Is antisocial behaviour a &quot;crime&quot;? It seems almost to be its own entity, almost like contempt of court in being neither criminal nor civil, as well as analogous to the process of being bound over for a breach of the peace. For example it seems that one only has to give one's name and details if one is either reasonably suspected of an &quot;offence,&quot; or of engaging in or having engaged in antisocial behaviour.
Not exactly, some actions that fall under &quot;antisocial behaviour&quot; are crimes in of themselves and they can be prosecuted in the normal manner (Of course where someone is prosecuted for those they're prosecuted for the specific crime not &quot;antisocial behaviour&quot;) This doesn't mean however that doing anything that's not explicitly illegal leaves the Police powerless. In the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 there's a pretty broad definition of the term &quot;antisocial behaviour&quot;: (a)conduct that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person, (b)conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to a person in relation to that person's occupation of residential premises, or (c)conduct capable of causing housing-related nuisance or annoyance to any person. A constable can issue a Community Protection Notice (CPN) or the Police and select other organisations the option to apply for a civil injunction aimed at preventing the perpetrator(s) from continuing, the injunctions are ordered by Magistrates sitting in a civil capacity and the standard of proof is the civil one - i.e. &quot;balance of probabilities&quot; not &quot;reasonable doubt&quot;. Violating a CPN can lead to a fine of between £100 and £2500 while violating such an injunction is considered Contempt of Court and while that still isn't a criminal offence can still see the guilty party land in jail for up to 2 years.
They can’t But they aren’t This is the law (as amended). Section 9 contains the penalties. In any event the police don’t fine people they issue an infringement notice which is an allegation of an offense - police can issue these even if they reasonably believe they took place - they are entitled to be wrong. The person given the notice can admit the offense by paying the fine or contest the allegation by going to court.
I have not read the news report so cannot comment on the alleged offences and police conduct, but what I can say is that the information to given on arrest may be found at section 28 Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE): (1) Subject to subsection (5) below, where a person is arrested, otherwise than by being informed that he is under arrest, the arrest is not lawful unless the person arrested is informed that he is under arrest as soon as is practicable after his arrest. (2) Where a person is arrested by a constable, subsection (1) above applies regardless of whether the fact of the arrest is obvious. (3) Subject to subsection (5) below, no arrest is lawful unless the person arrested is informed of the ground for the arrest at the time of, or as soon as is practicable after, the arrest. (4) Where a person is arrested by a constable, subsection (3) above applies regardless of whether the ground for the arrest is obvious. (5) Nothing in this section is to be taken to require a person to be informed— (a) that he is under arrest; or (b) of the ground for the arrest,if it was not reasonably practicable for him to be so informed by reason of his having escaped from arrest before the information could be given. Note the provisions at subsection (3) do not require anyone else to be told the grounds (reasons) at the time of arrest - including members of the public, protesters, bloggers or the press. Kerb-side debates can seriously or significantly distract the officer from ensuring e.g. public safety or preventing e.g. an escape from custody. Also, depending on what else is going on e.g. say in a dynamic and volatile crowd control or public order situation, the person under arrest does not need to told immediately if it would be impractical to do so. The operative phrase being as soon as is practicable, which is not defined by statute as each case needs to be considered individually according to its own set of circumstances. The relevant case law is DPP v Hawkins [1988] 1 WLR 1166, but the only detailed commentary I can find online is behind the PNLD paywall1. Succinctly, the magistrates initially dismissed the case against Hawkins for assaulting four police officers who kept him under arrest without giving the grounds as required by s.28(3) PACE. The DPP appealed, and the Court of Appeal sent the case back to the magistrates saying, inter alia, although there is an obligation under s.28(3) to tell a prisoner of the reason for his arrest as soon as possible (sic) after his arrest, a constable was also under an obligation to maintain that arrest until it was practicable to do so. 1Or free to law enforcement officers
He was jailed for breaching an injunction imposed on the Shard in 2018 which was intended to prevent anyone from climbing it, according to a news report from the Guardian at the time. The actual offence he committed was contempt of court which is a criminal offence. Double jeopardy does not apply here because the crime he was cautioned for was not the same crime he was prosecuted for. It appears there was no precedent set, prior to this private prosecution, about whether or not someone could be jailed for breaching an injunction in this manner, as opposed to merely being fined, etc. Obviously, since he has been jailed, people in the future will be reluctant to copy his behaviour and a deterrent has been set.
Calling someone an &quot;asshole&quot; is, at least in the US, an expression of opinion and so is not defamation. Saying that someone has committed a crime may be defamation, but not if that person has in fact already been convicted of that crime. In general if a statement is provably true, it is not defamation. If all that this hypothetical firm does is to post facts as found in court decisions, along with their unfavorable opinions of losing parties who they did not represent, it is hard to see any defamation case being valid. And I don't see any other obvious legal problem with doing this. It would probably anger other lawyers, and might make it harder to negotiate settlements or do other deals. If this firm announce that they refuse to accept as clients &quot;cheats, crooks and similar people&quot; and then make it public that they refused to represent some specific person, A, then A might claim that this portrayed him or her as a &quot;cheat or crook&quot; and was defamatory. The exact wording of their publicly announced policy, and of any announcements that they decline to represent A, would matter a good deal, as would the jurisdiction's exact law of defamation. In some places, codes of ethics promulgated by a Bar Association might be violated by such a policy, but such codes are usually not enforceable in the general case. I don't see any obvious grounds for disbarment proceedings.
It is the use of a "menace" which creates the crime, not the nature or validity of the demand. That's not correct. You've inadvertently missed the other element of the offence: that it's an "unwarranted demand". A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief— (a) that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and (b) that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/21 For example, I may have reasonable grounds under the Consumer Rights Act to demand a refund for a faulty good. It might be sensible to moderate one's language, e.g. "If I do not receive a satisfactory response from you within 30 days of the date of this letter, I intend to issue proceedings against you in the county court without further notice. This may increase your liability for costs." vs. "If I do not receive the money from you within 30 days of the date of this letter I'll take you to the f***ing cleaners, sunshine." But the language doesn't make the demand unwarranted.
No. Police are not permitted to impose any punishment whatsoever. Their role in the American justice system is to prevent and investigate criminal offenses. What you're describing is a punishment for a criminal offense, even though it is imposed outside the criminal justice system. The same principles that prevent an officer from punching a suspect in the face or demanding a cash payment to not write a ticket prohibit a police officer from imposing a punishment of his own design, with or without your consent.
Are there actual laws written, or de facto situations (e.g. let's say another law specifies that a child can't be physically forced to go anywhere without causing abuse) where the child can refuse to attend? Are there "tiers" to the age; Is it true that a temper tantrum of a 5 year old would be seen as such, but the refusal of a 17 year would be legally accepted? This is a hard question to answer that doesn't have a neat resolution. Very little pertaining to the authority of a parent over a child is codified in statutory law and there is not a clear cut age at which a child has "freedom of conscience" vis-a-vis a parent. Most of the law related to children concerns allocation of parenting time and parental decision making between divorced, separated or unmarried parents; abuse and neglect; and juvenile delinquency. There is also usually a snippet of criminal law stating that certain kinds of uses of force to discipline children do not constitute crimes. But, part of why it doesn't come up very much is that older children are usually socialized in a manner that causes them to show a certain amount of respect for the wishes of their parents. It also doesn't come up much for children who aren't in their late teens, because the complete economic dependence of children on their parents or guardians gives the parents considerable power of their children that doesn't require the exercise of physical force. Also, it is quite dependent upon how the issue presents itself. No law enforcement agency is going to aid a parent in forcibly dragging a kid to church against their will. But, no social services agency is going to remove a kid from a home because his birthday party will be cancelled if he doesn't go to the church of his parents' choice the Sunday before his birthday. There are also some subtle but important distinctions between states on the issue of emancipation. In Colorado, emancipation is a statement about the empirical reality. If a child is self-supporting and lives apart from parents or guardians then the child is an emancipated minor. It is not a status granted by a court, it is a status acknowledged by courts when evaluating other issues. In California, a child is not emancipated unless a court grants a child that status and a child who is de facto emancipated without the leave of a court is guilty of a "status offense" (the New York State term for someone in this state is PINS for "person in need of supervision"). Basically, if a parent can force a child to go to church by means that don't constitute abuse or neglect and don't exceed the level of force authorize for child discipline in the criminal code, then they can do it, and if they can't manage that, then they can't do it. Many states have a "status offense" that allows government intervention with the cooperation of a parent or guardian in cases where an "uncontrollable" child is defiant and simply will not give any heed to the parent or guardian's instructions. In practice, the older a child is, the less likely someone viewing a parent's conduct forcing a child to do something is to be viewed as acceptable or legally justified. The legal rights of children in a school setting are also age dependent under the case law, although not always in a really well defined way. Controls on student expression that would be uncontroversial for elementary school students may be looked upon by the law with disfavor for high school students and clearly prohibited for adults. Perhaps one useful way to conceptualize it is that trying to make a child attend a particular kind of religious service is not considered an improper purposes for a parent of any minor to utilize the resources available to the parent to do so, but the range of resources available to a parent with regard to an adult child is much narrower.