Criminal Justice Act 1988

Title

The title of this Act is:

Unduly lenient sentences

In England and Wales, the Act allows anybody to ask the Attorney General's Office for a sentence they consider unduly lenient to be reviewed; the Office can review sentences given by the Crown Court in England and Wales if requested to. The Attorney General can then, within 28 days of the sentence, decide to refer sentences for certain offences to the Court of Appeal if they consider that the sentence might be unduly lenient. The Court of Appeal will only find a sentence to be unduly lenient, and increase it, if it falls outside the range of sentences which the trial judge could reasonably consider appropriate considering all the relevant information available at the time. This is sometimes called the 'unduly lenient sentence scheme'. This provision entered into force in 1989, and was first applied in July of that year.

The controversially low sentences given to the rapists of Jill Saward were one impetus for the scheme, The scheme has been criticised on the grounds of having become "too politicised", and that "too many cases [are being] referred, in some instances on most unusual grounds".

The included offences are those which are indictable and some either-way offences, which are specified by the secretary of state; the list of applicable either-way offences has been expanded since 1994.

The number of requests made to the Attorney General increased from fewer than 300 in 2001 to 1,006 in 2018, which as of 2021 was the highest number of requests made. However, the number of cases referred by the Attorney General to the Court of Appeal remained within a roughly similar range during that period. The fraction of sentences referred that were found to be unduly lenient also remained roughly between 60% and 90%.

Section 141 – Prohibition of offensive weapons

This section creates an offence of manufacturing, selling, lending, giving, importing, hiring or exposing for hire offensive weapons, but does not itself define which weapons it applies to. Subsection 141(2) provides the home secretary's power to define them through statutory instrument; the only order currently is the Schedule 1 of the Criminal Justice Act 1998 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988.

Specifically exempted from this section are crossbows and items subject to the Firearms Act 1968.

Various amendments have been made to the Schedule to add new weapons; an August 2016 amendment added zombie knives to the list of prohibited weapons.

Section 171 – Commencement

The power conferred by section 171(1) has been exercised by the following orders:

• The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Commencement No. 1) Order 1988 (SI 1988/1408) (C 53)
• The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Commencement No. 2) Order 1988 (SI 1988/1676) (C 60)
• The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Commencement No. 3) Order 1988 (SI 1988/1817) (C 65)
• The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Commencement No. 4) Order 1988 (SI 1988/2073) (C 78)
• The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Commencement No. 5) Order 1989 (SI 1989/1) (C 1)
• The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Commencement No. 6) Order 1989 (SI 1989/50) (C 2)
• The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Commencement No. 7) Order 1989 (SI 1989/264) (C 8)
• The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Commencement No. 8) Order 1989 (SI 1989/1085) (C 29)
• The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Commencement No. 9) Order 1989 (SI 1989/1595) (C 55)
• The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Commencement No. 10) Order 1990 (SI 1990/220) (C 10)
• The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Commencement No. 11) Order 1990 (SI 1990/1145) (C 32)
• The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Commencement No. 12) Order 1990 (SI 1990/2084) (C 51)
• The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Commencement No. 13) Order 1999 (SI 1999/3425) (C 93)
• The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Commencement No. 14) Order 2004 (SI 2004/2167) (C 90)

References

• Halsbury's Statutes,

Bibliography

References

1. The citation of this Act by this [[short title]] is authorised by [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/33/section/173 section 173] of this Act.
2. "Ask for a Crown Court sentence to be reviewed". UK Government: Courts, tribunals and appeals.
3. (8 November 2022). "Review of unduly lenient sentences".
4. (1 February 2021). "Over 30 years of the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme". [[Attorney General of England and Wales]].
5. "Criminal appeals". [[Law Commission (England and Wales).
6. {{Cite legislation UK. (1988). (27 March 2023)
7. {{Cite legislation UK. (2016)