BRITAIN is facing the first increase in crime for more than a decade and a 25% jump in the prison population to 100,000, a leaked Downing Street report reveals.

The confidential and unusually frank report from Tony Blair’s strategy unit also attacks the police for failing to improve their performance despite big budget increases.

“There is still little chance that a crime will be detected and result in a caution or conviction,” it states.

The leak will embarrass Blair and his ministers, who have boasted for years that “crime is down”, particularly as the report is based on the Home Office’s own assessments.

In another blow to Labour’s credentials, it adds that “there is an increasing wealth gap . . . the very poorest have got poorer since 1997”.

To combat crime the strategy unit suggests adopting controversial measures used abroad, including: enforced heroin vaccinations, alcohol rationing, a ban on alcohol advertising, “chemical castration”, ID chip implants, the public shaming of offenders, the use of bounty hunters and enforced parenting classes.

The 60-page report — Policy Review: Crime, Justice and Cohesion — was written last month. It notes that:

• For the first time since the mid-1990s, when the crime rate began a steady fall, the number of offences is predicted to start rising again because of changing economic conditions.
• Prisoner numbers are rising beyond capacity and the Home Office budget has been frozen.
• Despite an annual funding increase of 5.5% in real terms since 2001, the police “have largely avoided radical reform . . . Police resource increases appear unrelated to changes in productivity”.
• Nine out of 10 crimes are either not reported or go unpunished.
• Half of all crimes in England Wales are committed by just 100,000 people.
• “Despite progress”, there are still gaps in the efficiency of the criminal justice system.

The report also makes controversial observations about the lack of cohesion in British society: “There is concern about particular groups, eg Afro-Caribbean boys. More recently, there has been concern about Pakistani youths, who suffer disproportionately high unemployment, feel increasingly discriminated against, and disconnected from their parents.”

It says that illegal immigration “presents the greatest challenge for cohesion . . . with clandestine entrants (eg on the back of a lorry) presenting greater challenges than overstayers.”

To defuse social tensions, the report suggests that Muslim women teachers should be banned from covering their faces with the niqab veil in the classroom and that the government “may make it clear that wearing a veil in public has potential consequences on cohesion”.

The report was drawn up to feed into one of six policy reviews that were agreed with Gordon Brown, the chancellor, in order to ensure that Blair’s successor secured the legacy of the prime minister’s 10 years in office.

The document suggests, however, that Blair’s wish to be remembered for being “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” will be further undermined, because the chancellor has now imposed a real-term freeze in the Home Office budget.

“Spending on prison and probation has risen faster than that on the National Health Service,” the report notes. “Police and prisoner numbers have risen sharply. However, spending is not set to increase further, as the spending agreement has fixed Home Office spend to 2012.”

The report is illustrated by a series of annotated charts. One suggests that the prison population is expected to rise by 25% in the next five years from 80,000 to more than 100,000. This far exceeds the number of prison places the government has planned for, suggesting that ministers will have to come up with radical solutions to cope with the expected crime wave.

The strategy unit points out: “Prison numbers are rising beyond capacity, yet evidence suggests that they are an expensive way to meet crime and punishment objectives. Should there be a limit to prison expansion?” The report also implies disagreement between No 10 and the Treasury about crime trends. It states that “80% of (the) recent decrease in crime (is) due to economic factors . . . Unless action is taken, economic and social pressures are expected to put recent falls in crime under threat”.

It says that crime will rise “because the rate of economic growth is slowing”. This appears to be a reference, among other things, to unemployment rising over the past year.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: “This secret report demonstrates what the government has been denying for years, that there is a massive shortage of prison places. That will mean more short prison sentences, more early releases and more dangerous criminals on our streets — and as a result more crime caused by the government’s inaction.”

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