This past week, two shocking stories of people being beaten up in Paceville and St Julian’s emerged. The first seems quite clear cut. A 33-year-old man was hit over the head with a wine bottle and beaten by a foreigner who was allegedly attempting to break into his car.

The man – who featured prominently on our front page yesterday – required 12 stitches to the head. As always in such cases, there are two sides to a story, but society must be wondering what Malta has come to.

In another case, a mother claims her son was beaten up by police and manhandled after he was taken into custody for smoking in a bar. The Police Commissioner has forwarded her letter – which was seen by this publishing house – to the duty magistrate so as to carry out an inquiry.

Of course, the latter case is subject to an investigation, but it seems that the Police Corps has a long way to go before it regains the trust of the general public – and on more than one count.

St Julian’s is a haven for drug taking and all out alcohol bingeing. Just a couple of years ago, there were only about 10 officers on duty in the locality and there wasn’t even a police presence in Swieqi. The complement of officers on duty at the weekend has since increased and a police station has been built in Swieqi.

Yet it is becoming abundantly clear that even this is not enough. To add insult to injury, society is still reeling from the Sheehan shooting incident and now it is faced with claims that police officers beat up a young man. The police are also investigating claims that a police officer stole the simcard of a man who had taken a photo of the officer allegedly drinking inside a strip club.

So, we are faced with a situation where there are nowhere near enough police onsite in Paceville and its environs, and even if there were enough officers, people are afraid of them or treat them with contempt.

This is not a healthy situation. Paceville today is not the Paceville of five years ago. It is a dangerous place that is fuelled with alcohol-induced fights and more. It needs policing and it needs policing in a modern manner. If one were to look at Amsterdam – another party city – the police there are friendly and constantly walking around to deter any trouble and watch out for people who have gone overboard. The minute they do, there is no drama – the person is quickly subdued with minimal force (due to physical and psychological training that the officers receive) and they are then put into a holding station until their state of mind returns to normal.

We cannot continue to have an outdated system where poorly trained and over-stressed officers keep snapping in the face of situations that can quickly spiral out of control. We need a proper dedicated unit that is deployed around Malta’s night entertainment hubs. Failure to do so will only see increased violent crime and injuries on a weekly basis.