OVER the past few weeks, the news pages and the letters columns of the local press have focused on the problems of local youths and the lack of an adequate police response.

This is hardly a new phenomenon. I have been writing letters of complaint for several years.

The constant cry from the police is that that they have better priorities and have inadequate manpower. Well, the Home Secretary proposed giving forces the chance to recruit more civilians to handle less arduous routine matters. There was a great outcry from the Police Federation. So let's hear no more of that old whinge, please.

Since most of the trouble is caused by youths at night, why don't the local police stations use their troops more effectively by moving more shifts away from the daytime when police seem to walk around in pairs and look at no more serious crimes than parking. The idea of a curfew has been raised again, but the police dismissed this a couple of years ago. It has worked well in Scotland. Besides, there is a curfew existing on the rest of us. Tameside council leader Roy Oldham says: "Hooligans, vandals and anti-social yobs appear to have taken over our environment. Yobbish behaviour, assaults on people and property go on continually and are unseen or ignored by the forces of law and order."

When did you last hear Bury's leader speak out so forcefully?

Ivan Lewis says that the situation cannot be tolerated. But, Mr Lewis, the police have "tolerated" it for a very long time.

The issue of zero tolerance was raised some years ago at a local police liaison committee, but the senior officer sneered at the concept. GMP might well reflect on the recent vote for an elected mayor in Middlesbrough where former Superintendent Ray Mallon is a suggested candidate. He is a hero among local folk who think that the police are completely useless.

Mr Lewis is a well-intentioned MP who thinks that the troublemakers need to have more youth facilities and clubs. But some of these kids have repeatedly broken into and destroyed youth and social facilities. And boredom is no excuse!

I am glad that the police are having a crackdown on under-aged drinking, though when I reported instances of this some years ago I was told that it did not happen, and that there were no gangs. Now the police admit that there is a serious menace.

One of the silliest ideas being mooted is for thugs to be brought face-to-face with their victims. What a load of balderdash. What is needed is a determination to punish the ringleaders. The police should stop just writing letters to parents and issuing cautions galore. Why give them repeated chances to offend?

The thugs could be taken to court the following morning and stiff fines imposed. If they have no money, then their parents should be fined. And the Bury Times should name them. After all, the parents of truants are shamed in the papers, why not the families of those who kick an old man to death or burn down a school?

COP THAT