Ways in which young offenders are dealt with in Bradford could be transported to South East Asia.

The city's approach to community safety and crime has been put under the spotlight by two government ministers from Laos.

Dr Khamphay Rasmy, deputy minister of labour and social welfare, and Ket Kitiasak, vice-minister of justice, from the South East Asian country were on a fact-finding mission.

The ministers were in Britain to learn how to develop the criminal justice and social welfare systems of Laos, which is between Thailand and Vietnam.

And they heard about Bradford's partnership approach to crime reduction and community safety through Save the Children which has been working in their country.

Dr Khamphay said: "We are particularly interested to learn about how Bradford deals with young offenders. Because our constitution is still very young - just six years old - we have no laws to deal with problems of juvenile delinquency."

He said that young offenders in Laos are tried in adult courts and those given custodial sentences are sent to adult prisons.

"We chose Bradford as it has a good partnership approach to crime, in particular youth crime," he added.

Paul O'Hara, youth offending team manager on the city's crime and disorder reduction strategy, said: "We have been talking to them about different projects which are up and running, such as the probation service's victim mediation unit, plus other projects like video apologies - videos which young offenders make to apologise to their victims," he added.

The ministers were officially welcomed to Bradford by Councillor John Ruding, lead member on community safety.

They also met West Yorkshire Police, Bradford Youth Court and the Crown Prosecution Service representatives and talked to groups who work directly with young people, such as Ummid, a project for young Asian offenders.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.