UK: Criminal Justice Act (1)
01 January 1991
UK: Criminal Justice Act
artdoc March=1995
The movement of opposition to the Criminal Justice Act (CJA)
gained rather than lost momentum after the coming into force of
the Act's public order provisions at the beginning of November.
By the end of the first month of operation anti-CJA groups were
springing up and engaging in trespass campaigns all over the
country, while senior police spokesmen were denouncing the
provisions as `unenforceable' and discriminatory.
The existing law gave police powers to remove people and
vehicles from land, and was used to split up convoys of over 12
vehicles. Under the Act, these powers are extended, and
trespassing on land becomes an offence in various situations.
Failure to leave after a lawful order is an offence, or
returning to land once removed from it. Aggravated trespass -
trespass which obstructs, disrupts, intimidates or deters lawful
activity on land - is the offence hunt saboteurs can now be
charged with, and by the last weekend in November 65 arrests for
aggravated trespass had been made in hunts. The offence carries
a maximum penalty of 3 months' prison and/or a fine of £2,500.
Saboteurs say that hunts are hiring security firms and using
increased violence on them since the Act gave them the green
light; they have been hospitalised in North Yorkshire,
Northamptonshire and Sussex.
Mass trespass, or `trespassory assembly' occurs where a chief
police officer obtains a banning order to prevent a gathering of
more than 20 people on private land, to `prevent serious
disruption to the life of the community' or `significant damage
to land, buildings or monuments'. The police can stop people or
vehicles within a five-mile radius of such an assembly if they
believe the people intend to defy a ban, and it is an offence not
to obey. Organisers of a banned assembly face a maximum of 3
months and £2,500 fine; participants can be fined up to £1,000.
Campaigners from the Freedom Network and the Criminal
Injustice Act network began mass trespasses at road construction
sites on the M11 in east London and the M77 in Scotland.
Coalitions of anti-road protesters, squatters, new age
travellers, ravers and others stalled eviction from a front-line
road in east London for several days before leaving peacefully.
Protests
Other protests against the Act included a group invasion of the
Folkestone home of Home Secretary Michael Howard. The group held
a mock trial of his policies in his garden. Another group,
Justice?, held a rooftop demo on the abandoned courthouse
building in Brighton occupied by them for the past year after
lying empty for five years. The Act will also criminalise
squatting as `criminal trespass' if squatters stay for over 24
hours after being served with an interim possession order. These
provisions, which also penalise returning to a repossessed squat,
are expected to come into force within the next few months.
There has been strong criticism of the public order provisions
from police. Police Federation chair Mike Bennett said they were
unenforceable. `It appears to be legislation against a certain
section of the population', he observed. `It's a recipe for
disaster.' Manchester's chief constable and ACPO public order
spokesman David Wilmot, not known as a liberal, added that
justice `must be seen to be fair and not to discriminate against
particular groups in society'. He warned that the wholesale
criminalisation of caravan dwellers and travellers could lead to
a cycle of urban and rural violence.
Child jails
The creation of five secure training centres or `child jails'
for `persistent offenders' aged from 12 to 14, also provided for
under the Act, came in for criticism from Sir John Smith, deputy
Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis. He said that child
jails `don't work'. The idea that prison works to prevent crime
was, he said, a non-starter, and should be seen only as a
stop-gap unt