The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994

Abstract

The article presents information on the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 in England, which deals with prison population and other conditions prevalent in the prison. The Criminal Justice Acts in England and Wales traditionally occur every five years or so, and have a rationale, usually the pragmatic response of how to deal with a prison population that grows far beyond the state's ability to lock people up, even in desperately overcrowded and insanitary conditions. The 1991 Act was an attempt to link the offender with the current offence before the court and it held out the prospect of increasing community sentences. It also made the court take notice of the offender's ability to pay fines with the intention of decreasing the number of fine defaulters held in prison. The Act was implemented in October 1992 and was immediately attacked by some Magistrates and right wingers as being overly lenient, affecting their ability to send offenders to prison, as they could not take into account all previous criminal convictions.

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