Tag: Sadiq Khan

Below is the text of the speech made by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, on 15 July 2019.

Thank you Debbie.

And thank you Javaun.

Not only for that introduction, but for the inspiring work you do at City Hall.

Let’s show Javaun our appreciation.

—

Thank you all for coming.

And thank you to the Salmon Centre – who do brilliant work with young people – for hosting us today.

Before I start, I’d also like to take this opportunity to mention several organisations and colleagues here today who are playing a vital role in our efforts to tackle violent crime.

The NHS – from NHS England to UNISON’s London Ambulance service branch.

Those from the sports world, such as:

Football Beyond Borders. Fight for Peace. And Crystal Palace football club.

Local government colleagues – from Councillors to youth workers.

The voluntary sector, such as the Child Poverty Action Group and Barnardos.

Faith leaders, representing London’s Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples.

Those working directly with young people, such as Ignite Trust, Dwaynamics, New Horizon Youth Centre, and those working in schools.

And, of course, the police.

—

I’d also like to mention the bereaved families who are present here this morning, as well as those campaigning on their behalf.

I know it can be difficult to attend events like this.

It can bring back distressing memories.

But I want everyone to be a part of this conversation about how we tackle violent crime, and I’m grateful for you coming today.

—

As Mayor, the safety and security of London is my top priority.

Not a day passes without worrying about violent crime and its impact on Londoners.

And it’s been an extremely difficult time for our city:

Families and communities torn apart by senseless violence.

People feeling fearful for themselves and their loved ones.

And parents left grieving at the needless murder of their children.

You can’t help but share the heartbreak of the grief-stricken families you meet.

Or the worries of the fearful communities you visit.

But these emotions must drive us to do all we can to prevent more tragedy.

And lead us to be honest about the true causes of violent crime.

For how can we expect to tackle this scourge if we’re not willing to be honest about the nature of the task at hand?

—

The rise in violent crime across the country is a complex issue.

One that’s been obscured by short-term thinking and political spin for far too long.

This has prevented us from tackling the root causes head on.

Well – it’s time to be honest.

Honest about the scale of the problem.

Honest about what’s actually happening away from the headlines.

Honest about the role of families and communities.

Honest about what the police can do – and what they can’t.

Honest about what we can do from City Hall – and what we can’t.

Honest about what the Government can – and should – be doing.

And – ultimately – honest about what it will take – from all of us – to fix this problem for good.

And this is what I want to talk about today.

—

I love my job.

I’m privileged to spend my day making our city a better, fairer and more inclusive place for all.

But it’s also a job where you live and breathe the major challenges of a complicated, global city.

I often lay awake at night with an overwhelming sense of apprehension:

How many Londoners will be victims of violence in the coming days?

How many women will have to suffer sexual assault or domestic violence?

How many families will be left grieving due to bloodshed on our streets?

And what more can we do to bring this suffering to an end?

—

I believe it’s one of the responsibilities of my office to meet – if they want to – the relatives of those who’ve lost loved ones to violent crime.

I don’t speak about this much.

Because it’s personal.

It’s private.

But I think more of the stories of victims need to be heard if we’re going to be honest about this problem.

And if we’re going to understand the true human cost of violent crime.

—

So – today – I have the blessing of some brave parents to talk about the children they lost.

Malcolm Mide-Madariola was only 17 when he was knifed in the heart outside a tube station last year.

Malcolm was a high achieving student.

He passed his diploma in Business Studies with distinction.

And he enjoyed playing football for his school.

Malcom was also known for his generosity and kindness.

For putting his family and friends before himself.

And not for causing conflict, but for being a calming influence amongst his peers.

That fateful afternoon – when Malcolm was brutally killed – he was standing up for a friend who was being threatened.

—

Dwayne Simpson – another young Londoner – was also stabbed to death.

He lost his life in 2014.

He was trying to defend a young boy who was being chased down the street.

Dwayne didn’t have an easy start to life.

And he received a criminal record for robbery at a young age.

But when he came out of prison he turned his life around.

He went to college, had a bright future, and secured funding to set up a local boxing club – now called Dwaynamics – to keep others away from criminal gangs.

Due to the level of violence in his neighbourhood, Dwayne once told his mum that he didn’t know if he’d reach his 21st birthday.

Tragically, he never did.

—

There are so many more stories I could tell you.

I don’t want any more parents, like Malcom’s, Dwayne’s or others, to have to go through the grief of losing a child in this way.

Young victims struck down in the prime of their lives.

So much talent wasted.

And so much potential lost.

It’s painful stories like these that explain why I never allow myself to forget the time I spend with grieving relatives.

Because it motivates me every single day to ensure that other families don’t have to go through this kind of pain and anguish.

—

I mentioned earlier that if we’re truly going to tackle this problem – which we must – we have to start with honesty.

And honesty starts with looking at the facts.

Violent crime in our city is clearly far, far too high.

But how did we get here?

Contrary to what some would have you believe; violent crime didn’t start rising in London the day I became Mayor in 2016.

In truth, it’s been rising since 2014.

With Serious Youth Violence rising from 2012.

And the root causes go back even further than that.

We should also be clear that this is not just a London problem.

In fact, it’s been increasing at a higher rate in cities and regions across the country…

…which is why violent crime has been on the front pages of local papers in the likes of Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol, as well as London.

—

We should also be honest about the fact that our relentless focus on this problem in London since 2016 has started to make a difference.

As the Met Commissioner, Cressida Dick, has confirmed – the situation is slowly improving.

Serious incidents involving young Londoners is down by nearly 20 per cent compared to last year.

And the number of homicides in the first six months of 2019 is 24 per cent lower than the same period a year ago.

I don’t say any of this because I’m complacent.

Far from it.

Every single act of violence is one too many.

And we clearly have a long way to go.

Something which is intensely highlighted whenever we experience days of horrific, lethal violence on our streets.

But if we’re going to continue to learn the right lessons, it’s critical that we’re honest and open when our approach is starting to show results.

And to challenge the narrative that ‘nothing is being done’. Because it is.

—

We also need to be honest about who the victims and perpetrators are.

Here in London, one of the most diverse cities in the world, young black men make up 11 per cent of London’s youth population.

Young black Londoners are over represented – as both victims and offenders.

But it’s important to remember that the vast, vast majority of young Black Londoners make a positive contribution to our city – and 99 per cent are not involved in serious youth violence in any way.

In other cities, like Glasgow, where the demographics are very different, it’s young white men who are more likely to be the perpetrators, as well as the victims, of violent crime.

That’s because it’s not skin colour that determines your chances of being a victim or a perpetrator, but many other environmental factors – which I will come to later – such as disproportionate rates of poverty, unemployment and school exclusions.

But this issue of disproportiality is impacting the wider black community, including those not directly involved – such as innocent Londoners like Malcolm, Dwayne and their families.

This is something we must both acknowledge and seek to address.

Not only in relation to youth violence, but more broadly.

This means proactively tackling the barriers and inequality that black Londoners face.

From housing and poverty to education and the work place.

—

And – lastly – we must also be honest about the fact that youth violent crime is being fuelled by the drug trade.

This means that as well as doing more to arrest and charge the criminals who are distributing and selling drugs, we must make people aware that taking drugs at middle-class parties is contributing to the bloodshed on our streets.

Londoners must realise that there’s no such thing as a victimless crime.

—

So what’s the solution?

It seems like a cliché now, but I fundamentally believe that the mantra of the last Labour government still holds true:

“Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”.

This means working to tackle the underlying causes at the same time as understanding that the police will always have a huge, and vital, role to play.

I want to put on the record – once again – my thanks to the brave men and women of the Met Police who are doing an incredible job under extremely difficult circumstances.

As Mayor, I’ll continue to support our overstretched and under-resourced police to do everything they can to stem the bloodshed.

And I’ll continue to defend the tactics they’re successfully using to drive down violence:

Knife sweeps to get weapons of the streets.

Intelligence-led drug raids and arrests.

Highly visible policing in the areas worst affected.

And targeted, intelligence-led Stop and Search.

I know as well as anyone the negative impact that indiscriminate Stop and Search can have on communities.

Done badly, it really can make it harder to tackle crime by pitting communities against the police and by discouraging key witnesses from reporting crime.

Growing up in south London, I lost track of the number of times I was stopped and searched for what appeared to be for no other reason than the colour of my skin.

And one of the things I remember being told as a teenager by my late dad was:

“Always be respectful to the police. Never answer back. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t give them an excuse.”

I know this experience has been shared by many black and Asian Londoners – regardless of their background or where they live.

When I was a human rights lawyer, I was active in highlighting the disproportionate use of Stop and Search and – let’s face it – some examples of downright discrimination.

But – since I’ve been Mayor – working with the police – we’ve been acting to end the very worst practices of Stop and Search.

As part of this, we’ve rolled out Body Worn Cameras so that both the police and communities can have more confidence in their interactions.

What we’ve found is that when it’s done professionally, properly and with evidence – Stop and Search can be effective in taking drugs and weapons off our streets, and therefore a vital tool we must use.

So, again, I want to be honest – Stop and Search has increased under my Mayoralty.

But that’s not to say it’s a panacea – in any way

Despite what the candidates for the next Prime Minister want you to believe, we will never be able to solve this problem with Stop and Search alone.

—

Another contentious issue is the number of police officers on our streets.

There are some who criticise me for talking about police cuts in response to violent crime.

They say that it’s somehow dodging responsibility or passing the buck.

But it’s the truth.

And as I’ve said today, we can’t tackle violent crime unless we’re honest about every aspect of it.

Over 800 million pounds has already been stripped from the Met’s budgets since 2010.

This is a total disgrace – and has created a huge amount of damage.

You don’t have to take my word for it:

The Home Office has acknowledged the link between police cuts and violent crime.

Senior officers around the country have bravely spoken out for years.

Even the Home Secretary has now said that police cuts have gone too far.

And both Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson have finally acknowledged the same.

It makes me so angry that for years the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and other Cabinet Ministers refused to admit what was clear for everyone else to see.

And even angrier that – despite some warm words – the Government is still refusing to reverse all the cuts made since 2010.

—

I’m doing all I can to fill some of the financial black hole:

Investing a record amount from City Hall.

Helping to set up a new dedicated Violent Crime Taskforce.

And ensuring we have nearly 300 police officers focused on the areas worst affected, working alongside their colleagues.

But – I have to be honest – I have one arm tied behind my back.

Because the overwhelming majority of police funding comes from the Government.

And I have no means of making up the gap.

That’s why we desperately need the Government to reverse all the cuts and to put more police officers on the streets.

And – on behalf of Londoners – I’ll continue to push the next Prime Minister to deliver on his promises to do just that.

—

But while the Conservative candidates are trying to sound tough on crime – despite their record of supporting massive cuts – the truth is they’re desperately weak on addressing the underlying causes.

The formula I mentioned earlier – “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” – requires both elements to happen.

Being honest about violent crime means admitting that we can’t just arrest our way out of the problem.

And it means admitting that there are certain environmental factors that can lead people to become more likely to commit crime.

No one is born violent.

Or born a criminal.

But the truth is there is a complex and interrelated set of factors at play in people’s lives, homes and communities, which can alter the likelihood of someone taking the wrong road.

These involve deep-rooted and engrained social and economic factors.

Factors like the rise of child poverty.

Like family breakdown and poor mental health.

Like the lack of youth services across London.

Like the negative impact of new forms of communication and social media.

Like the link between drugs, gangs and violence – often involving organised criminal networks that span the globe, with operations the size of large companies.

And like the fact that investment in public services and programmes designed to tackle these engrained problems have been decimated by a decade of austerity…

This has removed the glue that holds our communities together, which previously prevented many people from slipping out of the system and into a life of crime.

—

The depressing reality is that many young people coming of age now have only known austerity throughout their formative years.

Their parents had insecure work and insecure housing.

The help that used to exist for such parents – through programmes like Sure Start – has all but disappeared.

Many of them were excluded from school and left to fend for themselves without any support.

Their youth centres were closed down.

And they’ve seen their job opportunities narrowed, and their aspirations curtailed.

There is clearly a link between this perfect storm of cuts and regressive policies and the rise of violent crime since 2014, and serious youth violence since 2012.

And, today, I’m releasing stark new analysis from City Hall, which truly lays bare the full extent of the relationship between serious youth violence and a whole range of socio-economic factors.

It confirms that the areas of London with the highest rate of youth violence have:

Higher rates of poverty and deprivation.

A higher proportion of children in care.

And lower levels of ‘positive life satisfaction’ amongst young Londoners.

Yet there are still some who say that to acknowledge this link between poverty, deprivation and crime is somehow to excuse criminality and to let the criminals off the hook.

I say this is dangerous rubbish.

Not to do so is simply dishonest – and, unforgivably, allows violent crime to continue for another generation without addressing the underlying causes.

The truth is:

If we allow children to be brought up in deprived conditions.

If we accept high rates of school exclusions.

If we fail to tackle domestic and sexual violence.

If we leave people in bad housing with a lack of employment and training opportunities.

And if we decimate the very public services designed to support those most in need – as this Government has systematically done – then crime is much more likely to flourish.

This is not to say that everyone growing up in these environments becomes a criminal.

Or that we shouldn’t deal very toughly with those who break the law.

Far from it.

There is never any excuse for criminality – whatsoever.

But any sensible society understands that it’s in our own interest to remove the conditions that allow criminality to thrive.

We have to face the reality that:

with hope at rock bottom,

an absence of positive opportunities,

and a worrying lack of worth being placed on people’s lives…

…turning to criminality and gangs has become an all too easy route to satisfy the lure of gaining respect and money – however misguided that is.

Gangs and violence is often the only sense of identity and belonging many young people know.

And new and evolving forms of social media are being used to glorify violence and goad rivals.

—

Earlier, I spoke about the actions the Met police is taking on violent crime.

Well – we’re also doing some innovative work from City Hall to tackle the underlying causes.

We’ve established the Young Londoners Fund and a range of youth and community initiatives.

From the Culture Seeds programme to Sports Unite – which are providing new opportunities for young people.

This includes plans to:

Invest in projects during the summer holidays for thousands of young people at risk of becoming involved in crime.

And funding initiatives to identify young people being exploited by county-lines drug trafficking, and then helping them to turn their lives around.

—

We’ve also established the new Violence Reduction Unit.

The VRU is working to reduce all forms of violence – including violence against women and girls – using what’s described as a public health approach.

This is about using police enforcement first to contain and stop the spread of violent crime.

And then tackling the root causes to prevent it from happening in the first place.

This means intervening at critical moments in a young person’s life when they’re experiencing things that could increase the chance of them getting involved in violence.

These adverse childhood experiences – as they are known – can be very varied.

Take exposure to violence:

A young person who’s been a victim of violence is much more likely to go on to commit violent crimes themselves.

And according to the Met Police, 72 per cent of homicide suspects were previously victims of knife crime.

That’s why – with the right intervention and support – we can prevent young people from taking the wrong road.

To achieve this goal, we’re bringing together specialists from the NHS, the police, local government, probation and community organisations to understand the underlying causes of violent crime and to be ready to intervene when needed.

We’re also getting better at sharing information between agencies and co-ordinating interventions.

—

There’s no doubt we have a big task ahead.

But we’re not starting with a blank piece of paper.

We’re building on the public health approach set out in my Knife Crime Strategy two years ago.

And we’re constantly learning from the successful implementation of a public health approach in Glasgow and other cities around the world – and adapting them in London.

We’re also drawing on the excellent community practice already taking place in London – including by charities, councils and community groups here today.

That’s why the first priority of the new director of the VRU, Lib Peck – who I’m pleased is here this morning – has been to listen to the Londoners most affected by violent crime.

She’s looking at how we can use our resources to empower local communities to tackle the problem, rather than imposing a top-down approach.

Our aim is to:

Re-build trust between communities and agencies that can help.

Join forces in spotting the risk factors in young Londoners that might lead to criminal behaviour.

And then to focus our attention on what can actually make a difference before it’s too late.

And, today, after much consultation with communities, I’m pleased to announce several projects that the VRU will be funding as part of this work.

This includes:

Creating a programme to reduce school exclusions.

Providing support to young people affected by domestic violence.

Supporting programmes for vulnerable parents to help create stronger families.

Training youth workers.

And establishing a Youth Action Group that will inform the VRU programme and advise City Hall.

—

I know from my own life story the positive impact these kinds of programmes can have.

Because I’ve seen how many young Londoners from deprived and disadvantaged communities often face key crossroads in their lives.

And without the necessary support for them and their families at these crucial moments, they can take decisions and paths that not only harm their own future, but negatively impact the rest of society.

Growing up on a council estate in South London, I saw first-hand how this can happen.

I’ve witnessed these key moments in people’s lives.

Some of my school friends were given opportunities to develop and gain confidence through family and community programmes, sport and other activities – whether it was boxing in the local club in Earlsfield or playing football at the weekends.

Whereas others – with just as much potential – didn’t have the same positive influences in their lives, and were sucked into a life of crime and criminal gangs.

I’ll never forget a visit to a prison when I was Shadow Justice Secretary.

As I was walking around I heard one of the inmates shouting – “Sadiq” from behind a caged barrier.

I looked over, and it was an old school friend.

I remember that he was intelligent with potential to succeed, but, for a whole host of reasons, he’d taken some wrong turns in life and ended up in prison.

There are no excuses for the crimes he committed.

But I’m in no doubt that with the right support structure and opportunities growing up – his story – like so many others across London – could have been very, very different.

—

So our approach amounts to a fundamentally different way of doing things to tackle violent crime in London.

With more funding from City Hall than ever before.

Greater collaboration with other public services and communities.

And a more focused and evidence-based approach to addressing the underlying causes.

But to be honest – we simply cannot do it on our own.

So my message to the Government – and the new Prime Minister – is this:

It’s time to acknowledge that this is a national problem that requires an urgent national solution.

No more scratching around the edges.

We need the Prime Minister to drive the implementation of a proper national strategy to:

Tackle poverty and inequality.

To support the most deprived communities in our country, and those who have been left behind.

To invest in youth services and opportunities for young people.

And to support our police with the long-term increase in funding they desperately need.

—

So, let me end by saying this:

The sad reality is the violence we’re seeing on our streets today is an appalling side-effect of increasing inequality and alienation caused by years of austerity and neglect.

The lesson we must all learn is that you can’t cut public services, preventative measures and ignore the most vulnerable people in our country at the same time as keeping crime low.

These things are fundamentally incompatible.

What we’re seeing is a reflection of what happens following a nine-year experiment to shrink the state.

The most depressing part of all of this is that our city – our nation – is being robbed of young people with so much potential.

And – if we don’t change our approach as a country – we risk another generation taking similar paths to violence.

The first step for the Government must be to stop viewing this problem in isolation, and to start being honest about the challenge we face.

The next Prime Minister can’t continue to turn a blind eye to despair and the human cost of austerity.

Of course, the police must be tough on crime.

But we can’t expect them to bring down poverty and inequality too.

This is not their job.

It’s clear we need a strategy which is both tough on violence and tough on its causes.

This is what we’re doing in London.

But we need the Government to follow suit – we need their help.

We’ve taken this approach as a country before – with success – and it’s possible to do so again.

This means investing in young people.

Investing in families.

Investing in communities.

And investing in our country so that we can expand opportunity for all.

Thank you.

Below is the text of the speech made by Sadiq Khan, the then Shadow Justice Secretary, to Barnado’s on 8th September 2011.

I would like to thank you all for coming here this morning and to thank Barnardos for organising this event.

For almost 150 years Barnardos has been supporting our country’s most vulnerable children.

The basic sentiment that informs Barnardos work on youth justice and youth offending – that, regardless of their background or behaviour, all children, even the most troubled, deserve the opportunity to turn their lives around – is perhaps more relevant now than ever.

In recent weeks, following the riots which began in London and spread across the country, we have heard children described as ‘feral’, ‘out of control’ and a ‘drain on police time and our penal resources’. As Anne Marie [Carrie] has already pointed out on her blog last month – a 2008 Barnardos poll found that 54% of the public thought that British children were beginning to behave like animals. I’m afraid we can only imagine what that figure would be if the poll was carried out now.

Although the riots were by no means exclusively perpetrated by young people, the ages of some of those involved were as shocking as the crimes themselves. And despite the fact that the vast majority of young people, including those in riot-hit areas, are law abiding citizens, there is no doubt that the unrest we saw in August will shape debates we have from now on on youth provision, youth services and – the issue I’m going to focus on today – youth justice.

The fact that the majority of the public have supported tough sentences, even for young people involved, is understandable. Nothing can excuse or justify the actions of those – however young or old – who caused the unrest last month. People were scared in their homes, their places of work and on their streets and it is right that those who instilled that fear face the consequences of their actions.

But punishment is just one function of our criminal justice system, which must also protect the public, reform offenders and try to prevent people entering it in the first place.

For as much as people want perpetrators of the riots punished, they also want assurances, as far as is possible, that crimes of this sort – and others – won’t happen again.

In the aftermath of the unrest people I have met, in my own community in south London and elsewhere, while unequivocal in their condemnation, have also expressed a deep desire to explain and understand why it happened. Particularly in relation to the involvement of young people:

What led young people to take to the streets and commit these crimes?

Why are so many young people being drawn into gangs?

What caused this breakdown of respect for the law? For authority? For each other?

What would deter them and what can reform them?

The solution to the problem of all youth offending, not just rioting, lies in the answers to questions like these.

We now have, I hope, an opportunity for a grown up debate on how to make our youth justice system work, for the young people within it and the communities it protects – by examining the root causes of youth offending, what preventative action can be taken, how to most appropriately punish and reform offenders and rehabilitate them back into our society.

In seeking root causes, it is tempting but futile to make sweeping generalisations about the backgrounds of young people who commit crime. About their parents, their family make up, or their ethnicity.

But we can look at the statistics. And they demonstrate the scale of the challenge we face:

– Over 70% of children in custody have been involved with, or in the care of social services

– 40% had been homeless before entering custody

– More than a quarter of children in the youth justice system have been identified with special educational needs, almost half are under achieving in school and 90% of young men in prison were excluded from school

– More than half of all offenders were convicted of their first crime before they reached 18 and a further 21% before their 24th birthday.

It is this data that we need to focus on. And in government tackling this is what we meant when we said we would be tough on the causes of crime.

We understood that the right way to halt the unrestrained rise in crime we saw in the 1980s and early 1990s and to cut the number of young people in custody was to stop them turning to crime in the first place.

This meant several agencies working together to deliver a national strategy at a local level. So we tried to develop a joined up youth justice system, with the Home Office and later the MoJ, the Departments of Health and Education as well as the police and local government – all of this overseen by the Youth Justice Board.

Via the YJB, we armed prevention professionals with the resources they needed to intervene early to try to stop at risk young people from turning to crime. They worked with local Youth Offending Teams to deal with young offenders through the Youth Justice System – from arrest to diversionary options or to charge. Through to sentencing and to the management of their reintegration back into their community.

And we knew that early intervention can never be too early. That’s why we created schemes like Sure Start to support very young children and their families and why we developed targeted Family Intervention Projects to offer intensive, personalised support to parents and guardians to help provide the stability families need to bring up their children to be responsible citizens.

And we continued to support young people in their passage to adulthood: with Youth Inclusion Programmes for young teenagers most at risk of offending and the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) to give older teenagers the option to stay in full time education.

Of course when we left office last year things weren’t perfect. There was still more work to do, but we did make significant progress in preventing youth crime. Over the last parliament alone we saw a:

– A 43% reduction in first time youth offenders

– A 34% reduction overall in crimes committed by young people

– And we’ve also witnessed the closure of some of the youth secure estate because of falling levels of youth crime

So prevention is the key.

But prevention doesn’t always work. Once a crime is committed by a young person and he or she is caught, there is still the matter of “what next?”

For low level first offences committed by young people effective divergence mechanisms from the criminal justice system have been developed in recent years. Police can refer a low-level young offender to a triage programme instead of charging them if they admit their offence during police interview. Instead of going through the court system the young person will be sent to a Youth Offending Service office where an intervention plan to address their offending behaviour and make restorations to the victim will be drawn up and which they will be expected to follow. And if they don’t comply, they will be charged by the police. So there is a carrot and a stick.

However, for more serious crimes committed by young people, charge by the police and entry into the youth justice system where a legal punishment is passed down will be necessary.

Legal punishment of young people is, of course, controversial.

There are abolitionists who feel punishment for young people is wrong in all instances. And there are those that militate in favour of draconian punishments. In the riots calls for flogging, live ammunition and the stocks were common place according to the polls and the popular press. These were dismissed as lamentable by lawmakers of all parties and of course rightly so.

But public confidence in our justice system, including the youth justice system, does require some punishment for crimes committed to be inflicted on the perpetrator. And the debate about what is the most appropriate and proportionate punishment is best held in the centre, not at the fringes. I believe that most citizens – teachers, nurses, shopkeepers as well as politicians – have a balanced and moderate view of legal punishment and in government we did continue to develop and fund non-custodial forms to compliment custodial options.

Although we successfully brought the numbers of children requiring a custodial sentence more in line with international norms by providing productive alternatives for young offenders, custody is sometimes the only appropriate course of action.

But children given a custodial sentence in the secure estate are still just that: children.

It is only too clear to me when I visit Youth Offending Institutions and Secure Training Centres that I am dealing with children, even if their physical size makes them seem more grown up. They often have incomplete moral vocabulary, stunted emotional intelligence and a limited understanding of how the actions that led to their detention harmed victims and violated the covenants that allow our society to function.

So, when we do detain children, as well as addressing offender behaviour, it is right to invest in their education, their emotional development and general wellbeing. It is tragic to me when I see a young person who thrives under the stability offered to them in the secure estate, en gaged in healthy relationships, perhaps getting qualifications they would never have considered outside at hugely increased costs. And it reinforces to me that every crime committed by a child represents missed opportunities by multiple state agencies and the family, the community as well as the individual. That is why a joined-up approach between all these actors is necessary.

And in this sense, we shouldn’t view crime as transactional between two parties – the offender and the victim. Crime creates social volatility and affects everyone. It damages the communities and the society as a whole, particularly when committed by young people. It is right that the state, representing the people, recognises the duty to incapacitate, punish, reform and deter. But we must find the best ways do this – by looking at what works.

Community punishments are a valuable part of our youth justice system. They can sometimes be more effective in reforming young offenders and in reducing reoffending than short custodial sentences. We believe that tough community sentences for young offenders should be expanded and their funding guaranteed.

But youth justice projects are being squeezed or forced to shut down in the face of cuts to local authority budgets, NOMS, the YJB and YOTs. YOTs are taking hits of up to 60 per cent to non-statutory functions like prevention initiatives including working with gangs. As a result Intensive Intervention Projects are closing down or reducing their services. Already East Sussex, Gateshead, Haringey, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Peterborough, Southampton and Trafford have discontinued their projects!

This is drastically restricting the options available to magistrates and judges to pass down non-custodial community sentences. If they don’t have the confidence in the availability and efficacy of community punishment they will be forced to resort to the secure estate. We’re already hearing from magistrates that cuts to YOT budgets in just the last year are impacting their sentencing options.

It is economically misguided to diminish YOT and community justice budgets and is undermining the Government’s plan to reduce detention numbers.

Strategically incoherent and a false economy seems to sum up the current approach.

According to the Independent Commission on Youth Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour, it can cost up for £193,000 per year to hold a young person in a secure training centre. And for some it is the best option. But it is a very costly alternative to a community disposal for those for whom it is not necessary or proportionate.

Forcing magistrates and judges into that position because of short term cuts will not result in long term savings and is hugely detrimental to the future life chances of the children placed into custody and the communities who will be the victims of further crimes due to the reoffending of these young people.

I’m proud that we reversed the unconstrained increase in youth detention by investing to tackle the causes of crime.

The number of under 18 year olds imprisoned has reduced by a third over the last three years. And during the same period we also saw a reduction in crime. But this took time. It took investment. And it took a concerted joined-up effort.

I’m glad that the institutional innovations of Labour – Youth Offending Teams and the Youth Justice Board – both exist (for the time being anyway) and are able to do their valuable work in providing pre-sentencing support and advice, and where necessary, working to ensure young people in the secure estate are treated as children and that the secure estate recognises their particular needs and vulnerabilities as far as possible.

I’ll admit, It’s not perfect. For example, we don’t do enough on sharing best practice. We don’t do enough on exploring which interventions work best by leveraging the work of criminologists and experts in the field to plan as rationally as possible.

And while we need to be careful not to inflate the scale of the problem of gangs, it is clear that there are areas where territorial gangs are proving to be a key driver of local criminality. This is where politicians need to listen to and work with the organisations engaging with young people in gangs who know what works to get them out.

Again, there is best practice out there – both overseas and domestically – into how best we tackle the gang problem, involving early interventions and targeting resources

But you don’t have to go far back to remember the problems that existed in the youth justice system prior to 1997. A system that was broken. A system that was still, to a great extent, predicated on Willy Whitelaw’s “short, sharp shock”.

The innovations of the last Labour government – intensive family intervention, a focus on education, recognition of a child’s unique needs – were a repudiation of the past and a genuine and heartfelt attempt to build a brighter future.

When this government unveiled their approach to youth justice there was excitement in the sector – that this may genuinely be something new from the Conservatives on crime reduction and a continuation of the progress we started.

But the Government plans to roll the YJB back into the Ministry of Justice which could risk unravelling some of the progress we’ve seen. Legitimate concerns that rationalisation of functions with NOMS will lead to the erosion of the child-centric approach the YJB began are being dismissed by this government, despite the House of Lords already voting to keep the YJB independent.

Independence, to a degree, insulates the Youth Justice Board from the worst ravages of populist rhetoric. Not entirely, but sufficiently to give them greater latitude than would be afforded a politician and a greater emphasis on what actually works to cut youth crime.

And why are they letting a public body with a proven track record of reducing crime go up in the smoke of the bonfire of the quangos? The decision was not based on a review of performance. As with everything, the decision seems largely based on costs, not value.

But cutting the YJB won’t save much money – around £100,000 over three years – and threatens, through undermining a joined-up youth justice system, to actually increase costs over the long term through higher criminality and the attendant costs to individuals and the state.

The system is not just under assault in that sense though. There are also deep concerns about funding the secure estate. The rate of detainee deaths in custody this year is far higher than in past years. The secure estate is having to absorb big cuts in budgets. And anything less than an obsessive focus on ensuring safety is not compromised is, to my mind, a severe abrogation of duty. We will continue to press the Prisons Minister on the matter of deaths of young people in custody and will work with the government and any other agencies to do what we can to ensure the secure estate is safe for detainees.

Basic safety and protection of well being, both physical and mental, should be the least we expect when it comes to treatment of young people who come into conflict with the law.

We also have a duty to prevent the all too frequent transition from youth offender to adult offender.

Although we were able to reduce it somewhat in government; the stubbornly high rates of reoffending amongst young people need to be urgently addressed.

We don’t only have a moral duty to try to rehabilitate young people and offer them a second chance at responsible citizenship. It is also an economic imperative.

The National Audit Office has estimated the cost to the UK economy of offending by young people as £11bn per year. If we are to bring this cost down, not to mention the unquantifiable emotional costs to victims of crime, we must invest in rehabilitation.

And when we’re dealing with young people, this does not just mean giving them the practical educational skills they will need to play a productive part in public life. It must also involve fostering an understanding about the consequences their actions have not only for their own lives but for the victims of their crimes. An understanding often lacking for many young offenders.

Restorative justice programmes that make young offenders take responsibility for their crimes can indeed be transformative justice. It can help develop the moral vocabulary, emotional intelligence and offer a level of reparation for the victim that punishment alone can’t always deliver.

Where restorative justice has been used, in Northern Ireland it has produced lower reconviction rates and higher satisfaction rates for victims. A 2010 Prison Reform Trust report shows almost a 50 per cent reduction in the reoffending rates of young offenders that took part in Northern Ireland’s restorative justice programme.

It is of course not appropriate for every crime or every young offender. A fifteen year old that kills or rapes as part of a gang initiation needs to be dealt with differently. But it is a mechanism that merits further emphasis within our youth justice system and something Labour would be committed to expanding where victims feel it would help.

So I can announce this morning that Labour will be seeking to amend the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Bill so that courts have an explicit duty to consider making an order to participate in a restorative justice course. And if the government is true to its word that it wants to replicate Northern Ireland’s restorative justice programme, then supporting our amendment would be a positive step.

But their record to date makes me doubtful of their commitment.

It is not only the preventative innovations of the last government that are at risk – the Sure Start centres and youth clubs which are closing, family Intervention Projects being put at risk by ring fenced funding being removed, the EMA being scrapped, Youth Offending Teams being disbanded – rehabilitative measures are also taking a hit. My fear is that it will not only be young people whose lives will be wasted to crime that will suffer, but also communities up and down the country battling anti-social behaviour and youth offending.

The intolerable outbreak of crime we saw on the streets of our cities this summer shined a light on our youth justice system and the underlying reasons why young people sometimes feel they have nothing to lose and a lot to gain from crime.

We need to look carefully at what this light has uncovered – from the shadowy world of gangs to opportunities for work and training that young people need.

That is precisely why we’re reaching out – to experts, practitioners and young people themselves – for solutions.

I am chairing an extensive policy review looking at all aspects of criminal justice policy. My review will be analysing the evidence of what works to prevent young people from committing criminal acts in the first place and how we can best reform the ones that do. We will scratch below the surface to deal with the complex issues we know play a part – including deprivation, gang culture and exclusion. And how our youth justice system can be made to work for the young people within it.

I will need your help. The work of organisations like Barnardos and many others represented here today should inform youth justice policy so it is genuinely child-centric, evidence based and effective. We will also need to look at what lessons from the successes we’ve seen in youth justice can be transferred to the adult criminal justice system.

Youth crime went down in recent year s and youth custody levels fell. So there is something distinctive about the youth justice system which shows we can reduce crime and imprisonment at the same time. Unlike the adult penal system.

The relationship between custody and crime is never simple, but I don’t think it’s immodest to say that an important factor was the investments Labour made, in money and in effort, to prevent and deter youth crime.

Casting simplistic assertions about a ‘feral underclass’ as Ken Clarke has about those involved in riots is lazy. This kind of language absolves people from responsibility for their actions, implying that somehow they had no self control or no choice. Instead we will be looking at how we can make young people responsible citizens who understand the consequences of their actions and have the opportunities and the means to stay away from crime. But at the same time, have a youth justice system that effectively punishes and reforms those who do commit offences.

It is a moral and economic imperative to stop young lives being wasted to crime. The vast majority of young people want to play a productive, not destructive role in society. It is all our responsibility to make that happen and to help reform those who are struggling to do so – for everyone’s sake.