THE PCSC BILL

WHAT WILL THE POLICE, CRIME, SENTENCING AND COURTS BILL MEAN IN REALITY?

Already drunk on and abusing their existing powers, this Bill is the consequence of the police lobbying Government for yet more. The Bill is a sweeping attack on everyone’s rights – to protest, to picket, to assemble – but will also give police greater powers to attack already marginalised communities. You can find out more information on our resources page. 

This Bill will:

  • Criminalise Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) people by introducing new and draconian criminal offences related to trespass. These will be used to target GRT communities, homes and their way of life. Under the Bill, an offence will be committed if ‘significant disruption’ would be ‘likely to be caused’ by a person’s residence on any land – private or common. If it is assumed that you will be disruptive because you are GRT, that is enough to criminalise your way of living; enshrining racist attitudes towards GRT communities into law. These new powers will also make homeless people further targets for police and state violence.
  • Everyone has a right to live in safety, free from state violence.

This Bill will:

  • Expand stop and search powers by introducing Serious Violence Reduction Orders. These orders will allow the police to stop you whenever you are in a public place, without needing reasonable suspicion. The courts will be able to subject you to these orders even when there is no evidence of you ever having handled a weapon (Liberty, March 2021). The Bill will make it an offence to challenge the police on why you have been stopped and searched. 
  • This is despite numerous studies, including Government research (Operation BLUNT 2, March 2016) showing stop and search does not reduce crime. Stop and search is racist: vastly, disproportionately impacting young, Black men.

This Bill will:

  • Criminalise our right to protest and assemble by giving the police new powers to criminalise ‘noisy’ and ‘annoying’ protest. The bill proposes shocking sentence increases for straying from police-imposed conditions on protests and will criminalise protestors even in cases where they can provide evidence they did not know what conditions were in place. The Government is trying to criminalise all the elements of protest that make it effective. 
  • These new powers will make protests and picketing illegal. It will take away the single most important and effective tool the trade union movement and working class has had to force social and political change: our right to assemble.

This Bill will:

  • Grant immigration officers unprecedented surveillance powers to intrude into the lives of migrants, whilst also allowing the police to coerce migrants into leaving the UK using new ‘diversionary cautions.’
  • These cautions can be used to manipulate migrants into leaving the UK before they’ve had the chance to receive specialist immigration advice.

This Bill will:

  • Give more powers to perpetrators. On 9 May 2020 a Dorest police officer killed a woman he was in a relationship with. Just weeks later two Metropolitan Police officers took pictures of the dead bodies of two women who had been murdered. A Metropolitan Police officer has been charged with murdering Sarah Everard on 3 March this year. On 23 March Oliver Banfield of the West Midlands Police was convicted of attacking a woman in the streets at 1am, and using police techniques to hold her by the neck and pull her to the ground. On 8 April a Greater Manchester Police officer was arrested after allegations he attacked a woman in his patrol car whilst on duty.
  • These are not isolated incidents. Between 2012-18, 562 officers were accused of sexual assault and only 43 faced subsequent proceedings. In 2019, a report found police are less likely to be convicted: only 3.9% of reports ended in conviction, compared with 6.2% of the general public. This Bill, and amendments submitted by Labour MPs introducing the Nordic model of sex work, will not keep women safe: it will give more powers to perpetrators.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is a cynical attempt by an authoritarian Government to use the pandemic to crackdown on ordinary people. The Bill attempts to make temporary restrictions permanent by criminalising our social, political and domestic lives. Our unity is our power and our solidarity can win.