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See other news storiesThree crime bills become law
9 November 2006
Three crime-fighting bills became law this week, improving the government's ability to protect the public from crime.
The three new Acts are tied in with the ongoing police and criminal justice reform, and will help police forces and courts work together more smoothly and efficiently in targeting crime and punishing offenders.
All the bills received Royal Assent on Wednesday, which is the final step in the process of becoming law.
Police and Justice Act
The biggest of the three Acts, the Police and Justice Act will have a wide-ranging effect on how police work. Among other things, 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
In addition, the Police and Justice Act will allow the government to transfer foreign prisoners without consent, 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.
Policing Minister Tony McNulty welcomed the Act, saying it will help give police the legal powers they need to tackle both minor and serious crime.
'Giving community support officers and other agencies the powers they need to respond to anti-social behaviour, low-level crime and truancy forms a central part of the measures outlined in this legislation, and will play a key role in our ongoing work to safeguard our communities,' he said. In addition, he added, 'at a national level, the new police powers this bill provides are essential in countering the very real threat we face from terrorism and organised crime.'
Violent Crime Reduction Act
This 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 two years in prison to four 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.
Mr McNulty said, while crime rates are stable and firearms offences are on the decline, 'we still need to do more to combat violent crime and make people feel better about their communities.'
The wide-ranging 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
Fraud Act
A major part of the government's effort to fight fraud, this Act ensures that the law keeps ahead of fraudsters who are using increasingly advanced methods in their crimes.
The Anti-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.
It makes it illegal to commit fraud by:
- pretending to be somebody you're not, or to be doing you don't do, or selling something or haven't got
- failing to tell people the truth about what you're doing
- abusing your position in order to defraud
Home Office Minister Gerry Sutcliffe called the Act 'an important contribution in the fight against fraud.' He said, 'It will remove the deficiencies in the existing provisions, and establish an effective criminal law that is flexible enough to capture the true breadth of fraud today.'
Solicitor General Mike O'Brien agreed, saying, 'This act modernises the criminal law on fraud, establishes a legal framework fit to meet the challenges posed by today's sophisticated fraudsters.
