BRITAIN: Crime rates are going down - yet street robberies increased by 40 per cent last year, reports Rachel Donnelly in London

In the tabloid depiction of New Labour's "lawless Britain" an 11-year-old girl is shown throwing a brick through a supermarket window and everyone knows someone like the "vile" teenagers banned from a Somerset town because of their involvement in 200 street crimes.

Elsewhere, a suburban street in south London is labelled "Crime Street UK" because three out of four residents have become victims of street crime, robbery or violent crime within the past four years. As street crime soars, the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, talks tough - declaring that he wants to "reclaim" the streets for law-abiding citizens.

By highlighting random crimes and putting them on the front pages, the tabloid media in particular has helped to feed the public perception that Britain's streets are a lawless wasteland where young men prowl the neighbourhood simply waiting to snatch mobile phones.

Blunkett's language of reclaiming the streets adds to public nervousness. But random crimes offer little evidence of a widespread breakdown of law and order and the latest statistics from the British Crime Survey - which includes unreported crimes - seems to bear this out.

The overall crime rate in England and Wales fell by 12 per cent in 1999/2000, a figure that the Home Office described as a "historic departure" from the underlying trend of a 5 per cent average annual rise over the past century. Burglary fell by 17 per cent between 1999/2000 and vehicle-related theft fell by 11 per cent during the same period. The survey also showed there was a 16 per cent fall in household theft.

Indeed, as most street crime is committed in the 10 largest urban areas, most people in Britain are unlikely to be victims of crime. And according to the British Crime Survey, the chance of being a victim of crime is at its lowest level for 20 years.

However, it is the steep rise in street crime that presents the Labour government with its most serious law and order problem since it came to power. The 40 per cent rise in street robberies in the last nine months of 2001 was driven, the Home Office says, by mobile phone thefts: about 710,000 were stolen in England and Wales last year, double the number recorded by the police. Most were stolen from young boys - aged between 11 and 15 - by other young boys in the same age group.

In London, street crime is 49 per cent higher than last year and police recorded 4,656 robberies of personal property and 2,098 bag snatches in January, compared with 3,321 robberies and 1,199 bag snatches in January 2001.

In practical terms, however, even if overall crime is falling, fewer people will believe it is true if they don't feel safe walking down the street. So, even as Blunkett moves more police officers from traffic duties to target anti-robbery operations in the crime hotspots of London, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, police in Corby, Northamptonshire, are considering using new powers to cut vandalism by youngsters in the town-centre by imposing a curfew on under-15s.

And Labour's current crackdown on street crime appears confused to the victims of crime when more than 1,000 non-violent offenders will be released from prison early and electronically tagged, even if it eases overcrowding in prisons in England and Wales which are close to the maximum capacity of 71,800.

IT WAS a measure of Labour's concern over street crime - which the Home Secretary has acknowledged will rise further this year - that last month Blair chaired the first meeting of a cross-government action group to identify ways of reducing street muggings, mobile-phone thefts, carjackings and anti-social behaviour.

Within days, Labour resurrected a radical initiative - ridiculed when Blair first raised the idea 18 months ago - which will see police officers in pilot areas issue fixed fines of up to £80 sterling for minor street offences such as drunk and disorderly. And Labour's drive to cut crime goes hand in hand with criminal justice reform as well, so courts will be encouraged to sit in the evenings and at weekends to speed up a judicial system creaking under the weight of bureaucracy. And, under plans being debated in Parliament, new civilian police officers will be given limited detention powers, a plan that is deeply unpopular with rank-and-file officers who took to London's streets in protest last month.

An immediate concern for Labour, which has worked hard to win its reputation as a crime-fighting party but now has education, health, the public services as well as an international war against terrorism to fight, is that alarm over street crime has triggered a revival in Conservative fortunes. True, Labour still leads the Tories in the latest ICM/Guardian poll by nine points with a 44 per cent share of the vote but public fear over crime has pushed the Tories up four points to 34 per cent, breaking the 30 per cent barrier for the first time since their disastrous 2001 general election.

So, while Blair tackles rising street crime he must also address the growing belief among voters that crime is getting worse and they are more likely than any time since Labour came to power to become victims of crime.

Series continues tomorrow and is available online at www.ireland.com/focus/streetcrime