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6 - Public Order

Control Mechanisms

from Section II - Law, Order and Security

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Celia Wells
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
Oliver Quick
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
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Summary

The Public Order Act 1986 (POA 1986) does not constitute a codification of public order law even narrowly conceived. It leaves untouched significant areas such as the common law relating to breach of the peace and has in any event been supplemented by numerous provisions since. Essentially the Act constituted a partial revision and updating of the common law offences of riot, affray and unlawful assembly, and the creation of two new offences of causing fear of violence and of creating harassment, alarm or distress (POA 1986, Pt I). It also revised the law relating to racial hatred (Pt III) and extended police powers to impose conditions on and ban assemblies, requiring for the first time that notice of a wide range of public gatherings be given to the police (Pt II).

Although the division is somewhat artificial because there is an obvious overlap with harassment and hate crimes, we have deferred consideration of offences against the person until the next Section. One of our themes in both this Section and the next is the fluidity in definitions of ‘public order’ and ‘personal violence’. A purely situational or contextual approach would mean looking at all the relevant law in relation to say football, or to environmental protest, in separate sections. But this would mean absurd amounts of overlap since most criminal laws are drafted in general terms.

Type
Chapter
Information
Lacey, Wells and Quick Reconstructing Criminal Law
Text and Materials
, pp. 160 - 197
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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References

Burney, Elizabeth D. and Rose, Gerry, Racist Offences – How is the Law Working? (Home Office Research Study 244, 2002).
Deards, Elspeth, ‘Human Rights for Football Hooligans’ (2002) 27 European Law Review 206.Google Scholar
Fenwick, Helen and Phillipson, Gavin, ‘Public Protest, the Human Rights Act and Judicial Responses to Political Expression’ (2000) Public Law 627.Google Scholar
James, Zoe, ‘Policing Space: Managing New Travellers in England’ (2006) 46 British Journal of Criminology 470.Google Scholar

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  • Public Order
  • Celia Wells, University of Bristol, Oliver Quick, University of Bristol
  • Book: Lacey, Wells and Quick Reconstructing Criminal Law
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511751028.007
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  • Public Order
  • Celia Wells, University of Bristol, Oliver Quick, University of Bristol
  • Book: Lacey, Wells and Quick Reconstructing Criminal Law
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511751028.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Public Order
  • Celia Wells, University of Bristol, Oliver Quick, University of Bristol
  • Book: Lacey, Wells and Quick Reconstructing Criminal Law
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511751028.007
Available formats
×