England's Criminal Justice Bill: More criminals, less justice

By Mitzi Waltz

She had long blond hair  and  skin  like  Devonshire  cream,  all
fetchingly  displayed  beneath a sweeping black witches' cape and
traditional pointed hat. On stage at The Underworld in London  as
part  of  a  "politicized  porn"  road show called Smut Fest '94,
Daisy was making a speech against the Criminal Justice and Public
Order  Bill  a damn sight more mesmerizing than listening to some
political hack ramble on. "It's more  criminals,  less  justice,"
she  purred,  "it's  about  fear  and  subversion  -  they're  so
transparent."  Her cape, hat and teeny weeny black-leather bikini
came  off  one  by  one  as she compared the likely effect of the
Bill, which that evening was poised to become law, to the English
witch  hunts  of  long  ago.  Down  to a pair of tall boots and a
suspiciously phallic broom, Daisy shouted out "express yourself -
it's  a  birthright.  Do  what you will!" and, to rousing (and no
doubt aroused) applause, proceeded to express herself in  several
ways that lived up to the Smut Fest name.

Stripping away rights. So what's this law  that's  got  strippers
hitting  the  soapbox  along with ravers, musicians, sound-system
operators, squatters, travellers, hunt saboteurs, eco-freaks  and
a  good  portion of "average Brits"? The CJB was cooked up at the
Conservative ("Tory") Party's 1993 convention as the  centerpiece
of  a  "crackdown on crime" campaign strategy. Like the  American
Omnibus Crime Bill that it resembles, the actual law is an  inch-
thick  book that combines dozens of proposals into one easier-to-
sneak-through package. Here's just a few of its low points:

% Abolishes the right to silence at arrest.  %  Reinstitutes  the
"sus laws," allowing cops to stop, search and arrest anyone based
on undefined suspicion.  %  Gives  police  broad  new  powers  to
criminalize  any  assembly,  rave,  party  or  protest and arrest
participants or even those suspected of being  on  their  way  to
such  an  event.   %  Turns  trespass  from a civil matter into a
criminal offense, with obvious implications for  squatters,  hunt
sabs,  protestors and strikers.  % Allows for 24-hour evictions -
aimed at squatters, but as easily used  on  anyone  who's  gotten
behind  on  their  rent.  % Broadens anti-terrorism and anti-porn
laws to allow search and confiscation of  any  home  or  business
that  a cop (not a court) suspects of such activities. BBS sysops
bewareI % Puts the  burden  of  proof  under  its  anti-terrorism
provisions on the arrested party, not the courts - you must prove
that seized items were not  for  use  in  banned  activities.   %
Criminalizes  the  nomadic  "new age traveller" lifestyle via its
the trespass and assembly  provisions,  and  by  closing  current
legal  campsites.   %  Lets  cops take "intimate samples" such as
blood,  hair  and  semen,  from  anyone  arrested,  even  if  not
convicted  of  any  crime, and add the info derived to a national
database.

That's only the ugliest half of it, but it's enough to scare  the
bejeezus  out  of  anyone  in  the UK who's ever tried to block a
bulldozer, walk a wildcat picket line or get muddy at one of  the
infamous  mega-raves  that  have  been  happening  on countryside
summer nights near London for several years now.

Countering the crime scare. Opposition from  the  counterculture,
which  has its own media and picked up the CJB story much earlier
than the mainstream press, was immediate. In the weeks  and  days
before  the bill became law, news of its provisions began to push
October's Chuck vs.  Di  chucklefest  off  Fleet  Street's  front
pages,  particularly  when  an  October 9 demo turned rowdy, then
downright nasty. Several police officers were injured, and dozens
of arrests were made. After that, the government was faced with a
rising tide of protest - but in not in time  to  stop  the  CJB's
passage.  Inner-city  blacks  and  Asians,  Irish  immigrants and
renters have just begun to realize that the new  law's  potential
for  harm  includes  them.  The emerging opposition coalition has
been anything but predictable.  In  fact,  since  the  government
framed  the  debate  as  being  about  combating  crime, creative
tactics ranging from the black magic of Daisy's stage show  to  a
festive attempt to levitate the Parliament have been a must. Even
soccer fans have gotten into the act, producing flyers and  zines
to be handed out at games and pubs. A travellers' group collected
signatures from representatives of everything from  Earth  First!
to  BBC  Wales  at  the  June 1994 Glastonbury festival, attached
them to a "Notice of Redundancy" (pink slip), and delivered it to
Parliament.  Both  serious  violence  and serious silliness (fire
eating, juggling, spiral dancing) have marked  most  demos.   Now
that  the  bill has become law, a campaign to make it ineffective
through  mass  civil  disobedience  has  been  put  into  effect.
Travellers  have  threatened  mass encampments, squatters' rights
groups have issued a call to occupy large abandoned buildings  en
masse,  and  organizations  opposing  a  government road-building
project that would displace thousands of working-class  residents
said  they will will step up, not back away from, confrontational
tactics  like  work-site  takeovers   and   blocking   machinery.
Protesters  are  emboldened  by  the  success of a popular effort
against the Poll Tax, which was eventually  withdrawn  due  to  a
combination  of  quiet  non-payment and street action.  As to the
levitation effort, it seemed like a bust at the time but  a  week
later  a  spokesman  for  the  engineers handling a nearby subway
tunneling project confirmed reports that  Big  Ben,  Parliament's
famous  clock  tower,  had  shifted  by  two to three millimeters
sometime within the past two weeks. Far be it from me to  suggest
a  causal relationship between a crowd of hippies, zippies, punks
and Temple of Psychic Youth-niks zapping the place with  negative
energy  and  this movement, but immediately the joke going around
London about "levitation" being a code-word for Semtex explosives
gave  way  to jibes about the weight of sleaze being all that had
held the government's headquarters on its foundations.

For   more   info   about   the   fight    against    the    CJB:
football@agog.demon.co.uk  -  Football  Fans Against the Criminal
Justice Bill Liberty, 21 Tabard St., London SE1,  071  378  8659,
ACLU-style civil-rights group freedomnet@gn.apc.org - The Freedom
Network, green/pacifist types Advance Party, PO Box 3290,  London
NW2  3UJ,  081  450  6929,  represents civil rights of ravers and
other  party-goers  Friends  and  Families  of   Travellers,   33
Bryanston  St.,  Blandford  Forum, Dorset DT11 7BS, 0258 453 695,
traveller contact network

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