I was struck by the widespread use of a caution

The typical prisoner has numerous brushes with the law before finally being sent behind bars. Each year thousands of cautions are issued to people who will come back to crime again.Of course, there is a place  for out-of-court disposals. Police on the street need the discretion to deal quickly and easily with routine misdemeanours which need to be recorded but need not take up court time – and where there is no doubt about guilt.But as the cautions culture built up under the last Government, and more and more  people were let off with what seemed a slap on the wrist, I became more and more uneasy.Hundreds of thousands of  people were being let off with a caution, and the numbers seemed to rise and rise.Particularly as the stories broke about cautions being issued for serious sexual offences, burglary, violence. Surely that couldn't be right?And most particularly, I was struck by the widespread use  of a caution for those caught carrying a knife. What kind of message does that send?


If someone out in the town centre is carrying a knife in their pocket with no plausible excuse, a slap on the wrist seems like soft justice in the extreme.Knife crime is a blight on our society.Far too many young people have lost their lives from what are often apparently casual stabbings.Knives seem to be the weapon of choice for street robbery.We've already toughened the penalties for threatening someone with a knife: courts are now being told that that should carry a proper jail sentence. But what possible excuse could we have for allowing the carrying of a knife to be dealt with as if it were a minor misdemeanour?Six months ago, together with the Home Secretary, the Police Minister and the Attorney General, I launched a review of our system of cautions.The number is less than it was under Labour, but the problem of cautions for serious offences and for carrying a knife has not gone away.It's now time to act. So we are moving ahead quickly with a plan to scrap that slap on the wrist, the simple caution, for all of the most serious offences.