November 9

November 9, 2006: Three Crime Bills Become Law

Three crime-related bills became law this week. The three new Acts are tied in with the ongoing police and criminal justice reform. The government argues that they will help police forces and courts work together more smoothly and efficiently in targeting crime and punishing offenders. All the bills have just received Royal Assent (the final step in the process of becoming law). The new Acts are the Police and Justice Act, the Violent Crime Reduction Act, and the Fraud Act.

The Police and Justice Act will have a wide-ranging effect on how police work. It will:

establish a National Policing Improvement Agency to reform the police
create standard powers for community support officers in order to provide nationwide consistency
allow the Home Secretary to intervene directly to help forces that aren't up to par, ensuring that improvements happen quickly
improve airport security by expanding stop and search rights for police in airports, in order to make travel safer
allow the government to transfer foreign prisoners without consent (the government argues that this will help ensure that more foreign nationals serve their prison sentences in their home countries)

This Act applies in England and Wales, and some provisions in it also extend to Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The Violent Crime Reduction Act gives police and communities stronger powers to tackle violent crimes involving alcohol, knives and imitation guns. It doubles the maximum penalty for possession of a knife from 2 years in prison to 4 years, and gives local authorities the right to charge alcohol vendors for the costs of fighting alcohol-related crime in areas with serious crime problems. The Act also gives school staff the right to search pupils for weapons. The Act will:

create 'drinking banning orders', which impose restrictions on those who commit offences while drunk, and can ban them from frequenting businesses that sell alcohol

allow police to ban people with previous records of alcohol-related offences from visiting pubs and bars in a certain area

increase the age of consent for purchasing knives and other weapons to 18

ban the sale of tickets to regulated football matches on the internet

create a new offence for reprogramming stolen mobile phones

The Fraud Act replaces the old, overly complicated laws with a simple, straightforward system, and establishes specific offences for possessing items used to commit fraud, and for making or supplying equipment that can be used to defraud.

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