THERE has never been a time when the public's faith in this country's criminal justice system has been so low.

From being the envy of the world British Justice is now seen as soft on criminals, unjust on victims, time consuming and a vast money-making machine for lawyers.

Prisons are now a last resort with judges giving ludicrously lenient sentences to violent thugs and the police handing out increasing numbers of cautions to repeat offenders, many of whom should be behind bars for public protection.

Staffing costs in the police and the courts system make up half of the £18,000 cost of getting a violent offender to court - the rest goes into lawyers' pockets.

Yet we are told by some that society is given a better deal and money is saved by not consigning offenders to prison.

Tell that to Sarah Payne, mother of a murdered daughter, who has become the voice and conscience for victims - a group of people who are all too often overlooked in our legal system's obsession with the rights of criminals.

Tell that to innocent people whose lives are blighted by having violent people living on their doorsteps.

Between 2000 and 2008 more than 2.2 million cautions were handed out to offenders with more than half a million people receiving two or more cautions rather than being prosecuted.

Senior police officers responsible for this should hang their heads in shame, as should politicians who have created the environment in which criminals regard the law as a joke.

Our main concern is with violence (including sex crime), because that is the worst form of offence. If space in prisons has to be made available then free the non-violent and make them pay their debt to society in other ways.

Let's have an end to cautions when dealing with violence.

And let's have an end to thugs getting only half a sentence if they plead guilty to their crimes.

People who severely injure innocent people (ie people who were not also involved in the violence with them) should serve 10 years or more.

Forget about life sentences unless they mean more than 20 years in jail.

If someone is being given a three year tariff then don't disguise it as a life sentence.

All of this is work for our Parliament and, as a General Election approaches, let British justice become an electoral issue of as much concern as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and climate change.