"It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live - did live, from habit that became instinct - in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and except in darkness, every movement scrutinised."

George Orwell's gloomy prediction of the future is about to become reality for 40 Oxfordshire teenagers in the hope that, like the majority of the population in 1984, they will be forced to change their ways.

Oxford Youth Offending Team will use intensive surveillance to monitor the county's worst youth offenders as part of a £250,000 pilot scheme that will run for three years.

The scheme, known as the Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme (ISSP), starts in June. It will use electronic tagging and voice verification equipment to monitor the whereabouts of the young offenders 24 hours a day.

The Home Office selected Oxford as one of 22 centres, ahead of cities like Bristol and Portsmouth, because a quarter of all crime in the county is committed by three per cent of young offenders.

By combining surveillance techniques with an intensive rehabilitation programme, the ISSP aims to break drugs habits, disrupt patterns of offending, re-educate the youths and get them into work.

If any of the youths fails to respond to the programme, prison is almost a certainty - the scheme is their last chance to get on the straight and narrow.

The head of the Oxford Youth Offending Team, Maggie Blyth, says those being targeted have each committed four crimes in the past 12 months, are aged from 13 to 17, and have already served a custodial or community sentence.

The 40 offenders mainly come from Bicester, Banbury or Oxford, with only five from the south of the county. Only two of the target group are girls, making it largely a male problem.

The Oxford Youth Offending Team has already tried to reform the youths, but they have not as yet responded.

Ms Blyth says: "The existing scheme relies on the school, us and parents working together.

"If one of these factors isn't working, whether the young offender is skipping school, or his/her parents are the problem, then the cycle of crime is more likely to continue. What we are looking at now is the next stage.

"The Home Office is keen to make sure the project includes weekends and evenings, when many young offenders are most likely to commit crime," she adds.

"We are very excited about this and do believe it's going to work. Two years ago there was almost nothing in place for young offenders. My team is delighted and welcomes the chance to tackle something more deep-rooted.

"The main frustration is they see so many teenagers that they don't have enough time to get to the base of their problems.

"People who don't live in Oxford think it's all dreaming spires and don't realise that some of the estates are quite deprived and that we still have our problems as a city. We are the only area in the south-east to get the go-ahead."

"The police are enthusiastic because they can monitor and look out for the offenders.

"The health authority will be able to see how many have drug or mental health problems, the local education authority how many are skipping or excluded from school, and social services whether the serious offenders are mainly in care or from broken homes.

"For research purposes it will be invaluable."

Oxford University will be conducting the research into the findings and compiling the data, over the next three years, from all over the country.

"The Government wants to see if intensive concentration on this group of young offenders can stop them. Economically it makes sense because prison costs are sky high and space is running out.

"But it is also keen to find out why young offenders get into the trap and if they can get out of it," Maggie explains.

As with the existing youth offending scheme, the positives may be abundant but if the chosen 40 falter and reoffend, the odds are that their future will lie behind bars.

With the scheme starting in June, time is running out for Oxfordshire's young criminals.

"Of course we don't expect to stop all youth crime, that would be unrealistic, but we are expecting our success stories," says Ms Blyth.