The Policing and Crime Act 2017 (c. 3) is an act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

. It received

royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in other ...

on 31 January 2017.

Synopsis

The act enacts various changes to existing rules involving PCCs, complaints through the

IPCC The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ...

, amendments to PACE 1984 etc.

PCSOs

One notable change involves the expansion of powers to police staff and introduces voluntary

police community support officer A police community support officer (PCSO; cy, swyddog cymorth cymunedol yr heddlu, SCCH), or as written in legislation community support officer (CSO; cy, swyddog cymorth cymunedol, SCC) is a uniformed member of police staff in England and Wal ...

s (PCSOs). It is also expands the powers of a PCSO to "any power or duty of a constable, other than a power or duty specified in Part 1 of Schedule 3B (excluded powers and duties)". Part 6 of the act brings clarity to the classifying guns under the

Firearms Act 1968 The Firearms Act 1968c 27 is a UK Act of Parliament, controlling use and possession of firearms. Since 1968, the act has been extensively amended. Following the Hungerford massacre, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 extended the class of prohi ...

, based on recommendations from the

Law Commission A law commission, law reform commission, or law revision commission is an independent body set up by a government to conduct law reform; that is, to consider the state of laws in a jurisdiction and make recommendations or proposals for legal chang ...

Police bail procedure

Another change relates to police bail, which can now only be authorised by an officer of inspector rank or higher (so normally a suspect will now be released without bail if not charged), and extending this period is now only possible once by authorisation of a superintendent officer, or again by a magistrates' court; previously it was possible for police to effectively restrain a person indefinitely by extending the bail period every 28 days. Controversially this has led police forces to adopt an alternative method of ' release under investigation' (RUI) with no time limits or conditions, requiring a suspect to respond by post. In December 2020,

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), formerly Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), has statutory responsibility for the inspection of the police forces of England and Wales, and since ...

released a report on RUI. In November 2017,

Hertfordshire Constabulary Hertfordshire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the county of Hertfordshire in England. Its headquarters is in Welwyn Garden City. The current chief constable is Charlie Hall. As of March 2019, the force consi ...

released under the

Freedom of Information Act 2000 The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (c. 36) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public "right of access" to information held by public authorities. It is the implementation of freedom of information legislation ...

a copy of the template RUI form used by them.

Alan Turing law

The Act also offers a pardon to men convicted for homosexual acts that are no longer considered criminal offences. This is sometimes informally referred to as the Alan Turing law, named for

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical com ...

, the mathematician and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

codebreaker, who was convicted of gross indecency in 1952.

References

External links