For decades the public has seen the whole system as being on the side of lawbreakers

David Blunkett Home Secretary

Home Secretary David Blunkett has promised "end-to-end" reform of the criminal justice system.

Mr Blunkett wrote of a shift towards helping victims in the criminal justice system, days after Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens reignited the crime debate with savage criticism of the legal profession.

Writing in the News of the World, Mr Blunkett said: "End-to-end reform of the system will be started by the government this year, with new laws following within the next 12 months.

"I am not interested in just tinkering with structures, however.

Stop-and-search reform

"People need to be at the heart of the criminal justice system, not institutions or vested interests.

"For decades the public has seen the whole system as being on the side of lawbreakers, not the victims."

I don't think he is going to reignite huge rows about race

Oliver Letwin On stop-and-search

Later Home Office Minister John Denham was asked about a meeting that Mr Blunkett is due to hold on Monday with opposition leaders in the House of Lords.

Mr Denham insisted that the government's Police Reform Bill, which gives power to the home secretary over police forces, had no "sinister agenda".

"We have set out very clearly the important but limited areas in which we think the powers of intervention are necessary.

"We will be happy to discuss how we ensure, if people feel it doesn't do it at the moment, the Bill actually reflects our desires and our intentions and does not reflect what some people have raised as a much wider and more sinister agenda which we are not interested in," he told BBC 1's On the Record programme.

Mr Letwin said on BBC One's Breakfast with Frost programme that Mr Blunkett was not following through quickly enough with measures on crime but he backed his stance on stop-and-search.

The controversial tactic was scaled down in the wake of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, but the editor of the UK's biggest black newspaper has called for its return to tackle rising gun crime in London and elsewhere.

Monday will see the unveiling by Mr Blunkett of a new code on stop-and-search procedures and policing priority areas.

Zero tolerance

Mr Letwin described it as a "good initiative" and said: "I don't think he is going to reignite huge rows about race."

The shadow home secretary said the success of New York policing in reducing street crime could not all be put under the banner of "zero tolerance".

Blunkett's aims

More efficient prosecution Better informed victims More effective punishments Better rehabilitation of criminals

"In New York there are policemen on the streets, walking the streets, 24 hours, patrolling the streets.

"Right through the force there is an understanding of what is going on street by street.

"Police chiefs know there is a problem in a particular avenue or street and have to produce a plan to deal with that."

Mr Blunkett says a wider programme of reform would oblige all the agencies - the police, Crown Prosecution Service, courts, probation service and prison service - to work more closely together.

The results should include more efficient prosecution, better informed victims, more effective punishments, and more successful rehabilitation of criminals.

He insisted: "I want to put the victim first."