An interesting political debate is brewing, and one which I believe will have profound repercussions for our society if it can be argued to a conclusion.

David Cameron has rightly been arguing that the recent escalation in gun crime amongst the young is an indicator that we are living in a ‘broken society’. The Government refuses to accept this – not surprisingly, since to do so would be tantamount to confessing that this had occurred on their watch. The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith cites the falling crime rate and low level of gun crime as proof that society has not been ‘broken’.

This is a weak argument to say the least, from a weak Home Secretary. Everyone should know by now that crime statistics can be skewed to say whatever you want them to. Theft of goods below a certain value, for example, no longer counts towards recorded crime. If crime is so low, then why are we sending more people to prison than ever before.

And a broken society is about more than just the crime rate. Concerns about anti-social behaviour, the attitude of young people towards alcohol, the fear many elderly people have about going out after dusk … the list is endless. But they all contribute to a growing sense that we are no longer part of a community or a society. There is no anarchy on our streets, but the glue of civil society has weakened, and Gordon Brown cannot hope to use the power of the state to stick it back together again.

That great academic who founded the academic discipline of sociology, Emile Durkheim, coined the term ‘anomie’ to describe a society where collective values are slowly undermined, leaving the individual adrift and alone. I think this is the kind of society we increasingly now find ourselves in. How many people don’t know their neighbours to talk to any more? How many get up, go to work, come home, go to bed, and have no other interaction with their local community? Those who are failed by our education system retreat into an anomic state. You no longer need to read those great novels like George Orwell’s Distopian 1984 or Albert Camus’ bleak L’Etranger to understand where society might be heading. It is it to be found on the streets of our towns and villages.

We cannot retreat into gated communities, or hope to section off the grimmer estates behind a kind of “gated squalor”. More laws are not the answer – this Government has already provided an extra 3,000 of them to little consequence. Merely providing drop-off points for a gun amnesty is all well and good, but once again, Labour are trying to deal with the consequences of social failure rather than tackle the causes.

The first step down a long road would be for the police to exist not merely to solve crimes already committed – clearing up the mess, in other words – but in seeking to prevent crime and anti-social behaviour in the first place. They were invented to maintain law and order. They seem to have morphed into a sort of crime detection unit. They need to get back to basics …