Community service uniforms 'a nasty gimmick'

Monday, 16 May 2005 12:00 AM

Civil rights campaigners have dubbed plans to force teenage thugs to wear chain-gang uniforms while undertaking community service a "nasty gimmick".

Home Office minister Hazel Blears first mooted the plan, arguing that public confidence in the criminal justice system would be restored if people saw "justice being done".

But Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, described the idea as yet another "cheap and nasty" gimmick.

"How do you engender a culture of respect by degrading people?" she asked.

Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said there was no evidence the idea would work in practice.

"Introducing uniforms, caps, badges, or naming and shaming offenders is likely to degrade them, make them resentful and not turn up for community punishment," he said.

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: "Labour have been in power for eight years and what have they done?

"They have permitted 24-hour drinking, let over 100,000 prisoners out of prison early, while at the same time making the life of a police constable on the beat more and more difficult.

"An idea like this may well make a minor contribution to public confidence but it will not make up for eight years of neglect of law and order."

A Home Office spokesman stressed the idea was still under consideration and was not "a firm policy" proposal.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that Labour's third term of office would focus on restoring "respect" in Britain's communities.

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