Guidance

Introducing or amending criminal offences or penalties

This guidance is for officials who may be considering creating new criminal offences or amending existing offences or penalties.

From:
Ministry of Justice
Published
2 December 2015
Last updated
4 September 2025 — See all updates

Documents

Introducing or amending criminal offences or penalties

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Introducing or amending criminal offences or penalties (PDF)

PDF, 201 KB, 10 pages

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Introducing or amending criminal offences or penalties (Welsh language)

PDF, 199 KB, 12 pages

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Details

The government is committed to preventing the proliferation of unnecessary new offences and to ensuring that any new offences are fit for purpose.

It is the responsibility of individual departments to ensure that new behaviour is not criminalised without careful consideration, that alternatives to criminal offences are used where appropriate, and that the impacts and cost to the criminal justice system are accounted for. The Ministry of Justice should as a rule be consulted by other government departments, when they are considering new, or amending existing criminal offences or penalties.

This publication replaces the former ‘Making new criminal offences’ guidance.

Updates to this page

Published 2 December 2015
Last updated 4 September 2025 show all updates

  1. Updated guidance. This publication replaces the former 'Making new criminal offences' guidance.

  2. First published.

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