Young criminals ordered to build bird boxes

[Still Waters]

Teenage offenders given community punishments such as building bird boxes went on to commit more than 660,000 further crimes, it emerged last night.

Parliamentary answers have revealed for the first time the number of new offences by juveniles who received 'soft' punishments instead of custody for crimes including mugging, theft and vandalism.

Between 2002 and 2007, they were convicted of 667,073 new crimes, according to analysis by the Tories.

The number of young offenders involved was 298,609, so the 667,000 crimes were an average of 2.2 each - though not all of them will have re-offended.

This figure relates only to crimes committed within 12 months of the court order being made, meaning many could have been prevented if the offender had been taken into custody instead.

Conservative justice spokesman Dominic Grieve, who obtained the figures, said: 'Ministers need to get a grip of the youth justice system and reduce re-offending rates, which remain stubbornly high.

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[Admiral Danger]

if i was voted as primeminister, i'd make re-offenders like these take part in the army for 6 months, or more. that will knock some sense into those tw@ts troubled kids