The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (c.4) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which makes significant changes in many areas of the criminal justice system in England and Wales and, to a lesser extent, in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Section 63 of the Act produced the new offence of possession of extreme pornography. This was created to criminalise any image or media that was grossly offensive, disgusting and obscene. This focused on making it a crime for consumers to have this material, rather than targeting the distributors, as this had been a problem presented in the past.
In addition, hate crime legislation under the Public Order Act 1986 was amended by section 74 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. Hate crime could now include actions showing hatred against somebody’s sexual orientation, expanding the scope of the legislation to tackle all kinds of discrimination.
The law makes other changes relating to custodial sentences and the early release of prisoners to reduce prison overcrowding, which reached crisis levels in 2008. It also reduces the right of prison officers to take industrial action, and changed the law on the deportation of foreign criminals.
Furthermore, the Act sets out powers to deal with anti-social and violent behaviour, make sentencing decisions clearer and introduced community sentencing for young offenders.
