Home Secretary's half-baked proposal won't work

12.00.00am GMT Sun 13th Jul 2008

Commenting on the Home Secretary's proposal to scare young offenders by confronting them with the consequences of knife crime in hospital and prison, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

"Jacqui Smith is coming up with half-baked ideas because the Government has been in denial about the scale of the knife crime problem.

"Only a month ago, the Home Secretary denied that knife crime had got worse despite hospital admission figures released to the Liberal Democrats showing a shocking rise in teenage victims. Now she has been panicked into suggesting a plan that has already been tried and has failed in the United States, as the criminological evidence clearly shows.

"When offenders are confronted with their own victims, such restorative justice can have a real impact in creating remorse and changing behaviour. But general programmes to show teenagers the consequences of other people's crimes do not work and indeed have proved to be counter-productive.

"We need more police in high risk areas, intense policing of hot spots, intelligence-led stop and search, metal-detecting knife arches and police visits and videos to show school children that people who swagger around with knives do not look so macho when they are in jail. This problem needs to be cracked and fast."