BRITAIN’S most senior police officer has launched an outspoken attack on Labour’s justice system, saying violent criminals are being let off with an “uncontrollable” increase in cautions and fixed penalties.

Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said too many violent thugs and burglars were getting away with the equivalent of a “parking ticket” or a ticking-off.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Stephenson said attempts to reduce the pressure on the courts had distorted the traditional role of policing. Police officers found themselves responsible for handing out punishments and were being distracted from their proper role of preventing crime and catching criminals.

“The outcome of that has been an almost uncontrollable increase in cautions and the introduction of the fixed penalty ticket, which in the public’s mind equates to a parking ticket, which should not be [the case] with theft and thuggery,” he said.

“It’s put the police in the correctional business, instead of what we should be: in the law and order business, preventing and detecting crime. We’ve ended up cautioning far too many people.”

Cautions are a form of informal punishment given to an offender who admits responsibility and agrees to say sorry. Most police forces do not count it as a criminal record. Stephenson said he wanted more offenders, especially those involved in violence, to be punished in front of a magistrate.

He cited the case of a thug who hit a smaller boy from behind and without provocation. “What was the outcome? [The assailant received a police caution. I cannot imagine anyone would see this as justice.”

He added: “Nationally the figures show that only 38% of citizens have confidence in the criminal justice system ... If a huge thug comes and hits someone in the face for no reason and that person then gets off with a caution the following day because he’s expressed remorse when he’s sobered up, it’s fundamentally not right.

“It’s not right in the public’s mind and it’s not right in my mind ... that someone is going to get away with what is basically a parking ticket.”

He also criticised the policy of allowing prisoners out of jail before their minimum terms were completed, just to reduce prison overcrowding. “I share the public disquiet that a victim thinks there is a certain sanction given, the court believes that the sanction is going to be carried out and then it turns out to be something different. It’s hardly surprising that the victim becomes disappointed with the system.”

Stephenson was talking as new official figures showed a big rise in the number of offenders issued with multiple cautions. The number of people receiving two cautions in a year increased by 60% to 34,785 between 2000 and 2008. Those receiving three cautions rose 45% to 5,714 in 2008; and those receiving four or more cautions increased by 21% over the past eight years to 3,013. Last year 38,952 offenders received cautions for aggravated bodily harm, a charge that could carry a jail term of up to five years.

Apart from cautions, the number of fixed penalty notices for crimes of disorder, such as thuggery and petty violence, has also rocketed from 63,400 when they were introduced in 2004 to 362,889 in 2007, the latest figures available.

More than half of the “offences brought to justice” were in fact non-convictions, dealt with outside a courtroom. In 2007, 624,000 of the 1.374m offences were “non-convictions”, dealt with by a caution, summary fine or official warning.

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