LONDON LETTER/Racel Donnelly: "Vile," declared the Mirror's front page yesterday, identifying two teenage brothers banned for three years from a town centre after they were involved in nearly 200 crimes since 1999.
It was a timely reminder for Tony Blair as he sat down with ministers and police for the first meeting of a new action group to tackle street crime that random violence, mobile phone thefts and street muggings are causing more and more fear in communities across Britain.
The teenage brothers were a mini-crimewave. Magistrates extended a two-year exclusion order on Ben (17) and his brother, Robert (15), banning them from the Somerset town of Weston-super-Mare for another three years after hearing of their involvement in more than 70 street crimes since last May.
In an almost daily campaign of street crime and harassment, the boys were seen driving stolen cars, threatening teachers at a local school, firing an air rifle at motorists and were accused of causing several street fights.
A detective involved in bringing the case to court summed up his frustration with the boys, who continually flouted anti-social behaviour orders. "These two teenagers are simply laughing at us. The trouble is every town in the country has lawless kids just like them."
And a store manager, who was too scared to give his name, said the boys were the "most unpleasant and violent trouble- makers" in the area: "They nick stuff, abuse people and generally make life absolutely intolerable."
Nothing changed, the court was told, even after the boys were barred from the town two years ago. The problem was simply displaced to the housing estate where they lived and last November Robert admitted two charges of racially-aggravated public disorder and threatening behaviour after abusing an Indian waiter.
Under a court order, the boys' parents attended counselling sessions for three months and Robert was put under a weekend night curfew.
Yet still the brothers tormented local residents and even their solicitor said the boys' "notoriety" in the town made them want to live up to their loutish image.
The Mirror had its own uncompromising message for the government, telling Mr Blair and the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, in its editorial: "Robert and Ben are a perfect example of why law and order is breaking down in Britain - the Home Secretary and police chiefs need to address the problem of young criminals urgently. Putting them where they can do no more damage would do a huge amount towards stemming the crimewave."
Elsewhere this week, there was horror in the suburbs of Kent. A heavily pregnant woman, possibly up to 40 weeks pregnant, was stabbed to death, her body dumped in the picnic area of a park in Shipbourne.
There were no signs of robbery or sexual assault, and in this apparently random crime the unidentified woman was simply cast into the undergrowth for a passer-by to find her. Her unborn child did not survive.
There has been much emphasis recently on "joined-up thinking" in government; that Labour must stitch back together the relationship between the police and the courts so they work in tandem rather than seeming to work against each other.
The demands for reform have come amid a growing perception that police officers are tied to their desks by paperwork, that the court system consistently fails victims of crime and prisons are dangerously overcrowded.
And there is little reassurance to be found in government initiatives to tackle crime when an 11-year- old boy is charged with the murder of a 15-year-old over an argument about football in a north London street. Many victims find little reassurance in the courts when young boys have no fear of authority or of the consequences of their crimes.
Ministers, schools and criminal justice experts point to the breakdown in family units, truanting and poverty as some of the reasons behind the one-third increase in street crime in Britain last year. Victims of crime just want more police officers on the street and guarantees that criminals will be locked up.
As more and more children on the streets and in the estates turn to vandalism and robbery for an adrenalin rush, Labour's pledge to cut street crime was never more urgently needed.