Cressida Dick: Charity criticises youth sentencing comments

A leading prisons charity has criticised Britain's most senior police officer's comments that young offenders should face harsher sentences.

Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick warned young offenders often did not believe they were likely to be jailed.

"Harsher, more effective" sentences could be used to deter a "core group" of repeat offenders, Ms Dick said.

The Howard League for Penal Reform said any plans to lock up more young offenders was a "counsel of despair".

In a speech to the group, Ms Dick argued some young offenders were "simply not fearful of how the state will respond to their actions".

She highlighted the case of a 16-year-old from south London who had not served any jail time despite committing 42 violent offences in less than three years.

Prison could provide a "better chance of reforming" serial young offenders, Ms Dick argued.

"Current approaches aren't working,"

"We need to give more real deterrents and we need to use the opportunity that imprisonment could give to better ensure that children don't reoffend," she said.

Ms Dick also highlighted a disparity between race and violence.

This year, she said, 24 teenagers have been murdered in London - 21 were black and three were of Asian descent.

Howard League campaign director Andrew Neilson said: "There is no evidence more prison will actually work."

"Knife crime was falling when recent mandatory sentences for possession were proposed and eventually adopted. The fact knife crime is now on the rise tells its own story."

"Huge strides have been made to keep children out of the criminal justice system where possible and we mustn't endanger that progress," he said.

The Chief Inspector of Prisons recently found no youth custody centre in the UK could be considered safe.