Speaking to Young People Now at last week's Labour Party Conference in Brighton, he says: "We reduced the number in five years from 120 a year to 20." Day programmes were run with the 100 who would have gone to prison.
"We did some really good work with those young people - education work, reducing offending work, different kinds of activity that engaged them," he continues. "If we'd had electronic tagging as well I can only dream about the impact we would have had."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, given Labour's tough stance on crime, he is not prepared to go as far as to say that fewer young people should be locked up.
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