STATUTES AND STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
| Date | 01 October 1953 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1953.tb02137.x |
| Published date | 01 October 1953 |
STATUTES AND STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
PREVENTION
OF
CRIME
Am,
1958
Tm
Prevention of Crime Act,
1958,
is
an
attempt
to
grapple
with the serious rise
in
crinies of personal violence. Some idea
of the gravity of the position may
be
obtained by comparing the
figure5
of
violext crimes
known
to the police
to
have been committed
in
1988
with the corresponding figures during the post-war
period.
Taking, fist, cases
of
armed robbery, robbery with violence and
assault with intent to rob,
in
1988
the figure
was
287,
which contrastu
sharply with
a
total
of
979
such offences in
1947,
1,101
in
1948,
990
in
1949, 1,021
in
1950
and
800
in
1951,
which
ia
the last year for
which figures are available. Cases
of
felonious wounding have
continued
to
rise from
888
in
1988,
to
572
in
1947, 646
in
1948,
625
in
1949,
970
in
1950,
and
1,078
in
1951.
A
similar picture
is
portrayed with cases of malicious wounding where a total of
1,602
in
1988
may be compared with
2,908
in
1947, 8,547
in
1948, 8,705
in
1949,4,201
in
1950
and
4,445
in
1951.
Whilst
it
is true that many of these cases
did
not necessarily
involve the use of offensive weapons, there is abundant evidence that
in an increasingly large number of crimes of personal violence the
presentday criminal has
no
compunction in using
a
variety of
weapons to achieve his purpose. As the law stood before the
present enactment, however, the police were powerless to apprehend
a person found
in
suspicious circumstances in a public place carry-
ing
an offensive weapon. That is, unless the weapon was a lethal
or imitation firearm, which is already provided for
in’
the Firearms
Act,
1987,
ss.
22
and
28,
or unless the person was at
a
public meeting
or
a
public procession, which constitutes an offence under the Public
Carder Act,
1980,
s.
4.
Additional powers are now conferred upon the
poke by the Prevention
of
Crime Act,
1958,
which creates a new
criminal offence.
Under the present enactment, any person who is found in a
public place carrying an offensive weapon without lawful authority
or
reasonable excuse, the burden of proof being placed on the
accused,
commits
an
offence punishable with a maximum of two
years’ imprisonment. For the purposes
of
the Act a
“
public place
”
inciudes any highway and any other premises to which at the
material time the public have a right
of
access,
a definition suffi-
ciently wide
to
include, for example, banks, post-offices, public
parks and libraries, and railway stations. Whereas in the Public
Order Act,
1980,
s.
4,
no
definition is attempted
of
an “offensive
weapon,” the present statute indicates with some precision the type
of
instruments at which the new offence is aimed. They are
divided
482
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