements?
When someone is subject to notification requirements, they must provide the police with certain information, such as their home address or passport number, for a specified amount of time. This information allows the police and other authorities to monitor an offender and to manage any ongoing risk that they pose.
What notification requirements will be placed on individuals?
RTOs will be required to notify police of additional information, such as telephone number, details of bank accounts, and vehicles to which they have access. RTOs will have to register all trips overseas rather than, as now, only those lasting three days or more. The police will be able to enter the home of an RTO when in possession of a warrant for the purpose of assessing the risks that the RTO may pose to the community.
Are these measures new?
- No – the notification requirement for RTOs will be broadly aligned with those requirements in place since 2012 for Registered Sex Offenders.
- SCPOs already exist, with this Act simply adding terrorism offences to the list of ‘trigger’ offences in respect of which an SCPO may be made.
Will these measures apply across the United Kingdom?
Yes. At the moment in Northern Ireland the notification requirements only apply to a more limited range of offences than in the rest of the UK, but the Act will ensure that in future they will apply to all those convicted of terrorism-related offences. SCPOs can already be used across the UK.
Key facts
- In August 2017 there were 111 individuals in Great Britain subject to notification requirements following conviction for a terrorism offence.
- The notification requirements remain in place for a minimum of 10 years and for up to 30 years depending on the length of sentence imposed by the courts.