Brown promises more bobbies on beat

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The Prime Minister said the new policing Green Paper would "clear the decks" and cut down on bureaucracy so officers could spend more time tackling crime instead of filling out forms.

He also repeated a warning that young people carrying knives would be prosecuted as new figures reportedly showed police recorded about 20,000 serious offences involving knives last year.

Speaking at 10 Downing Street alongside Association of Chief Police Officers president Ken Jones, Mr Brown said visible policing on the streets had cut violent crime.

He added: "We are clearing the decks, cutting the red tape, cutting back on bureaucracy, making it possible for policemen and women to spend far more time on the beat answering people's inquiries, in touch with local communities - a visible presence on the beat so that more and more people will see a policeman or woman there and able to help them."

Mr Jones, who is chief constable of Sussex Police, said senior officers were "very happy that they had been listened to in the creation of the Green Paper".

He went on: "These are significant changes to reduce bureaucracy. No targets are going to be set from the centre, other than those on confidence, although we will be setting targets locally according to what's happening in your neighbourhood, your street."

Responding to annual crime figures revealing the true extent of knife crime across England and Wales, Mr Brown said he wanted to make carrying a blade as unacceptable as having a gun on the streets.

He said: "It is because we have identified the problem of knife crime, and particularly in some hotspots of the country, that we have stepped up our action dramatically.

"More stop and search, more visible policing, more metal detectors trying to spot where knives exist, and stepping up our action with tougher sentences and a determination to say to people: if you are caught with a knife, you will be prosecuted, if you have a knife you will be punished, and we will do everything in our power to prevent people having knives."