Cressida Dick: Charity criticises youth sentencing comments Published duration 10 November 2017

image copyright Reuters/Hannah McKay image caption Cressida Dick said many young offenders "don't see imprisonment as particularly likely or a threat"

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".

'Real deterrents'

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.

image copyright Katie Collins/PA Wire image caption Cases involving knife injuries in London have risen in the last year

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.