Prime Minister Gordon Brown gives monthly press conference

Prime Minister Gordon Brown gives monthly press conference; Question SOT - Prime Minister when you talk about these tough community orders and the 300 hours, would you like to see the young people doing these wearing actually some sort of visible garments which show that they are actually doing it, rather than just sort of in jeans and a tee shirt? Brown answer SOT - That is not the most important part of it. It could be a part of it, and it has been suggested by the Casey Review that it is a part of it, but I know the issues that were raised the last time that surfaced, perhaps in the columns of the Telegraph when you were writing for it. I would say to you this, that what matters is that it is visible, what matters is that it is tough, and what matters is that it is a restriction on the liberty of that young person. And that is why the proposal about 300 hours, taken in a short period of time so that it is intensive, losing all weekends, the community itself deciding what that punishment is, and the community then seeing visibly the results of what is done, and the community deciding that Fridays and Saturdays have got to be given up by that young person to do that community work. Now prison will in many cases be the right answer where there are real problems, but in some cases tough community payback, as set out by the Casey Review a few weeks ago, which is a complete shift from the old community service or the unpaid work idea, is what is to be done, and whether that is in uniform or not is a question that is of course answered in the Casey Review, and I would support what she says. But that is not the fundamental part of it, the fundamental part of it is that it is tough, it is visible and the community has some control over it and it is the restriction of the young person's liberty.