The blame for this lies essentially not with the police but with the politicians who set them their targets. I'm sure most policemen would like to have the discretion to decide on which crimes they pursue, and being members of society themselves, would by instinct go after the more serious ones first.
The current emphasis on meeting targets - on quantity rather than quality - can be traced back to one man: Tony Blair. As with teaching and the NHS he has treated us all with contempt in believing he could get the credit for 'improved results' without us sussing how it was done.
Mr Blair will go down in history as the supreme political conman who did damage to his country that took years to repair. (If it is repaired, that is). Sadly, Gordon Brown is turning out to be a willing accessory to the crime.

Tony Jones, Grantham, Lincs

I wonder when a senior police officer or even a police constable will have the guts to refuise these ridiculous orders. It is possible, I was a police officer in the fifties, and on at least two occasions I refused to obey orders which I thought to be unlawful, there was no comeback, I was in the right and they knew it. I might add that any officer who arrested a lady or an elderly gentleman for any minor offence became a figure of scorn, and dare not enter the canteen for fear of ridicule.

Yet we regular hear of Grandmothers being arrested for trivial offences such as stealing a childs football, and the case of Beverly Keenan wsho has written in, I would think she has a case against the police for unlawful arrest!!!

I served in a port city and we had a detection rate of nearly 90%, todays detection rate is pathetic, our most technical equipment in most cases was a Raleigh Three speed bicycle and a pair of bicyucle clips.

Colin Beale.
Belllus Spain

Colin Beale, Bellus, Valencia, Spain

When, oh when, will something dire happen to a politician as this is the only thing that will make them change the appalling practice.

Roz Venner, St Neots, England

The police have families of their own and, therefore, an interest of their own in seeing a fair, just and low-crime country for themselves and their children.
Why not treat them as professionals in their own right (they are) and let them do their job the way they want to.? Abolish most targets for 1 to 1.5 years. Some accountability (I didn't say targets) is necessary in a democratic country. Their accountability should be to the rule of law, not to a bureaucrat in Whitehall or Westminster. They should have a free hand, subject to the law, to manage themselves the way they think best. The genius of the capitalist system is that it is a system designed from the centre to operate in a decentralised way. I thought that the debate about such things had been won when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, but, under Blair (and therefore his acolyte Brown), apparently not.

Bluebottle, Southall,

This appears to be a recipe for anarchy with he approval of a Labour government who seem to believe statistics and targets take precedence over everything else! Statistics and targets mean nothing, can be, and are, 'massaged' to falsely give the result you hope to achieve. Forget statistics and targets, get on with the job!

Rod Ballard, Leicester, Leicestershire

What exactly are the targets? Maybe its these targets that are the problem - e.g. make 1 million arrests per year is a vague target. But targets to solve, say, 100% of murder cases or 90% of burglaries cannot be manipulated so much

Fred, Birmingham, UK

Firstly Peter Neyroud should be ashamed at such an admission. Call me a sceptic but suddenly a senior police officers speech is in the same vain as a political attack by a leading politician. Who read whose script first? Mr Neyroud reports to the Government and should be called to answer this question. In business he would be asked to resign.

Jon, Aberdeen,

The only amazing thing here is: this is supposed to be news! Is there anyone left in the UK who thinks the Police are allowed to do a proper job? Let's all go back to Heartbeat days, eh?

David Hoggard, York,

I know this has been happening for ages, I know through experience, I witnessed a police car almost collide with a civilian car, when I was crosing my 8 year old nephew, and when I told the officer I was gioing to report him for dangerous driving, and went on my way, I was arrested and kept in police cells for 18 hours. Best of all is I am severely disabled with rheumatoid arthritis, approximately 8 police officers were kept in the police station making statements against me, because I could not get into the police vehicles, and the following day I was released with an £80 fine, which I would not pay and went to court, eventually the case was dropped, but what a waste of tax payers money, and what a waste of police resources.
The police should be out getting murderers and making our streets safer. Not picking on the weakest members of society.

Beverley Keenan, Blackpool, Lancashire, UK

It doesn't seem to make any difference really since even serious crimes are rewarded with ludicrously short sentences, and the criminals are released early because of prison overcrowding.

Bill Q, Derby,

Targets for any organisation create a division in the workforce and tend to see the devious and untrustworthy rise to the top. Like water, targets (Those charged with achieving them) will take the flow of least resistance to obtain the highest scores

John Turnbull, Gloucester,

I have been a solicitor for more than 35 years and have seen and been appalled by the trend towards blaming "society" for the increase in, inter alia,juvenile crime and of the revenue gathering focus by the police on minor offences - including speeding / parking offences. Enough please - concentrate on serious crimes, bring back National Service or some other Community Service option, and also the birch and / or the stocks for violent crime.

Chris Robinson, Hong Kong,

Recently my son was subject to an unprovoked attack by three men. His injuries amount edto a S18 wounding: a serious offence. The police have not even spoken to him in person. I have been in dialogue with the police who have failed to conduct a full investigation. For example statements have not been taken from witnesses and no thought has been given to identification procedures. The police are a disgrace. After ten years of constant and significant change to policing which is now target driven, the police are no longer a respected institution. Incidently if you think I am bias I am a serving officer.

Allan Stevenson, Cheshire, UK

If everyone could now just please snatch a milk bottle when you see a copper, then they will get lots of points and will then be able to start fighting real crime.
Thanks for your participation, regardless of race, colour, religion, or national origin.

Mike Demsbey, Atlanta, USA

This is such a simple bit of psychology that I can't understand you writing about it - again and again.
A nice neat motorist parked on a double yellow line with a car registered at the DVLA and a home address is easy pickings. Anything else is a bit tougher so why bother ?

Ripsnorter (ex-pat), Malaga, Spain

The target culture has produced statisically obsessed senior officers in the Police who, in some cases, receive bonus payments for "performance" or meeting the mythical targets set by the Home Office. This in turn promotes "corrupt" activities within the service as the rank and file are encouraged to misrepresent the facts of certain cases to record them as less serious matters therefore meeting the "targets". On last nights Tonight programme, the statistic was given that 43% of Burglaries that were detected were done so during prison visits to convicted criminals. One would wonder what incentive is offered to these charactors to admit further offences?

Colin, Cheshire,

'Police are neglecting to tackle serious, violent crimes and focusing instead on more minor offences as they strive to meet government targets'

Why tell us what we already knew to be fact ages ago..

Phil Hannah, Perth,

when you have targets, people will go for the "low hanging fruit", the easy ones which can be hit with less effort... the hard ones get left for another day... and keep getting left for another day...

paulc, gloucester,

Concentrating efforts on low level high volume crime, much of which is punished by on the spot fines has one noticable immediate effect, increased revenue.
Now it hardly seems surprising that the Police are focusing efforts on revenue generating activities given recent revelations about fraudulent behaviour within the force.
Furthermore with a target driven system it would appear there is more than one catalyst for what is essentially a worrying skewness towards low level high volume crime endemic within the Police force.

Dan Burt, Bournemouth, UK

Farcical.......
ten years ago outside my brother's house in Mablethorpe, Lincs, they stripped off all te chrome and the front bumber of my 1991 jag sov, havin done the job to order by someone who had seen me pulling into a local garage on my arrival, with an Irish registered car.I discovered that they knew that the most I would get from the police was an incident report number to use with my insurance claim, because there would be no attendance at the scene by the police as there had been no break in. Fair's fair....I had locked 4500 in cash in the glove compartment which was still there when I checked!!!

McGahon, Dublin, Ireland

There are no targets for detection the theft of a bottles of milk & It goes without saying that the police will do all they can do to catch murderers. Peter Neyroud must have be an appalling police officer if he neglected murders in preference to the theft of milk because they were 'easier'!

This is simply political scare-mongering and It undermines the huge efforts of every single police officer who serves their community. The police are an a-political organisation and work soley in the best interests of society. Peter Neyroud, evidenty, is not & does not. His comments are unhelpful and an abuse of position.

Danny, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire

and it looks like the politicians like cameron are putting in their 2 cents worth, by suggesting which crimes to put targets on. setting targets forced everyone to aim at them. at the detriment of good policing. cameron would be well advised to attack the labour govt's obsession with targets. but he is a politician and they have always meddled with things that dont need fixing. the police were a good force before all these targets came in. I blame ian blair for sanctioning it. if he ,as the head, had told labour off and say it wont work with the police because of this very reason highlighted in the article, labour might think twice before forcing it through. ian blair failed to look after his men. and he had failed his men also when he put them in the impossible position with the menezes death because he did not make sure the system works. now so many of his men are so disillusioned they are leaving.

anthony wong, london, uk

Graham of Leeds, spot on! Fortunately for the politicians they have annual incomes far above the ordinary hard working core of UK citizens. They don't rely on the public sector and are far out of reach with ordinary people. Problem is one party is as bad as the other.

Kevin, Norwich, UK

Crime, like many things, follows the 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of the serious crimes are caused by 20 percent of all criminals. Police need a dual focus, one important thrust is community policing and vigorously going after minor quality-of-life crimes and the other is trying to get the top 20% of serious repeat offenders off the streets.

alice, salado, TX/US

The police, the NHS, teaching.

This government is obsessed with targets which simply deliver statistics that have no relation to the quality of service delivered. In fact they hinder delivery of a quality service.

All they are designed to do is allow politicians to go to the electorate and say 'look how good we are'. Unfortunately the electorate is largely ignorant of just how much these pointless targets are damaging our public services.

The sooner they are abolished the better, so that public sector workers can get back to delivering the quality services they want to.

Graham, Leeds, England