Draft Legislative Programme 2007/8

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND IMMIGRATION BILL

The purpose of the bill is to:

Take forward the Government's criminal justice reform agenda by reducing re-offending, protecting the public, promoting justice, improving access to justice and increasing confidence in the justice system.

The main benefits of the bill are:

building public confidence in the sentencing framework by imprisoning serious and dangerous offenders while others receive tough and effective community sentences;
ensuring that prison and probation resources are targeted at repeat, serious and violent offenders;
strengthening the pre-court and community penalties available for young offenders so that, wherever possible, offending by children and young persons is effectively addressed without the need to resort to custody;
ensuring that the police and their community safety partners have appropriate powers to tackle anti-social behaviour at its roots and thereby reinforce a culture of respect;
ensuring that the UK does not provide a safe haven for foreign criminals and terrorists and send a clear signal that such people cannot expect to secure a settled status in this country; and

The main elements of the bill are:

Removing the power to impose Suspended Sentence Orders for summary only offences and providing for non-dangerous offenders who breach the terms of their licence to be recalled to prison for a fixed 28 day period;
Violent Offender Orders, which will allow courts to impose post-sentence restrictions on those convicted of violent offences e.g. residence or movement restrictions;
Ending automatic sentence discounts for offenders re-sentenced to an indeterminate sentence after initial sentencing decision ruled unduly lenient, and powers for Courts to make dangerous offenders given a discretionary life sentence serve a higher proportion of their tariff before eligible for parole consideration;
Extension of existing crack house closure powers to tackle premises at the centre of serious and persistent disorder or nuisance, regardless of tenure, and new powers to deal with nuisance or disturbance on NHS premises;
A new special immigration status for terrorists and serious criminals who cannot currently be removed from the UK for legal reasons.
measures to devolve police accountability and information sharing to a lower level

The Bill would apply to:

All of the Bill's provisions extend to England and Wales, certain reserved and excepted provisions also extend to Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Related Documents:

Many of the provisions in the Bill have been set out in policy papers or the subject of consultations, including:
'Rebalancing the criminal justice system in favour of the law-abiding majority', Home Office July 2006
'Penal Policy - a background paper', Ministry of Justice, 9 May 2007

Existing Legislation in this area is:

The Bill reforms the existing sentencing framework set out in the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 and the Criminal Justice Act 2003

Comments:

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