Payback time getting tougher on offenders

ANYONE caught carrying illegal knives will face tougher punishment, justice minster David Hanson has warned.

From Monday, courts will be able to hand out harsher penalties and those convicted of possession will either face prison or community service work such as picking up litter, renovating community centres, clearing undergrowth and cleaning-up graffiti.

Offenders sentenced to pay for their crimes within the community will be forced to wear high visibility orange jackets with a distinctive community payback logo and lose much of their free time.

Mr Hanson said: “We want to ensure knife crime offenders are treated with the seriousness they deserve.

“Where jail is the best option, I’ll always make sure there are enough prison places and more people are now going to prison for knife-related crime

“But the Government also wants to see tougher and more effective community-based sentences for those the courts choose not to send to jail.”

He added: “Earlier this year I announced that anyone convicted of a knife-related offence and sentenced to the maximum 300 hours of community payback must complete their sentence in intensive blocks.

“This is now being extended to include all knife crime offenders given community payback.

“They will now have to work at least 18 hours a week, and potentially be subjected to a curfew that keeps them off the streets in the evening and a probation appointment during the week on top of these hours.”

The Government doubled the maximum sentence for possessing an illegal knife to four years in 2006, increased the use of stop and search, and raised the age at which you buy a knife to 18 in 2007.

Last year, there were more than six million hours of free work completed in 55,771 community payback sentences dished out in England and Wales.

Statistics show that frequency of re-offending after community sentences has fallen by 13 per cent.

For this reason, the Government pledged another £40m in March for the probation service, which handles community payback offenders, enabling magistrates to hand out more such sentences.