Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014

15 Rehabilitation activity requirement

(1) The Criminal Justice Act 2003 is amended as follows.

(2) In sections 177(1) and 190(1) (requirements that may be imposed as part of a community order or suspended sentence order) after paragraph (a) insert—

“(aa) a rehabilitation activity requirement (as defined by section 200A),”.

(3) After section 200 insert—

“200A Rehabilitation activity requirement

(1) In this Part “rehabilitation activity requirement”, in relation to a relevant order, means a requirement that, during the relevant period, the offender must comply with any instructions given by the responsible officer to attend appointments or participate in activities or both.

(2) A relevant order imposing a rehabilitation activity requirement must specify the maximum number of days for which the offender may be instructed to participate in activities.

(3) Any instructions given by the responsible officer must be given with a view to promoting the offender’s rehabilitation; but this does not prevent the responsible officer giving instructions with a view to other purposes in addition to rehabilitation.

(4) The responsible officer may instruct the offender to attend appointments with the responsible officer or with someone else.

(5) The responsible officer, when instructing the offender to participate in activities, may require the offender to—

(a) participate in specified activities and, while doing so, comply with instructions given by the person in charge of the activities, or

(b) go to a specified place and, while there, comply with any instructions given by the person in charge of the place.

(6) The references in subsection (5)(a) and (b) to instructions given by a person include instructions given by anyone acting under the person’s authority.

(7) The activities that responsible officers may instruct offenders to participate in include—

(a) activities forming an accredited programme (see section 202(2));

(b) activities whose purpose is reparative, such as restorative justice activities.

(8) For the purposes of subsection (7)(b) an activity is a restorative justice activity if —

(a) the participants consist of, or include, the offender and one or more of the victims,

(b) the aim of the activity is to maximise the offender’s awareness of the impact of the offending concerned on the victims, and

(c) the activity gives a victim or victims an opportunity to talk about, or by other means express experience of, the offending and its impact.

(9) In subsection (8) “victim” means a victim of, or other person affected by, the offending concerned.

(10) Where compliance with an instruction would require the co-operation of a person other than the offender, the responsible officer may give the instruction only if that person agrees.

(11) In this section “the relevant period” means—

(a) in relation to a community order, the period for which the community order remains in force, and

(b) in relation to a suspended sentence order, the supervision period as defined by section 189(1A).”

(4) Sections 201 and 213 (activity requirements and supervision requirements) are repealed.

(5) Schedule 5 to this Act contains consequential provision.