‘Use boxing to keep youths out of crime’

BOXING and martial arts should be harnessed to help fight knife crime and gang violence, a report has recommended.

The Commons digital, culture, media and sport committee said sporting and cultural activities were being overlooked by ministers in favour of arresting and imprisoning young people.

Taking part in activities could also be key to solving social problems in health, education and urban regeneration, it said.

The report recommended that sport and culture should be ‘better integrated within the work and policy objectives’ of Government departments.

The committee concluded that the benefits of sporting and cultural participation were undisputed, but the Government does not do enough to use them in its own policy objectives.

The report highlighted boxing and martial arts programmes as a way of reaching the young.

Damian Collins, the committee’s chairman, said: ‘We cannot break the debilitating cycle of gang violence and knife crime just by arresting those who commit offences.’