Iain Duncan Smith has called on the police to "crush" the gang and gun culture seen in some British cities.

As official figures show soaring gun crime, the Conservative leader told the BBC that some areas were becoming "almost completely lawless".

And he urged minister to tackle a drugs and gangs street culture.

"The concept of the gang culture needs to be crushed."

"What's fuelling this huge rise in the gun culture is the huge increase in the drugs culture that's taking place in the cities that's literally ripping apart the inner cities, breaking this fabric down," he said.

"Society in these areas is becoming almost completely lawless."

Law enforcement must tackle street gangs but rehabilitation and education must offer young people a way out, argued Duncan Smith.

"The police have to break the gang culture, and the second thing is that young people who are on drugs need to be got off them and that means immediate access to proper rehabilitation."

"We have got to break the gang culture and give them an alternative, another way out, which means they don't need to go out and commit crimes."Reflecting the Conservative shift away from a punishment orientated crime policy, Duncan Smith pointed to the family and schooling problems that he believes underpin the problem.

"Children in difficulty find that gangs offer them a sort of family. It's a perverse, criminal family, but it's a family," he told Radio Five Live.

"That's a terrible indictment of what's happening at the moment, both in their family life and in our education and schools."