Make it a criminal offence to collect street donations if not a charity

Background

We are concerned about bogus charity collections on our streets. Some operations that claim to be charitable are run as a "for profit" business with very little of their collections used to help anyone.

Additional details

We want you to make it a criminal offence with a mandatory prison term to collect money on the street, except for collections by registered charities. We think current fines for unlicensed street collections and street trading are small and can be easily recovered by scammers. The punishment needs to act as a deterrent.

Where it’s popular

Constituencies with the most signatures on this petition.