HARSH “boot camp” style regimes are once again being considered as a way of cracking down on young adult offenders to prevent them falling into a life of crime.

In a confidential report, Home Office advisers have urged Tony Blair to adopt unfashionably tough policies to re-educate 18 to 21-year-olds serving time in prison.

The advisers stop short of recommending the use of military-style detention camps. This was deemed a failure after being introduced by Michael Howard while he was home secretary in the last Tory government.

Although the report outlines new ways of identifying potential criminals from the age of three, it also acknowledges that there is an urgent need to overhaul the treatment of older offenders.

The advisers have been impressed by a civilian equivalent to the boot camp that was also created under Howard.

The Thorn Cross young offenders institution near Warrington in Cheshire has since 1996 been working inmates 16 hours a day and achieving remarkable results.

The reconviction rate of offenders is 12.5%, considerably better than the average for similar institutions in the UK. A track record which, if repeated across the country, would produce a significant reduction in crime.

The regime is strict but it appears to equip the offenders far better for life outside prison. Inmates rise at 6am and go to bed at 10pm. Every hour of the day is filled with education, vocational courses, anger- management sessions, rehabilitation for former drug addicts and the teaching of basic social skills.

When the offenders leave they are assigned a mentor in their home town to help them find work and provide emotional and practical support.

Thorn Cross’s regime was one of many controversial initiatives recommended in a previously unpublicised report to Downing Street by the Home Office’s strategy unit last May.

The report is the result of a five-month research project by officials and outside consultants who were based at the Home Office’s Queen Anne’s Gate headquarters.

A response to Blair’s urgent request to find quick and effective ways to reduce crime, it advocates everything from targeting children as young as three to prescribing heroin for drug addicts.

They turned a cold eye on a number of “quick-fix” measures that have been held up in recent years as solutions to crime. They found evidence that CCTV only works in deterring thieves in car parks, suggesting millions of pounds is being wasted on systems in high streets. Interviews with muggers also established that extra street lighting would not have stopped them committing crime.

The advisers concluded that, contrary to commonly held assumptions, “binge drinking does not cause crime”. This is based on statistics that four out of five people who binge drink have never been involved in violent crime.

The unit also found strong evidence that increasing sentences merely interrupts a criminal career rather than reducing its length. On the other hand, neighbourhood warden schemes were praised as one of the crime-reduction strategies that do work. Hot-spot policing tactics can also deter criminals in high crime areas by simply sending a police officer into the zone for 15 minutes.

One of the report’s most controversial recommendations is that the government should roll out a national programme providing heroin on the NHS for addicts. The strategy unit estimates there are 280,000 known drug users in the UK who commit 57% of all crimes.

Most of these offences involve thefts. If drugs were free there would not be such a pressing need to commit crime.

“A wider roll-out would be likely to reduce drug-related crime significantly,” the report added, “as well as increasing health and social benefits among drug using and non-drug using members of the community.”

The report’s proposals to target children from three years old were criticised by crime experts. Barry Webb, a criminologist who is deputy director of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, said: “There is an enormous implementation problem. It is just not that easy to identify these people and get them to accept help.”

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