The Crime and Policing Act 2026: What the New Offences Mean in Practice

The Crime and Policing Act 2026 began coming into force on 29 June 2026. It is, by any measure, one of the most wide-ranging pieces of criminal justice legislation England and Wales has seen in years. Spanning knife crime, violence against women and girls, retail crime, anti-social behaviour, and terrorism, the Act gives police, prosecutors, and courts a substantial set of new tools and creates several entirely new criminal offences. This article cuts through the headlines and focuses on what the Act actually changes, who it affects, and what it means in practice. ## Knife Crime: A New Offence of Possession With Intent The most significant change on knife crime is a new standalone offence of possessing a knife with intent to cause unlawful violence. This is deliberately separate from the existing offence of carrying a bladed article in a public place, which does not require proof of intent. The new offence carries a maximum sentence of seven years imprisonment. The practical difference matters. Under the existing law, someone found with a knife in public could be prosecuted for simple possession, but proving intent was not required. The new offence allows prosecutors to charge more severely where evidence exists that the weapon was carried for offensive purposes. For defence lawyers, this changes the landscape of how knife cases are argued and what the Crown needs to prove. The Act also increases maximum penalties for manufacturing and selling prohibited weapons, extends police powers to seize knives from properties, introduces stricter age verification for online knife sales, and places personal liability on senior managers of online platforms that fail to act on illegal knife content. The government has named this package of reforms Ronan's Law, after Ronan Kanda, who was murdered in 2022 by two teenagers using ninja swords bought online. ## Retail Workers: A Standalone Assault Offence For years, retailers and trade bodies argued that the existing legal framework treated violence against shop staff as a secondary concern. The Crime and Policing Act responds directly to that lobbying by creating a specific offence of assaulting, threatening, or abusing a retail worker in the course of their employment. The offence carries a maximum penalty of six months in prison and an unlimited fine. On a first conviction, courts are expected to impose a Criminal Behaviour Order, which can prohibit the offender from entering specific premises or areas. The Act also removes the long-standing informal treatment of shoplifting below £200 as a low-priority matter, repealing the provision that had effectively created a two-tier system for theft offences. All shop theft is now triable as general theft, with a maximum custodial sentence of seven years where the case warrants it. These changes are likely to generate a meaningful increase in retail crime prosecutions and in the severity of outcomes for repeat offenders. Criminal defence solicitors working in magistrates' courts should expect to see more of these cases, and to encounter clients who are surprised by how seriously the new framework treats what they may have considered minor offending. ## Violence Against Women and Girls: New and Strengthened Offences The Act contains a substantial chapter of provisions targeting violence against women and girls, which the government has committed to halve within a decade as part of its Safer Streets Mission. A new standalone spiking offence has been created, criminalising the administration of a harmful substance without consent. Stalking protections have been strengthened, with improvements to how Stalking Prevention Orders are applied and new categories of behaviour that can constitute a course of conduct. Domestic Abuse Protection Orders have been extended. Non-fatal strangulation, already an offence since 2021, has been given clearer prosecutorial guidance and stronger enforcement provisions. The Act also creates new offences around intimate image abuse, including the creation and sharing of AI-generated intimate images without consent, commonly known as deepfake sexual images. Grooming has been made a statutory aggravating factor when sentencing adults for child sex offences. These changes collectively represent a significant shift in how the criminal justice system deals with a range of offending that has historically been difficult to prosecute. ## Anti-Social Behaviour: Respect Orders Replace Civil Injunctions The Act introduces a new civil measure called a Respect Order, designed to replace the existing civil injunction framework for persistent anti-social behaviour. The key distinction is that Respect Orders are criminal in character from the outset. Breach of a Respect Order is a criminal offence carrying a maximum sentence of two years imprisonment, which is substantially more serious than the consequences of breaching a civil injunction. Respect Orders can include prohibitions on entering certain areas, requirements to engage with support services, and restrictions on specific activities. They apply to adults aged 18 and over and give courts and police a more flexible enforcement tool for dealing with behaviour that falls short of a criminal offence in itself but causes significant harm to communities. ## What This Means for Criminal Defence Solicitors The Crime and Policing Act 2026 creates new charging options across several areas of criminal law and increases the severity of potential outcomes in others. For criminal defence solicitors, the practical implications are significant across magistrates' court and Crown Court work alike. The new knife intent offence will require careful scrutiny of the evidence prosecutors rely on to establish intent, which is a higher threshold than simple possession. The retail worker assault offence will generate new categories of clients, many of whom will not have anticipated the seriousness with which their conduct is now treated. The VAWG provisions extend the reach of the criminal law into areas of behaviour that were previously difficult to charge or prosecute, and the AI-generated intimate image offences represent genuinely new legal territory. As with any major piece of legislation, the full practical impact will take time to work through the courts. Some provisions will be tested in appellate proceedings before their boundaries are fully understood. What is clear is that the Act reshapes a substantial part of the criminal justice framework and that solicitors advising clients in any of these areas need to be across its detail now, not once the cases start arriving. Sources UK Government: Crime and Policing Act 2026, full collection www.gov.uk/government/collections/crime-and-policing-act-2026 UK Government: Crime and Policing Act 2026, overarching factsheet www.gov.uk/government/publications/crime-and-policing-act-2026-factsheets/crime-and-policing-act-overarching-factsheet UK Government: Crime and Policing Act 2026, retail crime factsheet www.gov.uk/government/publications/crime-and-policing-act-2026-factsheets/crime-and-policing-act-2026-retail-crime-factsheet UK Government: Biggest shake-up in decades to tackle local crime www.gov.uk/government/news/biggest-shake-up-in-decades-to-tackle-local-crime House of Commons Library: Crime and Policing Bill 2024 to 2026 commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10213 UK Parliament: Crime and Policing Bill completes passage through Parliament www.parliament.uk/business/news/crime-civil-law-justice-and-rights/criminal-law