Criminal Justice Bill 2023 (update)

1. Bill factsheets
2. Impact assessments
3. Overarching documents

It is a priority for the government to keep the public safe.

The Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that between the year ending March 2010 and the year ending June 2023, overall crime excluding fraud and computer misuse, measured on a like for like basis, has decreased by 56 per cent.

However, we must go further. That is why the government is legislating in the Criminal Justice Bill to reform the criminal justice system to cut crime and deliver for victims.

The Criminal Justice Bill will:

1. Ensure criminals face the consequences of their actions and spend longer behind bars by:

• compelling defendants to attend their sentencing hearing

• making sentences longer for the most dangerous criminals, including including those involved in grooming gangs

2. Give probation officers more powers to:

• use polygraph tests on serious terrorist or sexual offenders to better manage their risk

• increase the multi-agency management requirements on offenders convicted of coercive or controlling behaviour

3. Tackle violence against women and girls by:

• criminalising the taking of intimate images

• expanding the offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm

4. Crack down on the crimes and anti-social behaviour that blight communities by:

• taking tougher action on drugs through an expansion of drug testing on arrest

• increasing the maximum penalty for sale of dangerous weapons to under 18s

• creating a criminal offence of possession of a bladed article with the intent to cause harm

• tackling persistent, nuisance and organised begging

5. Counter evolving threats and sophisticated technologies by:

• giving the police the powers they need to tackle theft by creating a new power to enter a premises without a warrant to search for and seize stolen goods, such as phones located using GPS tracking technology
• giving the police greater access to the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency database to identify criminals
• banning articles that are used to commit serious crime like templates for 3D printed firearm components, SIM farms, pill presses, and signal jammers used in vehicle theft

6. Build a better justice system by:

• establishing powers to transfer prisoners in and out of England and Wales to serve their sentence abroad

• improving standards and conduct in policing through a new duty of candour for policing

• giving chief officers of police forces the right to appeal the result of misconduct boards to the Police Appeals Tribunal

The Criminal Justice Bill in Parliament.

Bill factsheets

• Criminal Justice Bill 2023: factsheets

  • 14 November 2023
  • Policy paper

Impact assessments

• Criminal Justice Bill 2023: impact assessments

  • 14 November 2023
  • Impact assessment