ABSTRACT
The Criminal Justice Act (1994) did many things. From revising the right to silence to criminalising male rape, it was a collection of legislation with far wider implications than attempting to clamp down on rave culture. But it is the specific set of measures aimed at restricting the free party movement which received the most attention, and perhaps not without good reason. The chapter considers the Act itself in terms of a long history of attempts to regulate the right to public assembly. This is not something new; nor even is it something relatively recent. The 'crowd' has always been a fearful sight for those who have sought to govern. There is a sense in which the crowd has always seemed to threaten government itself, to present it with its own imminent illegitimacy. A number of imperatives were implicit in this particular set of terms and values.
