Howard's Way—A Farewell to Freedom?
Criminal Justice Acts are regular features of the legislative programme. The latest, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (CJPOA), comes only one year after the previous Act which came hard on the heels of the 1991 Act, the latter having been heralded as 'the most fundamental review of the criminal justice system for 50 years.' The current Act deals with a huge range of matters as diverse as cracking down on taxi and ticket touts, tougher conditions for bail, setting up private prisons, tougher sentences for children and juveniles, abolition of the corroboration rules, wider police powers to combat terrorism, bringing computergenerated pornography within the ambit of existing offences, criminalising various forms of trespass and nuisance, and providing the police with the powers necessary to build up a national DNA databank. While some of the reforms will be welcome, such as those relating to sexual offences1 and the lowering of the age of consent for homosexual acts,2 there are others which may also attract the label 'fundamental,' but usually in its adverbial form preceding such pejorative terms as 'flawed,' 'disturbing' or 'ill-conceived.' It will not be possible in the context of this article to analyse in detail all the provisions of the Act, but some key provisions will be examined which, it is suggested, are representative. When considering a statute as monumental as this, one looks for some overarching purpose. Will the Act create the conditions for reducing crime or for facilitating the fight against crime? Will it strike a balance which maximises freedom while maintaining public order?3 The initial response to this must be fairly negative. It is doubtful if the Act will reduce crime; indeed, one of the major features of the Act is the criminalisation of a range of activities which in turn will increase the demands upon the police in terms of manpower and resources, and deflect them from the fight against those crimes which cause most harm and give rise to the greatest fear within the population. Confrontation between the police and various groups, such as the young, environmentalists, travellers and partygoers, is inevitable. The impression of a diminution of freedom is inescapable and the fear that this could lead to increased alienation which could spill over into increased disorder on the streets or in the countryside is all too real. But perhaps to expect that an Act might have purely beneficial effects for so heterogeneous a society is naive. The Bill was introduced following Michael Howard's rumbustious performance at the Conservative Party conference of 1993 in which he introduced his 27 point plan for reducing crime.4 Mr Howard had only recently succeeded to the position of Home Secretary and with right-wing