'Action on Street Crime' was launched in April this year in ten of the worst areas in the country. The initiative is aimed at cutting crimes like muggings and robberies by 20%.

The police forces involved in the project received up to an extra �2.5m to step up their operations against street crime.

But are we doing enough to reduce crime and are resources being used in the right way?

On Wednesday, 18 September, the BBC hosted a special day of programming called Cracking Crime.

You put your questions to crime expert, Professor Gloria Laycock, Director of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime in a BBC Interactive Forum.

Transcript

Today is the BBC's Cracking Crime day. Across the BBC we're going to be looking at the issue of crime. The BBC has commissioned an opinion poll which suggests the public have little confidence in the ability of the police to catch criminals. More than 70 per cent of adults questioned said they weren't confident about the police's ability to catch muggers. The survey also revealed the strong support for allowing juries to know about the previous convictions of people on trial.

Well here to discuss those issues and to answer your questions is Gloria Laycock, who's director of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science. Thank you very much for coming in to our Millbank studio Gloria. First of all can I ask you - the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science - what exactly do you do?

Professor Laycock:
Well crime science is just about reducing crime, so we're not a criminology department but we do do things - primarily research, we've a substantial research programme and it's developing all the time, and we teach.

Newshost:
We've got lots of e-mails for you. The first one is from Sally Marshall in the UK and she says: "When will it change from being the criminal justice system to being the victim justice system? Do you agree that there are too many laws protecting the right of the criminal?"

Professor Laycock:
Well I'm not sure I entirely agree that there are too many laws protecting the rights of the criminal but we have to get the balance right which I think is what Sally's getting at and she's trying to suggest it's got slightly imbalanced in favour of the criminal. The idea of a victim justice system I think is quite an attractive one because it puts a totally different spin, if that's the right word, on the way we approach crime control and I think that would be a good idea.

Newshost:
You talk about balance there - do you think the balance is right at the moment?

Professor Laycock:
I think the police would say it isn't. Of course some of the defence lawyers would say it is. And I don't really think it's for me to say one way or the other but I do think it would be a very good idea to have a debate about it.

Newshost:
Let's move on to another question here. From Thomas Stroud, he e-mails from England. "Although I believe that offenders should be helped to re-enter the community I certainly don't believe that the punishments and sentences given out are hard enough. I spent 12 years in the army and severe punishments were handed out for not telling the truth. What plans have the government got to reduce the risks to us and our children?"

Professor Laycock:
Well that's a question to the Home Secretary rather than me but on the question of the severity of punishment in this country we've got one of the biggest prison populations in Europe - one of the biggest in the world actually. And there's very little evidence that that is protecting us from crime. So I think what we've got to do is think radically differently about crime and put far more investment in prevention and less emphasis on the criminal justice system, which is an incredibly inefficient way of trying to reduce crime.

Newshost:
You mentioned Europe there because there's a question here from R. Robinson who e-mails us from the UK but it's on the subject of America's system. He says: "It was proven in New York that a policy of zero tolerance to antisocial behaviour and street crime caused a reduction in offending. We appear to have the opposite policy of anything goes and prosecution is unlikely. Why?"

Professor Laycock:
Well I'm not sure we do have quite that policy, that may be what it looks like from where he is but just going back to the New York question. The criminologists in the United States have argued long and hard about what exactly caused what in New York. It's not a simple issue.

For example, there's a very good body of evidence that the drop in crime in New York was a lot to do with the crack cocaine epidemic coming under control, it wasn't simply to do with zero tolerance or simply to do with Comstat or Bratton. It was a whole pile of things coming together at one time which led to the crash in crime in New York. I mean taking the point about perhaps we should pay more attention to the less apparently serious offending - litter and points of disorder, graffiti and so on - that may well be true but we really can't expect the police to deal with all of that. I mean basically it's about parents making sure their kids don't do it.

Newshost:
Staying with the issue of New York. Mayor Giuliani did introduce that zero tolerance attitude, do you think - you say it wasn't the thing which was really important, that it was more important that the crack cocaine epidemic was coming to an end, do you think it played a role - his zero tolerance?

Professor Laycock:
I think it probably did. I mean I think all the things came together at one time. Another thing that happened was that the New York police department merged with the transit police and that meant there were 9,000 more police available to NYPD. Now that was a massive increase in available resources and it came at a time when crime on the metro system had been brought under control and as it happened by Bill Bratton probably when he was the commissioner of the metro. But the issue in New York is really complicated and it's not necessarily a good idea to just translate from one context to another like that.

Newshost:
Let's stay with America because there's an interesting point raised here by Dan Masterson from the States, it's a point which I hadn't heard, but you might know something about it. He says: "You might dismiss my comments as those of an American gun nut but hasn't there been a great rise in violent crime in the UK since laws were enacted to remove almost all private ownership of handguns and rifles. And there has been a decline in violent crimes in American states that have allowed concealed handguns to be allowed?"

Professor Laycock:
My goodness I couldn't disagree with him more. America's actually a very civilised and very crime free society - their burglary rate's less than ours, their theft rates are less than ours and so on - the only thing that they surpass us on by a mile is homicide and that's because they've got so many guns, I mean they're all armed to the teeth practically. And if you've got guns around the place then people are going to get shot - it's as simple as that.

Now whether or not the homicide rate through guns dropped more in this country following the banning of handguns I wouldn't like to say because I haven't looked closely enough but of course it would have gone up anyway because culturally that's what's happening across the world - there are more guns around and there's more violent crime around, there's more drug dealing and so on and there's a bit of an epidemic at the moment of drug related homicides in London and some of our big cities. But I wouldn't at all relate that to the banning of handguns and personally I think the fewer guns around in society by far and away the better that will be.

Newshost:
There's a quick point from Andrew Glyde in England who makes the point of people in America, the police there, have guns, handguns, would you support police having handguns here because he seems to think that it would allow street crime to be brought under control?

Professor Laycock:
What you mean we shoot the robbers? I think it's a terrible idea. There's been some research in Norway and Sweden, Norway and Sweden, as you know, are parallel countries and they're very similar and in one the police are armed and the other the police aren't armed and in the study there, looking at police shootings and the extent to which the police were shot themselves, they were far safer when they didn't carry guns and I think it would be hugely unfortunate if our police all started carrying guns.

Newshost:
Let's move on to a question from Bryn Roberts, he says: "Is it not time that the law regarding people who break into your home should be reviewed, perhaps to permit a homeowner to use any force he feels necessary to defend his home? I find it unbelievable that a person breaking into my home could sue me for damages if they injure themselves but that as a homeowner I can't take such steps as I feel necessary to protect myself and my possessions." What can someone actually do if they find an intruder in the home?

Professor Laycock:
Well they can do whatever's deemed reasonable and that wouldn't include shooting them.

Newshost:
You're thinking of the recent case?

Professor Laycock:
I am but I think with all things there has to be a limit and our society takes the view that shooting people is not allowed. Now I think they're right in that respect. For example, I remember a case in the United States a few years ago when somebody who was lost, actually a Scot I think, knocked on a door in Florida to ask directions and was shot through the door because the person thought he was going to burgle them. That's horrendous and that's the kind of thing that can happen if you give people carte blanche in these areas. I think it's right to maintain the line that you can't deal with intruders as you see fit including assaulting them or shooting them. That's not to say that it's ok to break into people's houses, of course it isn't.

Newshost:
Do you think the law is right at the moment in terms of the balance of protecting homeowners and people that perhaps might break into them what might happen to them in terms of actions take by the homeowner?

Professor Laycock:
I'm not sure I'd be personally very happy if I got sued by a burglar who tripped over a stair-rod or something but I've yet to hear of that happening. I don't think that would happen - do you?

Newshost:
I don't know, I'm here to ask the questions not answer, I'm sorry I've got the much easier job. A question here from Iain Broady, he says: "It's clear that CCTV coverage doesn't stop crime as it's shown by the number of times we see appeals asking for the identity of suspects caught on CCTV. If this is the case then surely funding would be better diverted towards extra police on the streets in order to prevent crime?"

Professor Laycock:
I take his point about prevention, although I'm not sure it's necessarily extra police on the streets that we want. Looking at CCTV there are all sorts of reasons for having CCTV cameras and preventing crime is only one of them - traffic control's a very good alternative, for example. And if we're talking about preventing crime, or rather if we're talking about crime and CCTV, if, for example, you want to catch people and arrest them then you might be well off having covert cameras, if you want to put them off in the first place then you'd have very overt cameras that everyone could see so that it would put them off but it won't if you can't see them.

So the point is that CCTV is rather more subtle than it's sometimes made out to be, it can work, if it's good CCTV it can actually prevent crime. But it can also help the police a great deal in detection and some classic cases - Jamie Bulger's case springs to mind, the bombing of Harrods springs to mind where CCTV have provided the police with extremely valuable evidence and helped their lines of inquiry enormously and it's very difficult to put a price on that.

Newshost:
There's an interesting question here from Jim Howbridge, he says: "Crime to fund drugs is a major problem, with so many so-called celebrities regularly revealing in the press that they have a drug habit, no police action being taken against either the supplier or the user, the message this sends out is that drug misuse is ok. Drugs should either be decriminalised for all or everyone, including celebrities, should be targeted."

Professor Laycock:
Well I think the police would say that if celebrities are actually caught using or possessing drugs on a grand scale they would be arrested and they would be charged. I mean I presume he's thinking about the Barrymore case at the moment which is in everybody's mind and I don't know what is going on about that case and it wouldn't be proper to speculate. But celebrities, like the rest of us, if they break the law they ought to be arrested and proceeded against.

Newshost:
Steve Perry writes: "In light of the recent survey that shows that a very high percentage of people are in favour of revealing previous convictions to a jury why is the legal profession so opposed to such actions?"

Professor Laycock:
Well interestingly I think one of the things that came out of the survey that was reported this morning was that a fairly high percentage - I think it was 40-50 per cent - of the public said that if they were on a jury and they knew the previous convictions they would let that influence their decision and that's precisely why the legal profession isn't keen on it. The jury are supposed to be making decisions on the basis of the evidence presented to them for the case in hand, not whether the person's got a string of previous convictions or not.

Now sometimes it may be the case that it's very pertinent to the investigation, so, for example, a paedophile, for example, it may be a separate issue somewhat but in general I think it would be very unfortunate if juries were biased, and they would be biased.

Newshost:
Why in the case of paedophiles?

Professor Laycock:
Well because sometimes those cases are so emotive and so - the risk, if you like, of an error is such that it's in a slightly different league but I mean I'm not necessarily saying I'd go down that road but the issue is whether it affects risk or not. The risk of acquitting, for example, when the defendant has a long history of something - of some particular kind of events - that's a risk we're addressing and the public feels strongly about some offences and the error that you would make by acquitting for some crimes is far greater than for others.

Newshost:
A very interesting broad question here from Lorna Hamilton-Brown. "If you improve communities crime will go down. The police have a role to play but the community needs to take part too. We need to break the culture of looking the other way. Should the government put more resources into youth work?"

Professor Laycock:
Well they're kind of non sequiturs, I mean yes probably the government should put more resources into youth work and I think throughout the '80s the government of the day took a lot of resources away from youth work and it may well be time to put it back. But the point about the community and its involvement in crime control is well made. I think it's foolish to expect the police to control crime, they simply can't and I have to say where I live if I saw two police officers walking around on patrol I'd think something awful had happened, I mean I don't see police officers in my area and I don't particularly want to - it's a nice middle class sort of suburb of London and it's not a crime ridden area but that's because it's culturally like that.

Newshost:
An e-mail here from A. Williams from Wales. "On the question of the handling of convicted criminals are there actually any UK/EU or international laws preventing the reintroduction of capital and/or corporal punishment in the UK and is there any evidence to suggest that either of these punishments would be effective in deterring potential criminals?

Professor Laycock:
Well I'm sure there is under the human rights legislation - we can't have corporal punishment and we couldn't bring back flogging or what have you, if that's the idea. I think it is generally a question about sentencing and the severity of it and the implication being if there's some sort of physical punishment, rather than say locking people away, that that would have a better or a more positive effect on controlling crime.

The real point is whether people get caught or not. When offenders go out to commit crimes they assume they're going to get away with it and sentencing's a bit down the track. So unless we brought in sentences that were totally unacceptable in our society because they were so horrendous - like cutting your hand off or something, which wouldn't be acceptable, I'm sure - that kind of thing might reduce theft, for example, indeed that arguably has in Saudi Arabia. We can't do that in this country and rightly not. And so within that constraint, that there's nothing we can do that so horrendous, what really matters is whether you catch people.

Newshost:
Gloria, thank you very much for coming and joining us, interesting issues brought up there. That's all we've got time for. You've been watching a BBC interactive forum. My name is Martin Popplewell, thanks for joining us.