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London: Gordon Brown was on Tuesday warned against "spectacular innovations" in the fight against crime as the government was reeling from a U-turn on tackling knife offenders.
Andrew Bridges, the chief inspector of probation, highlighted the risks of trying to find a "cure-all" in attempts to reduce offending rates.
"We tend to be beguiled by exciting fallacies," he said. In his annual report he stressed there are no "simple solutions" to reduce offending and voiced scepticism about what he described as "spectacular innovations."
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was forced into a humiliating climbdown Monday on plans to take knife offenders to visit stab victims in casualty. After an outcry from doctors, she ditched the proposal, suggesting that young criminals would instead meet medics to discuss the impact of knife violence.
Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve accused the Government of "gimmickry" and "constructing policy in three days, abandoning it in three hours."
Ministers were today unveiling a long-awaited youth crime action plan.
Hospitalisation soars
The number of hospital admissions in England due to violence has soared by 30 per cent in four years with far more people affected in poor areas than rich ones, a study said yesterday. Researchers said more than 120,000 people were admitted to hospital emergency wards between 2002 and 2006 as a direct result of violence. In all, at least 2.5 million people in England and Wales are victims of violence every year.
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