Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on the criminal justice and immigration bill.

Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on the criminal justice and immigration bill. The Bill, introduced in the House of Commons on 26 June 2007, sets out new powers to deal with anti-social and violent behavior, make sentencing decisions clearer and introduces a new community sentence for young offenders. The Government set out its commitment to delivering an effective criminal justice system in ‘Rebalancing the criminal justice system in favor of the law-abiding majority’, published in July 2006. It looks at how to cut crime, reduce reoffending and protect the public. The Bill sets out how it would deliver the commitments set out in the review.

The new law proposed to make it a criminal offense punishable by up to three years imprisonment to possess violent and extreme pornographic material. The new law will ensure possession of such pornography, already covered under the Obscene Publications Act 1959, is illegal via the internet.1 The proposed legislation follows the August 2005 consultation on the Possession of Extreme Pornographic Material.2

Clauses 64 to 67 of the Bill create a new offense of possession of extreme pornographic images. An image will be ‘pornographic’ (Clause 64) if it appears to have been produced solely or principally for sexual arousal. It is ‘extreme’ if it falls into one of the specified categories: 1) threatening or appearing to threaten life. 2) resulting or appearing to result in serious injury. 3) involving or appearing to involve sexual interference with a human corpse. or 4) performing or appearing to perform sex with an animal. In all cases, the act must be real or appear to be real. It is a defense (Clause 66) for a person to establish that they have a legitimate reason for possession, that they hadn’t seen the image or if it was unsolicited.&nbsp.