BRITAIN’S TOP POLICE CHIEF: TIME TO LOCK UP TEEN THUGS
TEENAGE thugs should face ‘harsher and more effective’ prison sentences to break the cycle of crime, Britain’s top police officer has said.
Cressida Dick warned years of attempting to keep young offenders out of jail had created
a hard core who were ‘simply not fearful’ of the courts.
The Scotland Yard chief suggested the worst young offenders should be locked up sooner, and for longer, as a ‘real deterrent’ to criminals – and to protect communities. She revealed one 16-year-old in south London had not served a single day in jail despite being responsible for 42 offences, involving violence, weapons and drugs, in less than three years.
in a speech to penal reformers, Miss Dick said it was time ‘to be realistic’ and questioned whether it had been right to try to keep teenage
criminals out of prison for all ‘lower level offences’. Suggesting custodial sentences that ‘actually deter people’, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner said the threat of longer jail terms could stop youngsters from turning to crime in the first place.
‘I and a number of my officers are seeing an increasing number of young people in London who are simply not fearful of how the state will respond to their actions,’ Miss Dick said.
‘They don’t see imprisonment as particularly likely or a serious threat and it does not in any sense deter them from criminal activity.
‘At what point does the state prioritise its duty to protect the public and ensure that young people could see the criminal justice system as something that will catch up with them?’
The number of under-18s in young offender institutions has fallen from 3,000 in 2007 to around 860 today.
Successive governments have urged courts to treat yobs leniently, with David Cameron calling on people to ‘hug a hoodie’. Sentencing guidelines
‘Duty to protect the public’
say judges must focus on the welfare and training needs of young criminals, and use jail as an absolute last resort.
But Miss Dick called on policymakers to consider whether violent teenagers should face ‘harsher and more effective’ prison sentences.
She pointed out that young people are jailed for an average of 16 months, and highlighted figures which show two in three commit another crime within a year of being released.
In her address to the Howard League for Penal Reform, she said: ‘They will only serve half … so it’s eight months and we are seeing these people returning to the same context, same friends and same – perhaps even more – destructive outlook on their lives.’
Miss Dick added: ‘Do we yet again need to think about … the incarceration of young people? Is it absolutely the right thing that we have sought to avoid putting young people in prison for all lower level offences?’
She suggested the case of the teenager with 42 convictions showed the system was failing, saying: ‘We have to ask ourselves what is it about the system that is not working. How is he offending so much and how is he able to? He is by no means alone.
‘Do sentences need to be longer and more effective when used in relation to young people, no matter how hard that is for many of us to think about?’
Last year 26,236 criminals under 18 were sentenced by courts, with just 1,598 – around one in 16 – locked up.
Police chiefs are concerned by research showing young first-time offenders are committing more serious and more violent crimes.
Miss Dick called for ‘more imaginative’ resolutions, but said: ‘Should we couple that with harsher, more effective sentencing … where it is clear other approaches are no longer working, with custodial sentences that do actually deter people?’
She said she did not want to see more children in jail but had to be ‘realistic’ adding: ‘We need to give more real deterrents and we need to use [the] opportunity that prison could give to better ensure children don’t reoffend.’
The Howard League’s Frances Crook said: ‘It is unusual for a police officer to comment on areas outside their expertise … We were surprised the Commissioner did not concentrate on the great success of her force at dealing with children in the community.’
FINALLY, a blast of common sense from a senior police officer!
Last month, the bizarre, politicallycorrect antics of Britain’s police chiefs prompted the Mail to ask whether they had entirely lost their marbles.
But thankfully there is at least one among them who isn’t completely out of touch.
Indeed, her fellow chiefs – and indeed our judges and politicians – could learn a great deal from Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick.
Addressing the Howard League for Penal Reform, she warned that young criminals are ‘simply not fearful’ of the courts.
Violent teenagers who offend ‘ with impunity’ should face harsher sentences, she suggested – pointing to one yob who committed 42 crimes in three years without being locked up.
‘Is it absolutely the right thing that we have sought to avoid putting young people in prison for all lower level offences?’ she asked.
The Mail would not argue for excessive use of jail for young criminals, who are rightly treated differently from adults. But without proper punishments, the lives of crime victims can become a living hell.
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