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Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008

These steps will help to protect the public, promote and improve access to justice, and increase public confidence in the justice system. It received Royal Assent on 8 May 2008.

In particular, the Act will: 

• introduce a new criminal of offence of incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation
• clarify the law on self defence, articulating the state's responsibility to stand by those acting in good faith when using force in self defence
• introduce new civil penalties for serious breaches of data protection principles
• abolish the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel
• reinstate the statutory ban on industrial action by prison officers
• introduce a minimum tariff of two years for prisoners serving indeterminate public protection sentences
• end automatic discounts for offenders given an indeterminate sentence after the initial sentencing decision has been judged unduly lenient
• give powers for courts to make dangerous offenders given a discretionary life sentence serve a higher proportion of their tariff before being eligible for parole
• create a presumption that trials in magistrates' courts will proceed in the event the accused fails to appear
• introduce a new offence of possession of extreme pornographic images
• extend existing crack house closure powers to tackle premises at the centre of serious and persistent disorder or nuisance, regardless of tenure
• create a new offence of causing a nuisance or disturbance on NHS premises
• provide for non-dangerous offenders who breach the terms of their licence to be recalled to prison for a fixed 28-day period
• create a Youth Rehabilitation Order - a generic community sentence for children and young offenders - this will target the causes of offending behaviour and will simplify the current sentencing framework
• create the Youth Conditional Caution for children and young offenders
• bring compensation for those wrongly convicted broadly into line with compensation for victims of crime
• provide for special immigration status for terrorists and serious criminals who cannot currently be removed from the UK for legal reasons.

It was introduced in the House of Commons on 26 June 2007.

Details of the Bill, supporting documents and its progress through Parliament have been published on the UK Parliament website, along with a report of the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee on the Bill.

• Implementation schedule (PDF 0.08mb 6 pages)
• Further information on the new offence of possession of extreme pornographic images (PDF 0.12mb 8 pages)
• Equality impact assessments (PDF 0.62mb 139 pages)
• Regulatory impact assessment: full document (PDF 0.89mb 177 pages)
• Regulatory impact assessment: part 1 (PDF 0.58mb 95 pages)
• Regulatory impact assessment: part 2 (PDF 0.57mb 82 pages)
• Section 57 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008: equality impact assessment - initial screening (PDF 0.06mb 9 pages)
• Section 57 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008: impact assessment (PDF 0.07mb 7 pages)
• Information requests: Section 57 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 - Private Impact Assessment (PDF 0.04mb 6 pages)
• Ministerial correspondence with stakeholders (PDF 0.21mb 34 pages)
• Correspondence about government amendments (PDF 0.46mb 35 pages)
• Correspondence about government amendments - Lords Report stage (PDF 0.06mb 11 pages)
• Correspondence about government amendments - Commons consideration of Lords amendments (PDF 0.05mb 3 pages)