Forced Labor Programs For The Unemployed

· Automatic referrals if out of work for three months
· Companies and voluntary groups to run centres

[By David Hencke, The Guardian | Monday, 26 May, 2008.]
A future Conservative government will bring in "boot camps" for unemployed young people aged between 18 and 21 who refuse to take a job, Chris Grayling, the party's welfare spokesman, will say tomorrow. In a significant hardening of Conservative policy towards welfare claimants, he will announce the abolition of benefit payments for any able-bodied person under 21 who is out of work for more than three months and who refuses to go on a compulsory community service programme or a "boot camp" training course aimed at improving their work discipline and giving them basic skills to get a job.

Grayling will say: "We plan to introduce much tougher rules for young people under the age of 21 claiming jobseeker's allowance. For this group, the welfare to work process will start much earlier. There will be employment 'boot camps' and community work programmes for those who don't find a job. Staying at home doing nothing will be a thing of the past." Under the Tory proposals, unemployed young people who do not find a job within three months will be referred automatically to a specialist employment provider, where they will be expected to take part in an intensive programme of work-related activity. If they spend 12 months out of work, they will then be moved on to a full-time community work programme lasting a further year.

The measures should cut crime because people would not be hanging around with nothing to do, Grayling will say. For those who decided to embark on a life of crime because they would not work and could not get benefit, there would be "zero tolerance from the criminal justice system". (Full story here.)