In English criminal law, incitement was an anticipatory common law offence and was the act of persuading, encouraging, instigating, pressuring, or threatening so as to cause another to commit a crime.

It was abolished on 1 October 2008 when Part 2 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 came into force, replacing it with three new statutory offences of encouraging or assisting crime. The common law is now only relevant to offences committed before that date.

The rationale of incitement matches the general justification underpinning the other inchoate offences of conspiracy and attempt by allowing the police to intervene before a criminal act is completed and the harm or injury is actually caused. There is considerable overlap, particularly where two or more individuals are involved in criminal activity. The plan to commit crime may exist only in the mind of one person until others are incited to join in, at which point the social danger becomes more real. The offence overlaps the offences of counselling or procuring as an accessory. Indeed, in the early case of R v Higgins (1801) 102 E.R. 269 incitement was defined as being committed when one person counsels, procures or commands another to commit a crime, whether that person commits the crime. The words, "counsel" and "procure" were later adopted in section 8 of the Accessories and Abettors Act 1861 as two of the four forms of accessory. In AG’s Reference (No. 1 of 1975), Widgery CJ. said: