Plans for £3m crime-busting centre

Home Secretary David Blunkett has announced plans for the country's first US-style community justice centre.

The £3 million facility, billed by the Government as a "one-stop crime-busting centre", will be in Liverpool.

The centre is a joint initiative by the Home Office, Crown Prosecution Service and Department for Constitutional Affairs and will dispense justice to anti-social louts and perpetrators of low-level crime. It will also provide alternatives to custodial sentences such as drug treatment and debt counselling.

Mr Blunkett came to Liverpool to announce the plans and talk to residents of areas affected by anti-social behaviour.

He visited a mobile police unit in Norris Green before talking to members of the public at a nearby community centre. He said the planned centre was based on a similar scheme in New York.

"Many people have been really worried that the justice system is not responsive enough. Even when the police do their job there is no signal that goes out to say what happened to the offenders.

"What I saw in America was in the most deprived and difficult area of New York. They engaged the district judge, the probation service and public prosecutors with the police, with the community. They were reaching out and making the community know what was happening."

"The judge held meetings to hear what was said about sentences, the public prosecutors were involved in finding a solution rather than just getting a hit, and we even saw defence solicitors trying to find a way forward for defendants rather than just getting them off.

"It is an experiment which I thought was worth replicating in Britain."

Mr Blunkett said Liverpool was chosen to pilot the scheme because it suffered from crime and because the local agencies were willing to get involved.

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