VIOLENT crime perpetrated by teenagers has gone up by a third in only three years C no wonder Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is afraid to walk the London streets after dark.

Who wouldnt be? Twenty-six teenagers were shot dead in London alone last year. In 2003, 17,590 under-18s were cautioned or convicted of violent crimes. By last year this figure had risen to 24,102.

Whats so disturbing is that the rise in the number of robberies involving violence is much steeper.

A great part of the problem is that our criminal justice procedures, particularly the rules about who should be granted bail, are a shambles.

The leader of the gang who kicked and beat to death Garry Newlove had been freed on bail only hours before the killing. This is shocking, but it is nothing unusual. Astonishingly, three-quarters of all violent crime suspects are freed on bail while awaiting court appearance. There is a deliberate government policy to grant bail.

This is what the official guidelines to magistrates say: Remands in custody should be sought only when absolutely necessary. Any rational person would think the strong suspicion that someone has committed a violent crime is an obvious reason to keep him locked up where he cannot harm members of the public.

It was not always like this. Last Friday on Any Questions, Frank Field MP offered us a frightening statistic: In Birkenhead alone last year there were as many violent crimes against the person as there were in the whole of England 50 years ago. The character of the country has catastrophically deteriorated in half a century. I know this from personal experience.

I grew up in Leeds in the 1950s. On Saturday a crowd of us, boys and girls, would go to the Capitol ballroom in Meanwood or the Majestic in City Square.

Sometimes C not often C there was a fight, but it was almost invariably a fist fight. Very occasionally someone was stabbed and what is interesting was the public reaction to one of these rare stabbings. People were outraged and talked about ...the place getting to be like America. And if someone got stabbed in the middle of Leeds on a Saturday night, the event was all over the front page of The Yorkshire Post on Monday morning.

In other words, violent crime was regarded as a serious event. Moreover, there were policemen patrolling the streets to prevent it. And violent criminals were treated severely. They were not bailed, but locked up. And, if they were subsequently convicted, they were locked up for a long time. Its hard to describe the atmosphere that prevailed in those days. Call it a climate of opinion, a strong social sense of the difference between right and wrong coupled with a particular horror and disapproval of violence. Those were the things that kept the peace 50 years ago.

Nowadays, public disapproval of violence is not expressed in either the social conventions of everyday life or by the criminal justice system. In the 1950s, if you stabbed someone, you knew you were going to be dealt with severely. Tonight if you stab someone and youre caught and accused, theres a good chance that you will be set free to stab someone else tomorrow morning. Thugs, yobs and oiks know that whatever they do the chances are they will get off scot free. Its no way to run a country.

ö Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michaels, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange.