Straw outlines action plan to 'nip young offending in the bud'

PATRICIA WYNN DAVIES

Two new orders to stop young criminals drifting into repeated offending were pledged by Jack Straw, the shadow Home Secretary. But a largely unrepentant Mr Straw gave only limited ground over the begging controversy he initiated in a recent speech, emphasising that while Labour would seek to tackle the causes of deprivation, the community had a right to less threatening behaviour on the streets.

The proposed new sentences - the reparation order and the action plan order - would "nip young offending in the bud, providing swift intervention and effective punishment", Mr Straw said.

The policy document, Safer Communities, Safer Britain, approved by delegates yesterday, says the key time on which to focus prevention policies is the second court appearance when the new sentences could be imposed.

The reparation order would require the young offender, with the consent of the victim, to do work for the victim or for the community. The action plan order would be an intense programme of education, family support and "teaching the difference between right and wrong", Mr Straw said.

He went on to pledge an end to the "immoral" privatisation of Britain's prisons, and to enact new offences of racial harassment and racial violence.

However, in a low-key but firm defence to his recent attack on the menace of "squeegee merchants" and aggressive begging by winos and addicts, Mr Straw said: "Yes, poverty does cause crime; but crime greatly adds to poverty, and that's why we have to be tough on the causes of crime and tough on crime itself.... Begging on the streets and sleeping rough in shop doorways is no way for people to have to live."

Blaming the Government for creating the conditions of poverty amidst plenty, he said Labour would remove the causes of deprivation and despair. "But in return, the community has the right to expect less threatening behaviour on the streets. Rights and duties are the bonds which hold strong communities together."

Heavy-handed stage management of yesterday's mammoth debate on democratic renewal ensured little opportunity for criticisms to spill out on to the conference floor.

Paul Boateng, Labour's legal affairs spokesman, promised radical reform of the legal system, while delegates enthusiastically backed a pledge to reform the Crown Prosecution Service, applauding loudly when Mr Straw said: "Their refusal to prosecute the alleged killers of Stephen Lawrence [the black teenager who died after being attacked at a bus stop] is but the last in a long line of decisions which the public find frankly incomprehensible."