THE WARNING by a police chief today that it is time to call a halt to so-called "zero tolerance" policing will not please the law-and-order politicians who urge it.

Nor will it be welcomed by many people waiting for it to actually commence in their crime-plagued communities.

But is there some substance in the view of Thames Valley chief constable Charles Pollard that this policing policy - of cracking down on petty offences and, so, reducing the breeding ground for more serious crime - is overrated and risky?

Certainly, he is right in saying that policing can only be really done with the co-operation of local communities, local government and business.

And there is weight in his belief that, done in isolation from community co-operation, sustained policing could end up targeting minorities and provoking a backlash - such as occurred in 1981 in Brixton.

Yet, conducted with the armour of public approval and co-operation around it, would not the zero tolerance policy prove as useful as it seems to be where it has been tried?

For even sceptical criminologists in America are now admitting, in the light of continuing and dramatic plunges in crime in New York where it began, and elsewhere. where it has been copied, that it really does work.

It is, however, noteworthy that the evidently-successful switch to zero tolerance in the USA has also been matched by a government initiative to put more police on the streets.

In the light of that experience - and only limited, but encouraging, trials of the system in this country in places like Strathclyde and Middlesbrough - the cold water Mr Pollard pours on it does not wholly wash.

There is an increasing political will for this kind of policing, and sufficient whole-community support for the police, for its scope to be widened, rather than be stopped before it has really started as he suggests.

However, whatever their method, its of little avail for the police to become more effective against the criminals if the courts are not also.

And, mapping out a get-tough policy for the courts today, does not shadow Home Secretary Jack Straw, highlight that failure?

For, in the case of young offenders, he discloses that more than a half of those aged 10 to 13 and a third of those aged 14 and 16 leave the courts unpunished - when virtually every one of them has been cautioned for a previous offence?

There should be no dispute over the need for zero tolerance for that.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.