Tracking the creation of criminal offences

Chalmers, J. and Leverick, F. (2013) Tracking the creation of criminal offences. Criminal Law Review, 2013, pp. 543-560.

Abstract

Claims that the UK government had created over 3,000 offences in a ten year period have led the current administration to introduce a mechanism “to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences”. This paper explores the evidence on the number of criminal offences in the UK and the rate at which they are created, demonstrating that this has occurred at a much faster rate than has previously been suggested, or is presently acknowledged. It explains how the creation of criminal offences can be quantified, and what conclusions can sensibly be drawn from this, before concluding with an analysis of offences created in the first year after the election of the Labour government in 1997 and the Coalition government in 2010.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Leverick, Professor Fiona and Chalmers, Professor James
• Authors: Chalmers, J., and Leverick, F.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Law
• Journal Name: Criminal Law Review
• ISSN: 0011-135X