FINDING jobs for young people will be a key part of Labour's strategy to tackle crime, Shadow Home Secretary Jack Straw has claimed. The Blackburn MP has blamed unemployed youngsters with nothing to do for being a major cause of crime.

And he called for a partnership approach such as that successfully adopted in Blackburn to cut offending and general nuisance, when he addressed the Towards A Safer Blackburn Conference at King George's Hall.

Mr Straw said: "The public understand only too well what government politicians fail to accept - that providing opportunities for our young people is vital not only, and most importantly, for their own future happiness but because the failure to provide these opportunities, and a stake in society, leads to more crime and disorder."

The conference was organised by the Blackburn Safer Cities project to highlight the work done in conjunction with the police, Blackburn Council and other organisations to tackle crime and help plan future schemes.

Mr Straw said getting work for young people went with his controversial strategies to tackle young yobs and clear the streets of squeegee merchants, drunks and graffiti artists. He said: "There may be a need for local action to tackle drug abuse, or measures to do with truancy, or support and guidance for parents experiencing difficulty with their children.

"In Audley and Daisyfield, for example, the people were upset by youths constantly causing harassment and intimidation.

"The problem was tackled by getting such youngsters involved in constructive activities rather than hanging around street corners and by the police targeting troublesome areas.

"As a result juvenile nuisance fell in those areas. although it is rising across Blackburn as a whole.

"There is no more dreadful testimony to the last decade and a half than the position of the young unemployed and the never employed. This is the 'lost generation, adrift from the working population with no stake in society but with the same material aspiration as their contemporaries. "The consequences for the individuals in terms of ability to settle down, to start a family and to make the transition from adolescence to adulthood are dire, but we are all affected if as a result they are more likely to offend.

"Their situation does not excuse their offending but it is foolish to ignore the circumstances."

Mr Straw said Labour would have a tough and efficient new system for dealing with young people before they become institutionalised into crime.

He said that while everything would be done to help young people into work and out of crime, when they did offend, they would face tough penalties.

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