Law chief blamed over youths in prison

The most senior judge in England and Wales has been accused of fuelling a rise in the youth jail population by demanding longer sentences for mobile phone robbers.

The criticism of Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, came from Lord Warner, who is in charge of the Government's policies to combat young offending.

Lord Woolf said in January that mobile phone thieves who used violence could expect to go to jail for a minimum of five years "irrespective of the age of the offender" - a remark which led to a sharp rise in the number of young people locked up. Lord Warner, chairman of the Youth Justice Board, said Lord Woolf had damaged efforts to tackle the "root causes" of youth crime.

Lord Warner said the Board had been "positively euphoric" at the start of this year as the number of young people in custody fell to 2,683, lower than the previous year.

"Then after January we see a rather steep rise. That is around the time the Lord Chief Justice delivered himself of a few thoughts on what he thought should happen to mobile phone robbers," he said. "We see a very significant rise in the custody population."

Magistrates and judges began imposing longer sentences after Lord Woolf 's comments, which meant that with more inmates youth jails could do less work to help prevent reoffending, said Lord Warner.

"I am not going to express a view on Lord Woolf," he added. "It is not for me to tell sentencers how to do their job. But the Board is of the view that short custodial sentences are not the answer."

He said long-term community penalties were much more successful at getting offenders back onto the straight and narrow.

Lord Warner said the police must catch more persistent young criminals and tackle the culture of "untouchable" offenders in up to 400 crime-plagued housing estates.

He was confident his organisation had tactics in place to deal with young offenders, but it was up to the police to bring more of them to justice.

The Board's annual review, just published, said police detection rates varied from 44 per cent in the north east to just 11 per cent in the capital.

Research showed young robbers did not believe they would be caught. Schools were failing to tackle truancy, which also led youngsters into trouble, the review added.