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Police: Rise in cautions, drop in arrests
Evening Standard06.11.07
Scotland Yard is arresting and charging fewer people - even though it is claiming to solve more crimes.
New figures show a huge rise in the number of cautions for crime and cannabis warnings. However, the number of people charged is falling.
The findings come weeks after Bob Quick, the chief constable of Surrey, admitted officers were targeting minor offenders rather than hardened criminals in order to hit targets.
The latest figures, obtained by the Liberal Democrats, show the Met's detection rate - crimes solved - rose from 14.6 per cent in the year 2004/05 to 21.1 per cent in 2006/07.
However, over the same period the number of people being charged with offences fell from 98,155 - or 65.8 per cent of the total number of crimes solved - to 91.771, or 47.1 per cent of the total. The number cautioned rose from 27,975, or 18.8 per cent of the total detections, to 42,762, or 22 per cent of the total. Police handed out 13,160 cannabis warnings in 2004/05 - 8.8 per cent of all crimes solved. But by 2006/07 the figure had risen to 30,453, or 15.6 per cent of detected crime.
One senior Met officer said: "By using cannabis warnings and fixed penalty notices we are essentially creating crime to solve crime."
But the Met insisted it is "solving more crimes than ever before".
Reader views (8)
Nothing to be proud of then.
- Billy, London
Scotland Yard needs a new leader, someone who has respect of the Londoners and his "force". Someone who is not soft on crime and who gets real policemen on the beat, day and night, not just when the sun shines!
- Howie, London NW1
Surely they should be arresting more people with crime levels soaring - cautioning does not work. It was another failed Nu Labor soft experiment.
- Chantel, London
Cautions is easy on the common people but the police are scared of real criminals and these are the ones they are supposed to arrest. This government is soft on crime and has a police to match. It cannot be called a force anymore...
- Jacqueline, Hampstead, London
For an arrest you have to actually catch criminals and find the evidence. That is difficult. Cautioning, plastic police, ASBO's, desk sitting etc. is much easier than actual street work putting the baddies away!
- Jenny, London
What can we do with them when this goverment have refused for 10 yrs to build any prisons.
- John, Essex, UK
It is a real shame. They used to be better the "Police."
- Billy, London
It's good to know we're being protected from cannabis users. I'm sure we'll all sleep more soundly at that.
- Dr John, London
