NORTH Yorkshire's most persistent young offenders could find their every movement tracked on a satellite surveillance system within a couple of years.

A new scheme to tag a hard core of child and teenage criminals in York and North Yorkshire was launched yesterday by Lord Warner, chairman of the country's Youth Justice Board.

He said the £1.25 million three-year Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme would be a powerful tool in curbing the criminal activities of persistent law-breakers aged between ten and 17.

"For the first time, courts have the option of a longer, tightly-monitored, highly-structured, comprehensive alternative to custodial sentences," he said. He added that the scheme would show offenders "we are really on their case" and would also mean a reduced use of custody for such people. Under the "carrot and stick" scheme, young offenders will have daily, one-to-one contact with support workers as well as electronic surveillance involving tagging devices fastened around their ankles.

A law-breaker placed under a curfew, for example preventing them from leaving their home between 7pm and 7am, will be kept under watch via their tag. Anyone breaking the curfew will be immediately detected as they are leaving their home, and the city's Youth Offending Team will be alerted and the youngster can be taken back to court.

Another surveillance device will be a telephone voice verification system, under which offenders will have to ring a set number at certain times on a landline, and the equipment will detect that it is definitely their voice and that they are, for example, at home.

The scheme aims to cut crime by some of the area's worst young offenders - who commit the majority of youth crime - by ten per cent over the next three years.

Claire Sims, of Securicor, which will be operating the surveillance system in the North of England, revealed to the Evening Press that work is under way to develop a more sophisticated, but also more expensive, tracking system involving satellites.

Under this, it would be possible to check exactly where someone was, 24 hours a day. This could be applied to the worst young offenders but also other criminals of an adult age, and the system might become available within the next 12-24 months.

Updated: 09:30 Tuesday, November 27, 2001