POLICE resolved more than 10,000 cases of serious violent crime last year using 'community resolutions', an informal system that requires perpetrators to apologise or compensate their victims rather than face a criminal charge.
Community resolutions are only supposed to be used in relation to "low-level" crime, the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) said. The system – also known as restorative justice – usually requires an offender to apologise, pay compensation or repair any damage caused. Unlike a prosecution or a caution, this does not result in a criminal record.
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The sharp increase can be attributed to the fact that police are increasingly being encouraged to use informal sanctions in relation to minor incidents as a way of "reducing the burden on the criminal justice system", the BBC's home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw says.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper went further, describing the sharp rise in community resolutions as "extremely serious" and blaming it on government cuts. Cooper said there had been "a massive increase in the number of serious and violent crimes dealt with just by community resolution ever since the police cuts started - breaking all the expert guidance and promises from ministers".
Guidelines published by Acpo say that community resolutions should be used for "less serious" offences which may include "minor assaults without injury". But the BBC says they are being applied to acts of serious violence which include crimes such as inflicting GBH without intent, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and malicious wounding.