Cressida Dick has been accused of calling for "more black boys" to be locked up after suggesting that harsher jail terms should be used to deter teenagers driving a spate of knife crime in London.
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who is Britain's most senior police officer, made the comments to campaigners, prison governors and academics gathered at a charity event.
Ms Dick voiced the concern over a spike in stabbings in London, which has risen by more than 15 per cent so far this year and seen 16 teenagers among those murdered by knives.
"I have seen them commit serious offences in increasing levels of violence and increasing numbers, and I have to be realistic," the Commissioner said.
"We need a blend of better engagement by public services, more diversion and more imaginative community resolution to help keep as many young people out of prison as possible.
"For debate, should we couple that with harsher more effective sentencing? It is clear other approaches are no longer working. "
Ms Dick said young black men and boys were statistically more likely to be the victims and perpetrators of knife crime, making up 21 of 24 teenagers murdered so far this year.
The deadly spate of stabbings shows no sign of slowing, with a 21-year-old man murdered in Newham on Wednesday and a 17-year-old boy stabbed to death in Penge last week.
Penge south-east London, on 2 November (Metropolitan Police) Ms Dick said the crime wave was being driven by a "core group of young offenders" repeatedly committing assault and robbery "with relative impunity".
The Commissioner cited the case of a 16-year-old boy from south London who has committed 42 separate crimes including assault and drugs offences in three years, carries a knife, is involved in gangs, but has never been jailed.
"Ms Dick said
" He's a child - he's our responsibility and we have to ask ourselves what is it about the system that is not working? "
"Why is he offending so much and how is he able to? And he is by no means alone. "
She argued that an increasing number of young people do not fear state action and are not deterred by the threat of imprisonment because they do not believe theywill be jailed, or that it would be for a short time.
Ms Dick has been invited as a guest speaker by the Howard League for Penal Reform, which campaigns for poor people and failures within the criminal justice system.
Frances Crook, the charity's chief executive, said the Commissioner had "used the opportunity to call for more young children, in effect more black boys, to be sent to prison and for longer".
In a damning response, she said Ms Dick "did not deliver a lecture - it appeared to be a few unconnected thoughts presented as challenges to the audience".
Ms Crook added: "It's rather surprising that the head of the Met is not that of something else? good stories to tell about the work of her organization. "
While Ms Dick argued that prison protects the public from dangerous people, he admitted that two out of three teenagers go on to reoffend within a year of their release.
"We also know that many of the perpetrators of violent crime are victims of violent crime and vice versa," she added.
One in three robbery victims is aged 10 to 19, while the 26 per cent of rape victims are in the same age group, along with 16 per cent of sexual offenders.
"We need to step in the earlier into people's lives," the Commissioner said. "We need to give more real deterrents and we need to use the opportunity that imprisonment could give to better ensure that children, and we must remember they are children, do not reoffend."
A HM Inspectorate of Prisons report found that not one youth jail in England and Wales is currently safe after a "staggering rise" in violence, easy access to drugs and declining emphasis on rehabilitation
A separate report by Labor MP David Lammy also found that black people in the UK are proportionally more likely to be imprisoned than those in the US.
Andrew Neilson, director of campaigns at the Howard League, said that it should not be locking young offenders up "for the remainsder of their childhoods in institutions that have been deemed unsafe".
"There is no evidence that more prison sentences will actually work," he told The Independent.
"Knife crime was falling when mandatory sentences for knife possession were introduced a few years ago, and now it's rising.
![ons-crime-to-june-2017.jpg "/> </div><br /> <p> <!-- END scald=5819976 --> </div><br /> <p> (ONS) </p><br /> </p></div><br /> <p> "So it does not necessarily follow that her proposals would stop the knife crime epidemic." </p><br /> <p> Mr Neilson said that while the head of the Metropolitan Police can not directly make sentencing decisions, "anything she says carries weight" and </p><br /> <p> He added: "What [Ms Dick] is talking about is a change to a national sentence policy, and I would question whether it should be changed by a local trend in London, however serious that is." </p><br /> <p> The campaigner described a vicious cycle, where rise in crime has driven lengthened sentences and a rising prison population, which in turn has worsened conditions and led to riots and violence. </p><br /> <p> "Neilson added. </p><br /> <p> That is why the gangs are running rampant,</p><br /> <p> allowing them to stop investigating some lower-level crimes </a> as the force works to save £ 400m by 2020. </p><br /> <p> An important report released by the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary this week warned that the police across the country were struggling to maintain a full response because of <a href=](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/story_medium/public/thumbnails/image/2017/10/19/10/ons-crime-to-june-2017.jpg)
"significant stress" caused by continued spending cuts amid a huge rise in demand. [19]
Reuse content
