Policy background Cautions
Out of Court Disposals ("OOCDs") are sanctions which allow the police to deal swiftly, proportionately and appropriately with low-level offending without the offender coming before court. They can maximise the use of officer time, achieving a satisfactory outcome for the public while allowing officers to spend more time on frontline duties tackling more serious and complex crime.
	They are also an opportunity to provide intervention and support to offenders at an earlier stage in criminal behaviour, diverting them into rehabilitative services to help reduce escalation of offending. In this way, there is potential for a greater whole-systems approach, in particular diverting those who have mental health issues, health vulnerabilities or other complex needs into appropriate services as a condition of the disposal, getting to the root cause of their offending.
	Police forces currently have access to up to six OOCDs for adults (Cannabis/Khat warning, Community Resolution, Penalty Notice for Disorder, Simple Cautions and Conditional Cautions). The Act will reduce this to two statutory OOCDs.
	The Government and the police conducted a joint review of the existing OOCD framework in 2013, and held a public consultation, which ran from November 2013 to January 2014. The consultation responses confirmed that the OOCD framework was in need of reform. The joint Government and police response to the consultation was published in November 2014. It set out plans to reduce the number of disposals from six to two. A new ‘two-tier framework’ was piloted in three police forces.
	A two-tier framework, based on the pilot forces, has been voluntarily adopted by a number of police forces to date through the National Police Chiefs’ Council OOCD strategy which was published in 2017.
	Part 6 of the Act gives effect to the Government’s commitment to legislate, implementing the new two-tier framework to ensure transparency and consistency of approach for OOCDs across England and Wales. These measures introduce a two-tier legislative framework, comprising community and diversionary cautions to simplify the OOCDs framework. The new framework will still afford the police scope to innovate through local initiatives, such as deferred prosecution; the Ministry of Justice-led programme ‘Chance to Change’ is piloting such a scheme in two police forces areas as recommended by the Lammy Review .