A former Liverpool district judge has called for ‘more action and less talk’ from police and politicans in an attempt to reduce crime.
Paul Firth, writing in a Yorkshire newspaper, said that the Government needs to start convincing people that convicting people of crimes is its priority, and not simply manipulating crime statistics.
He said: "The murder of young Rhys Jones is the seventh fatal shooting on Merseyside in just over a year.
"The police have come in for enough criticism to make them feel compelled to put an assistant chief constable in front of the television cameras to tell us what a good job they are doing. We learned earlier this week, for example, that a year ago something called "Total Policing" was introduced.
"Pause for a moment to consider what, if anything, that phrase means. I believe that it is meaningless doublespeak, probably invented by a "blue-sky thinker" or some other such management person. The alternative, that it does have a meaning, leaves you with the unavoidable conclusion that, up to last year, the policing was only partial.
"When legislation was passed creating the Penalty Notice for Disorder (PND) it was sold as a more efficient way of clearing up crime, avoiding the need for police officers to spend hours doing paperwork. But how many people know that even when a PND is paid it does not amount to a conviction? It isn't even an admission of guilt. The Home Office says so.
"What it is – and the Home Office doesn't say this – is a way of increasing the apparent detection rate. If, as a solicitor recently revealed about his client, you can steal from 11 different shops and get nothing more than a bill for £80 each time, with no conviction recorded, what else but manipulating the figures have the police achieved?
"Offences brought to justice" is a curious new Home Office and Ministry of Justice phrase given that, to most people, it is offenders who need to be brought to justice. When a PND is issued, it counts in the statistics for "bringing an offence to justice" even though it isn't necessarily an offence, because it involves no admission of guilt.
"Figures such as these are fine, so far as they go. But what about real life? As events in Liverpool demonstrate, there are some things far too important and intangible to be measured by mere statistics.
"We need strong and visible protection. A good start would be to be genuinely tough on crime, by charging more people, making sure the evidence is there for a conviction and then giving the courts the prison spaces that the rest of us need to keep these dangerous people out of our way.
"Once we're under way with that, we should, as Tony Blair famously said all those years ago, then be equally tough on the causes of crime. Let's not start with "hugging a hoodie", in the belief that it will solve anything.
"It is time to face up to reality; admit there are some people out there, young and not so young, who will only respond to detection, conviction and punishment. They have to be convinced that all of these are going to happen. Only then will the rest of us believe it."