Policy paper

Criminal Justice Bill: Overarching factsheet

Updated 23 February 2024

This was published under the 2022 to 2024 Sunak Conservative government

What are we going to do?

• protect the public and keep our neighbourhoods safe by giving the police and others the powers they need to cut crime and anti-social behaviour, including in response to the use of technology by criminals

• introduce tougher sentencing for sexual and violent criminals and strengthening the supervision of offenders following their release from prison

• improve public confidence in policing by ensuring that police officers adhere to the highest standards of integrity and professionalism

How are we going to do it?

The bill includes a range of measures, as follows:

1. Tougher action on knife crime. Enhancing the ability of law enforcement agencies to clamp down on knife crime, including: creating a power to seize, retain and destroy bladed articles found on private property; increasing the maximum penalty for sale of dangerous weapons to under 18s; and creating a new criminal offence of possessing a bladed article with the intent to cause harm.

2. Tougher action on drugs. Expanding police powers to drug test more suspects on arrest, helping direct more drug users into treatment and away from drugs.

3. Tackling anti-social behaviour. Giving the police and others stronger powers to improve quality of life by tackling the anti-social behaviour that blights communities and strengthening the accountability of community safety partnerships.

4. Replacing the Vagrancy Act 1824. A package of measures to improve lives and quality of life by tackling nuisance begging and rough sleeping where it causes damage, disruption, harassment or distress to the public, while avoiding criminalising the genuinely vulnerable. This includes creation of a new offence to tackle organised begging; move on powers for those engaged in nuisance begging and rough sleeping; and the creation of new civil notices and orders to prevent nuisance begging and rough sleeping.

5. Pursuing all reasonable lines of enquiry. Create a new targeted power for the police to enter premises to search for and seize stolen goods, ranging from mobile phones to stolen vehicles and agricultural machinery, and expansion of the lawful purposes by which the police can access the DVLA driver licence records. The bill also provides for an offence of trespassing with intent to commit an offence which will add to the powers of the police to swiftly apprehend and investigate predatory acquisitive and sexual offenders.

6. New powers to tackle serious and organised crime. Prohibiting articles used in serious crime (including templates for 3D printed firearm components, pill presses and vehicle concealments), banning electronic devices such as signal jammers used in vehicle theft, and strengthening the operation of Serious Crime Prevention Orders to make it easier for police and other law enforcement agencies to place restrictions on offenders or suspected offenders and stop them from participating in further crime.

7. New powers to tackle economic crime. Strengthening the tools available to law enforcement agencies to tackle fraud and economic crime, including prohibiting possession and supply of “SIM farms” with no legitimate purpose; reform of the confiscation powers used to strip convicted criminals of their proceeds of crime; extending the powers of law enforcement agencies to suspend domain names and IP addresses used for fraudulent purposes; creation of a scheme whereby the Government works with the financial sector to utilise monies in accounts suspended on suspicion of criminal activity to fund projects to tackle economic crime; further expanding the ‘Identification Doctrine’ so that companies can be held criminally responsible when the senior managers of that company commit a crime.

8. Tougher sentences. Imprisoning for longer those who represent the greatest risk to society. Introducing statutory aggravating factors at sentencing that will capture those involved in grooming gangs, or who murder their former partner at the end of a relationship, to ensure the punishment better fits the crime.

9. Strengthening the supervision of offenders in the community. The bill will give probation officers the power to polygraph test more serious offenders who have committed sexual or terrorism motivated crimes.

10. Tackling violence against women and girls. Creating new offences criminalising the taking of intimate images, which will build on the work we started in the Online Safety Act 2023 and expand the offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm to cover non-communication activity. We will also strengthen multi-agency management of those convicted of serious offences of controlling or coercive behaviour.

11. Ensuring victims see justice delivered. We are creating a new power for judges to order an offender to attend their hearings, with up to two years behind bars for those who refuse. The Government is appalled by the high-profile case of Lucy Letby and other high-profile cases who refuse to attend their sentencing hearings. We will make it clear in law that reasonable force can be used to make criminals appear in the dock.

12. Increase prison capacity. To ensure we always have enough prison places to protect the public and serve the order of the court, this bill will establish powers to allow adult prisoners in England and Wales to be transferred to rented prisons overseas. This is in addition to our programme to build 20,000 new prison places, the biggest prison build since the Victorian era.

13. Enhancing public confidence in policing. Following the publication of the Casey Review and the commitments made to the Hillsborough families, the bill will provide for a duty of candour for policing and give chief officers of police the right to appeal the result of misconduct boards to the Police Appeals Tribunal.

Background

The Criminal Justice Bill will support this government’s zero-tolerance approach to crime and anti-social behaviour, further delivering on manifesto commitments to: ensure police have the tools they need to make our neighbourhoods even safer; tackle the evolving nature of crime; and ensure criminals have no place to hide. Since 2010, successive Governments have made enormous strides on cracking down on criminals and imposing the toughest sentences for the most serious offenders. Due to these efforts, crime has fallen significantly since 2010. Overall crime, measured on a like for like basis, has decreased by 56%.

The bill will give effect to proposals set out in the following responses to consultations and policy papers:

• Part 2 of the Police and Crime Commissioner Review, July 2021

• Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy, July 2021

• “Modernising Communications Offences”, Government response to Law Commission report, February 2022

• Government response to the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation’s Review of Terrorism in Prison, April 2022

• Swift, Certain, Tough: New Consequences for Drug Possession, July 2022

• “Intimate Image Abuse”: Interim Government response to Law Commission report, November 2022.

• Ending rough sleeping for good, September 2022

• Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan, March 2023

• Economic crime plan 2023 to 2026, March 2023

• Fraud Strategy, May 2023

• Government response to the independent Domestic Homicide Sentencing Review, July 2023

• Consultation on new knife crime legislation to tackle the use of machetes and other bladed articles in crime: Government response, August 2023

• Police officer dismissals: Home Office review, September 2023

• Confiscation of proceeds of crime after conviction: Government response to Law Commission report, October 2023

How much will these measures costs?

The impact assessments published alongside the Act indicate that the current estimated cost of the measures in the Act applying to England and Wales is £54.1 million per year once fully implemented. The estimated monetised annual benefit is £56 million.

Will these measures apply across the United Kingdom?

All the provisions in the bill apply to England and Wale. Certain provisions also apply to Scotland and Northern Ireland. The provisions in the bill relate to a mixture of devolved and reserved or excepted matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.