Five million crimes committed and no one is punished

Home Office research revealed that - of 5.4 million crimes logged by officers - only one in eight ended with a criminal charge or summons being made.

In a shocking 3,953,000 cases, the equivalent of 73 per cent of all recorded crimes, the offender was simply not caught.

Even when police did manage to catch the culprit-fewer than half were dragged before the courts or received a formal charge.

Instead, they escaped with a caution, on-the-spot fine, warning for smoking cannabis or had their crime "taken into consideration" alongside other offences.

Of all the crimes reported last year, only 693,821 were punished using the traditional route of a criminal charge and appearance before a magistrate or judge.

Experts and Opposition MPs warned it was yet more proof of the lurch towards "soft justice".

Overall, the detection rate for recorded crimes remained stable last year, at 27 per cent.

But this only achieved thanks to a huge increase in the number of minor offences, such as drunkenness, which were punished by fixed-penalty notices.

Along with warnings for cannabis, these £80 on-the-spot fines now represent 15 per cent of all crimes police claim to have solved.

Meanwhile, the number of crimes investigated by police which led to someone being charged or sumfearsmonsed fell by more than 31,000 last year, to 47 per cent of all crimes punished.

Even then, there is no guarantee the offender was punished, because it includes cases later dropped by the CPS for lack of evidence or other problems.

At the same time, the proportion of crimes dealt with by a caution rose by 15 per cent last year to 357,300, and the number punished with an on-the-spot fine jumped by almost a third to 139,735.

Of the 531,450 violent crimes detected by police, the number dealt with by a caution rose to 29 per cent.

Cannabis warnings - which do not even carry a criminal record - rose by 28 per cent to more than 81,000.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "The Government fiddles the figures on crime at every opportunity, trying to boost the impression of action on crime by encouraging cautions and fixed penalty notices at the expense of real prosecutions.

"Even despite those efforts, the latest figures show that just one in four crimes are detected."

Detecting crimes is a crucial measure of success, with ministers telling the police they must increase the number of "offenders brought to justice" each year.

But the target pays no attention to the type of crime being solved - with handing out an on-the-spot fine carrying the same importance as catching a sex attacker.

Yesterday's report revealed that - for many of the crimes the public most - the detection rate is appallingly low.

For burglary, it is only 14 per cent, robbery 18 per cent, sex offences 30 per cent and criminal damage 13 per cent.

David Green of the Civitas thinktank said: "The Government is distorting the measures of police activity to give an impression of effectiveness."

Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust, said: "These figures themselves are very worrying.

"But they only represent the crimes which were reported to the police. The true number, I believe, is likely to be five-times higher.

"The criminal justice system is out of control, but nobody seems prepared to admit it, or do anything about it."

Seven of the 43 police forces In England and Wales saw their detection rates fall year-on-year.

These were City of London and Wiltshire (both down 5 per cent), Bedfordshire and Thames Valley (3 per cent), Cambridgeshire (2 per cent), and Derbyshire and Leicestershire (1 per cent).

Police Minister Tony McNulty said: "We have seen crime fall by a third over the last decade and this is in large part thanks to the range of powers available to the police to bring offenders swiftly to justice."