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Knife teenagers will be made to sweep streets
Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Correspondent14 Jul 2008
Parents of problematic teenagers will face eviction and their children will be forced to clean streets on Friday and Saturday nights in an attempt to defeat knife crime, Gordon Brown said today.
Outlining the new "prevent and punish" proposals at his monthly press conference, the Prime Minister said anyone found carrying a blade should expect to be caught, prosecuted and given a tough jail or community sentence.
Mr Brown stressed that the only way to stamp out the problem of gangs, guns and knives was to promote better parenting and he unveiled moves to target 110,000 families where children are most at risk of offending.
All the families identified will be forced to attend parenting courses and will face eviction if they fail to turn up.
A hard core of 20,000 families - those whose children are excluded from school or given Asbos - will be subject to "Family Intervention Partnerships" where the state in effect steps in to take charge of family discipline.
Mr Brown admitted: "Too many people, young and old, do not feel safe in the streets, and sometimes even in their homes, as a result of the behaviour of a minority."
But he added that jail was not always the answer. He said in the case of a 14-year-old caught with a knife for the first time, prison or a young offender institution might be "inappropriate".
He added that the Government's Youth Crime Action plan, to be published by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith tomorrow, will include a "community payback" scheme whereby offenders will be forced to do 300 hours' community service at a rate of six hours a day over 50 days so it is no longer seen as a soft option.
Mr Brown said the nature of the community service would be decided by locals but would include graffiticleaning and other menial work on Friday and Saturday nights.
After a spate of stabbings in London, Mr Brown stressed that "a combination of prevention, enforcement and punishment" was the right way to reassure the public that action was being taken.
The Prime Minister pointed out that only one in 20 of all teenagers is responsible for more than half of youth crime and that it was time parents ensured that "boundaries of unacceptable behaviour" were made clear.
"These are dysfunctional families, the families whose children are disrupting the classroom or, worse, roaming the streets committing crime," he said.
"The first responsibility where a child is in trouble or in danger of getting into trouble rests with the parent."
Mr Brown also declared that he disagreed with forthcoming proposals from the Sentencing Guidelines Council to continue the practice of giving cautions and fines to those carrying knives. "What the Sentencing Guidelines Council have said is not acceptable to me," he said.
"What I want to see is anybody who is using a knife goes to prison; anybody who is carrying a knife is subject to either prison or a strong community payback that forces them to give service to the community," he said.
Meanwhile the Government's youth behaviour czar today claimed that knife crime is not a problem for schools.
Sir Alan Steer rejected the idea that wider use of metal detectors at school gates would make children safer. He acknowledged his remarks would be criticised but said "exaggerating" the problem of violent crime among teenagers could make it worse.
Sir Alan, head of Seven Kings High School in Ilford, was speaking about his report to ministers on classroom discipline. He called for powers for teachers to search pupils for drugs and alcohol but refused to back more widespread searches for knives and guns.
"The vast majority of schools don't have knives," he said. "It's very rare for there to be a stabbing inside a school."
