The press, declared Lord Leveson, must not be allowed to mark its own homework. There is one profession, however, which the government seems quite happy to allow to judge its own success. Every few months we are presented with the latest set of crime statistics and invited to believe that crime is falling, clear-up rates are improving and so on. It would be much more convincing if the figures for recorded crime were not themselves compiled by the police — a group with a rather obvious vested interest in presenting those figures in the best possible light.
A set of figures teased out of the police this week presents a different picture of police clear-up rates. Constabularies appear to have decided that now even a caution is too harsh a punishment for thugs. Many thousands of violent offenders are being dealt with through ‘community resolution’- which requires them to say they are sorry, in return for which they receive no criminal record whatsoever. In the past year, 33,673 cases of violence against the person have been dealt with in this way, including 10,160 cases of serious violence and 2,488 cases of domestic violence.
A bizarre schism is opening up in our justice system. Against the constant downgrading of punishments for serious crime exists an increasingly belligerent regime for dealing with the most minor of offences. Among the many people who might feel aggrieved by the treatment of violent offenders is a non-smoking Welsh pensioner fined £75 for picking a cigarette butt from his shoe and discarding it on the pavement.
That is one of the many stories of over-zealous council enforcement officers who have been armed with powers to hand out civil penalties. It is easy to wonder whether, if fined in this way, the most profitable course of action might be to punch the officer on the nose.
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