Over the last 13 years, the country has been subject to the creation of one offence for each working day that the government has been in office.

But isn’t this over-legislative approach missing the point? Is it making any difference in tackling crime? And what can we expect from the new coalition government?

Between 1997 and March this year, 4,300 new offences had been created, of which 1,400 are punishable by imprisonment.

Approximately one third of those offences appeared in primary legislation and the other two thirds were the result of statutory instrument - the product of ministerial decision without debate.

Does this matter? Where the creation of offences represents an erosion of civil liberties, there will be those who cry foul. And we know that increasing the number of offences on the statute book does not mean a corresponding rise in public confidence in the effectiveness of the criminal justice system.

Indeed worse that that, we know that confidence has not risen, despite falling crime rates and the ever rising prison population - now the highest per capita inmate rate in Europe.

The fact is that the daily introduction of a new offence does not ‘tackle’ crime; it simply increases the numbers that are vulnerable to criminal justice disposals.

The new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government has just announced a wide-ranging repeal bill, dubbed the ‘freedom bill’, to scrap a raft of ‘anti’ civil liberties legislation brought in by Labour.

This is a potentially an encouraging move if it marks an end to the governmental habit of introducing legislation, rather than taking effective action to tackle the causes of the problem.

Repeal of legislation alone is not enough. In order to have a real impact, the Government needs to invest in diverting people away from the system altogether. This is particularly essential for young people.

Reoffending rates are as high as 75% for young people leaving custody and the cost to the taxpayer is estimated by the New Economics Foundation report to be up to £140,000 a year; more expensive that Eton.

For many young people, this money is best spent on preventive schemes and the provision of suitable educational alternatives that are a fraction of the cost and are proven to be successful in diverting people away from crime.

Nacro projects such as the angling project in Reading or Newbury’s arts project are prime examples of how these schemes effectively tackle crime and antisocial behaviour.

With spending cuts decisions on the horizon, I hope that as the new Secretary of State for Justice, Ken Clarke, will understand the huge importance, these services play in reducing the risk of young people entering the criminal justice system and reducing crime in the long run.