Knife gangs forced to meet families of stab victims

The government is set to impose hard community sentences on youths carrying knives, but critics say only prison can tackle the epidemic of violence.

Teenagers caught with knives will be forced to tour casualty units and meet the relatives of stabbing victims, under government plans to combat the glorification of weapons within gangs.

The move to confront those on the verge of more serious offending with the horrific consequences of knife culture comes as new figures show the number of convictions for carrying a knife in schools rose sixfold in a decade, with the vast majority of offenders not jailed.

Under plans to be unveiled by Gordon Brown on Tuesday, young offenders convicted of all crimes will be forced to carry out community service on Friday and Saturday nights, to keep them out of trouble, while pubs and clubs will be fast-tracked for closure if searches reveal their customers routinely carry knives. Parents will face tougher intervention, including being made to attend their children's court cases, and teenagers on the streets late at night will be taken home by police if they are considered in danger.

Chief constables already have powers to press for the closure of pubs involved in violence, although Smith is writing to all 42 forces in England and Wales asking them to exercise those powers. And while trading standards officers will carry out 'secret shopper' checks on whether retailers sell knives illegally to under-16s, only 71 people have been convicted of under-age knife sales in five years despite previous supposed crackdowns.

The Youth Crime Action Plan to be launched by Smith, Brown, Balls and the Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw, will still promote alternatives to custody, such as 'intensive fostering' schemes, where a teenager is placed with foster parents and must behave well in order to earn privileges such as watching television. They will reject calls for an automatic prison sentence for knife possession, with ministers arguing privately that some children carry knives in self-defence because they are frightened by their peers.