The Crime and Policing Act received Royal Assent on 30 April 2026, delivering the biggest overhaul of crime-fighting powers in a generation, with over 70 measures covering everything from knife crime and child criminal exploitation to antisocial behaviour and online safety.
A landmark new standalone offence of child criminal exploitation (CCE) carries a penalty of up to 10 years’ imprisonment, with accompanying orders allowing courts to intervene early. A new cuckooing offence, criminalising the takeover of someone’s home for illegal activity, carries a maximum five-year sentence, offering greater protection to vulnerable young people coerced into criminal activity.
New knife crime measures directly targeting young people include mandatory two-step age verification for all online knife purchases, a requirement for retailers to report bulk purchases of bladed articles, and personal criminal liability for tech bosses who fail to act on illegal knife and weapons content on their platforms, with fines of up to £70,000 per offence.
The Act also criminalises AI tools designed to generate child sexual abuse material and introduces new powers to stress-test AI models, responding to a 260-fold increase in AI-generated child sexual abuse videos recorded by the Internet Watch Foundation in 2025.
- An additional 13,000 neighbourhood police officers are promised by the end of this parliament, underpinning the Act’s enforcement ambitions.