THE Army may be brought in to toughen the punishment and training of teenage criminals in a radical rethink of treating young offenders.

A leaked Home Office e-mail seen by The Times shows John Reid, the Home Secretary, urging his officials to “think outside the box for targeting young offenders”. The e-mail, sent from his private office in May, says that Mr Reid is “keen on involving the Army to provide structure to young people’s lives”.

An official was detailed to provide the Home Secretary with details of the existing schemes for young offenders and recommendations within 12 days. The e-mail does not detail the way soldiers could be deployed. They could be used to supervise community service teams, run physical training courses or operate high-pressure expeditions.

In the 1990s Michael Howard, then Home Secretary, explored setting up boot camps, but abandoned the idea.

The e-mail from the Home Secretary’s private office makes it clear that Mr Reid is determined to return to Labour’s election claims, in 1997, to be seen to be tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.

The Home Secretary told a meeting of his ministers and top officials that he would consider community sentences “if they were seen as tough by the community”. Mr Reid was “very interested in exploring ways of increasing the visibility of unpaid work, eg, through uniforms, etc. Unpaid work would have to be portrayed as ‘penance and contrition’ ”.

Mr Reid also told his officials that he understood the savings in not sending persistent criminals to prison, but this required a “strong handling strategy to persuade the public”.

The policy, according to the Home Secretary, should be “tough on crime. Tough on less serious crime but not prison [why should the taxpayer pay for them to be accommodated/fed/watered?]. We must not allow any signal that we are softening stance on crime”.

The idea of using soldiers to deal with young offenders would raise strong objections among workers dealing with juvenile criminals.

Harry Fletcher, the deputy general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said: “Not even Michael Howard considered using the Army to supervise young offenders. The notion of ‘penance and contrition’ as the cornerstone of unpaid work is extraordinary. Orders need to be seen as purposeful by offenders and raise self-esteem, not severely diminish it.”

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