A CURFEW scheme is helping in the war to keep gang thugs off the streets in Glasgow's East End.

A CURFEW scheme is helping in the war to keep gang thugs off the streets in Glasgow's East End.

Officers at London Road police station say they have more offenders under curfew than any other part of the Strathclyde Police force area.

A total of 34 offenders from the area - most of whom have appeared in court for gang-related crime - are banned from leaving their homes between 7pm and 7am.

Gang map' revealed huge problem TWO years ago the Evening Times outlined the scale of the gang problem in Glasgow by publishing the city's first "gang map". We detailed 110 city gangs and where they operated. The size of their territories varied from single streets to entire housing schemes. Gang members spoke to us about the attraction of getting involved in violence. Many insisted they never used knives and that "blades are for them that can't fight". They were fiercely territorial and said they were following in the footsteps of the gang members of the 1960s. Girls were also involved - some gangs had their own female "team". One 16-year-old girl said she drank Buckfast to make her aggressive then fought with neighbouring gangs. We also spotlighted the tragedy of the gang culture - like 15-year old Tony Monteith who was stabbed to death in Carntyne after being mistaken for a gang member.

And the police chief responsible for the beat said the restrictions had proved an enormous success in cutting crime levels.

Superintendent David Marsh said the area, which includes Calton, Parkhead, Bridgeton, Barrowfield and Gallowgate, had a high crime rate .

He said: "When we bring someone into custody we are looking for people who are involved in violence or disorder in the community, particularly gang members.

"We want to clear the streets of them, especially if they are carrying weapons during the evening.

"When we bring them to court we carry out an assessment study on the impact their crime and disorder is having on the community.

"We pass that to the fiscal and request that as part of their bail conditions they are placed on a curfew.

"When the fiscal is presenting the case before the sheriff he goes through the impact assessment and asks for the bail condition to be imposed.

"If the sheriff deems it appropriate he will grant it. At the moment I have 34 spread right across the sub-division."

Superintendent Marsh said he believed the sheriffs were convinced of the need for curfews as they had been willing to grant so many.

He added: "We then have to manage the curfews. There's no point in a sheriff granting them and us not enforcing them.

"We check them on a nightly basis, sometimes two or three times in the one night.

"They have to make themselves available to our officers at the front door of their house and failure to do that is a breach of their bail conditions."

He said there were currently five repeat offenders remanded in custody and another four being sought by police after officers found they were not at home during the curfew.

Superintendent Marsh added: "It is working well. The level of gang fighting in the area has reduced dramatically.

"It is an alternative to custody in some respects. To some extent it is keeping them out of the prison system, although they are not entirely free to go where they like."

The success of the scheme comes days after the scale of violent crime in the Strathclyde Police area was revealed.

Detective Chief Superintendent Campbell Corrigan said there had been 4273 serious assaults and 33,003 common assaults over the past year.

There had also been 61 murders and 366 attempted murders, he told a meeting of the Joint Police Board.

Mr Corrigan said most of the attacks were with knives and questioned why gang members felt it necessary to carry weapons like samurai swords.

Glasgow, he said, was the third worst city in Europe for murders.

A spokeswoman for the Procurator Fiscal service said: "Across Scotland, where police consider a curfew will safeguard the public interest, that possibility will be discussed between police and the prosecutor before the question of bail is determined by the court.

"If it is appropriate, the Fiscal will ask the court to consider imposing a curfew as a special condition of bail instead of asking for the accused to be remanded in custody."

Superintendent Marsh said police resources could become stretched as the scheme continued to be used. The possibility of an outside agency being brought in to enforce the curfews was something that might have to be looked at.

This month officers from London Road made 10 arrests during an early-morning raid on suspected drug dealers and gang members in Calton.

The high-profile operation, revealed by the Evening Times, led to all those arrested appearing in court.

Some were remanded in custody and others released on bail, but the bail conditions ban them going back to their Calton addresses.

In April police raided addresses in the same area and arrested a number of gang members. Among the weapons seized at the houses were an axe, a scythe and a sword.