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Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 was an Act of Parliament brought into law by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It introduced a number of changes to the existing law, most notably in the restriction and reduction of existing rights and in greater penalties for certain "anti-social" behaviours. The Bill was introduced by Michael Howard, John Major's home secretary and attracted widespread opposition.
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Changes which received great public attention included:
- Sections 34-39, which substantially changed the right to silence of an accused person, allowing for inferences to be drawn from their silence.
- Sections 54-59, which gave the police greater rights to take and retain intimate body samples.
- Section 60, which increased police powers of unsupervised "stop and search".
The whole of Part V which covered collective trespass and nuisance on land and included sections against raves (63-67, including the "repetitive beats" definition) and further sections against disruptive trespass, squatters, and unauthorised campers – most significantly the criminalisation of previously civil offences. This affected many forms of protest including hunt sabotage and anti-road protests.
Part VII handled "Obscenity and Pornography", banning simulated child pornography, harshening provisions dealing with the censorship and age restriction of videos, and also increasing the penalty on obscene phone calls.
The act also reduced the age at which homosexual acts are lawful from 21 to 18, and altered the definition of rape to include anal rape of men.
When the legislation was still under debate, the Advance Party coordinated a campaign of resistance against what was then the Criminal Justice Bill. The group was composed of an alliance of sound systems and civil liberties groups.[1] Two demonstrations were organised in London on July 24 and October 9 1994. The latter took the form of a march which ended up as a party at Hyde Park and turned into a riot.[2]
In response to the introduction of the Act, the electronic music group Autechre released the Anti EP, which satirised the Act's definition of music by including a track which was advertised as containing no repetitive beats, making it suitable for playing at raves. The fifth mix on the Internal version of Orbital's Are We Here? EP was titled "Criminal Justice Bill?"; it consisted of about four minutes of silence.
Commentators have seen the Act as a draconian piece of legislation which was "explicitly aimed at suppressing the activities of certain strands of alternative culture", the main targets being squatting, direct action, hunt sabotage and the free party.[3]. The sections which specifically refer to parties or raves are seen as badly defined [4] and drafted in an atmosphere of "clear moral panic" following the Castlemorton Common Festival. [5]
In response to the proposed bill, UK electronica band Autechre released the three-track "Anti EP" on Warp Records, stating:
| “ | Warning. 'Lost' and 'Djarum' contain repetitive beats. We advise you not to play these tracks if the Criminal Justice Bill becomes law. 'Flutter' has been programmed in such a way that no bars contain identical beats and can therefore be played under the proposed new law. However, we advise DJs to have a lawyer and a musicologist present at all times to confirm the non repetitive nature of the music in the event of police harrassment. | ” |
↑ The Act specifically defines "music" to include "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats."
- References
- ^ Brewster B. & Broughton F. (1999) Last Night a Dj Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey, Page 373, Grove Press, ISBN 0-8021-3688-5
- ^ Firsthand account, retrieved November 1 2006
- ^ Gilbert J. (1999)Discographies: Dance Music, Culture, and the Politics of Sound, Page 150, Routledge ISBN 0-415-17032-X
- ^ ed. South N. (1999) Drugs: Cultures, Controls and Everyday Life, Page 30, SAGE Publications ISBN 0-7619-5235-7
- ^ Meaden, B. (2006) TRANCENational ALIENation Page 19, Lulu, ISBN 1-4116-8543-1
- SchNEWS, a newspaper set up to describe and promote direct action campaigning against the propostion (whilst it was still a Bill), then subsequently in defiance of the Act.