Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
Encyclopedia : C : CR : CRI : Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
| Acts of Parliament of predecessor states to the United Kingdom |
| Acts of Parliament of the Kingdom of England to 1600 Acts of Parliament of the Kingdom of England to 1706 Acts of Parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland Acts of Parliament of the Kingdom of Ireland |
| Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom |
| 1707–1719 | 1720–1739 | 1740–1759 | 1760–1779 1780–1799 | 1800–1819 | 1820–1839 | 1840–1859 1860–1879 | 1880–1899 | 1900–1919 | 1920–1939 1940–1959 | 1960–1979 | 1980–1999 | 2000–Present |
| Acts of the Scottish Parliament |
| Acts of the Northern Ireland Parliament |
| Acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly |
| Orders in Council for Northern Ireland |
| United Kingdom Statutory Instruments |
| Church of England Measures |
The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 was an act of parliament brought into law by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It introduced a number of changes to the existing law, most notably in the restriction and reduction of existing rights and in greater penalties for certain anti-social behaviours. The Bill was introduced by Michael Howard, John Major's home secretary.
Changes
Changes which had the greatest attention included: Sections 34-39 which substantially changed the right to silence of the accused, allowing for inferences from accused's silence. Sections 54-59, which gave the police greater rights to take and retain intimate body samples. Section 60 which increased police powers of unsupervised stop and search.
The whole of Part V which covered collective trespass and nuisance on land and included sections against raves (63-67, including the "repetitive beats" definition[#endnote_autonumber]) and further sections against disruptive trespass, squatters, and unauthorised campers — most significantly the criminalisation of previously civil offences. This affected many forms of protest including hunt sabotage and anti-road protests.
Part VII handled 'Obscenity and Pornography', banning simulated child pornography, harshening provisions dealing with the censorship and age restriction of videos, and also increasing the penalty on obscene phone calls.
The act also reduced the age at which homosexual acts are lawful from 21 to 18, and altered the definition of rape to include anal rape on men.
Trivia
In response to the introduction of the Act, electronic music group Autechre released the Anti EP, which satired the Act's definition of music by including a track which was advertised as containing no repetitive beats, making it suitable for playing at raves. The fifth mix on the Internal version of Orbital's Are We Here? EP was titled "Criminal Justice Bill?": it consisted of about four minutes of silence.
Footnotes
↑ The Act specifically defines "music" to include "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats."
See also
- SchNEWS, a newspaper set up to describe and promote direct action campaigning against the propostion (whilst it was still a Bill), then subsequently in defiance of the Act.
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.