The Police Act 1997 is a United Kingdom Act of Parliament passed on 21 March 1997. Its main purposes are: *to make provision for the

National Criminal Intelligence Service The National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) was a United Kingdom policing agency. Following the Police and Criminal Justice Act 2001, NCIS returned to direct funding by the Home Office in 2002 and was a non-departmental public body. On 1 Ap ...

(NCIS) and the

National Crime Squad The National Crime Squad (NCS) was a British police organisation which dealt with national and transnational organised and major crimes. Formed in April 1998 after the amalgamation of six former Regional Crime Squads, it merged with parts of H ...

; *to make provision about entry onto, and interference with, property and with wireless telegraphy for the prevention or detection of serious crime; *to make provision for the

Police Information Technology Organisation The Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) was an arm's length body of the UK government. It replaced the Police Information Systems Unit (PISU) of the Home Office, which initially ran the UK government Police National Computer (PNC) ...

; *to provide for the issue of

criminal record A criminal record, police record, or colloquially RAP sheet (Record of Arrests and Prosecutions) is a record of a person's criminal history. The information included in a criminal record and the existence of a criminal record varies between coun ...

certificates; *to address aspects of the administration and organisation of the police; and *to repeal certain legislation relating to the rehabilitation of offenders. The case of R v. Khan (1996), which was heard by the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

, was one on the factors leading to the regulation of police powers embodied in this legislation. The function of the NCIS was to gather and analyse

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can b ...

data in order to provide insight and intelligence to national police forces. Its role was later taken over by the

Serious Organised Crime Agency The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) was a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom which existed from 1 April 2006 until 7 October 2013. SOCA was a national law enforcement agency with Home Office sponsorship ...

.UK Government
National Criminal Intelligence Service
accessed 18 November 2021 The Criminal Records Bureau, now known as the

Disclosure and Barring Service The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is a non-departmental public body of the Home Office of the United Kingdom. The DBS enables organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors to make safer recruitment decisions by identifyin ...

, was established under Part V of the Police Act 1997 and was launched in March 2002.

References

United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1997 Law enforcement in the United Kingdom {{criminal-law-stub