Would zero tolerance work here?

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Rudolph Giuliani, saviour of New York, is in London at a time when crime - or the fear of it - has reached a zenith of frenzy. The Press have gorged themselves on carjackings, mobile-phone thefts and suburban shoot-outs for weeks. TV news brings yet more reports of "murder miles", where drug barons fight for supremacy with local diners looking on. The police are reported as having lost control of the city and today Home Secretary David Blunkett meets Giuliani to discuss what to do about it.

Of all the people to step into the middle of this mayhem, Giuliani is arguably the most appropriate. Long before 11 September had, to all intents and purposes, sanctified him, he was known as the mayor who had brought the Big Apple back from its near-death experience. When he took office in 1994, there were 2,000 murders a year in New York City. When he stood down last December, the number was down to 643. It is likely to fall below 600 this year.

Put simply, if the murder rate had stayed at the level Giuliani inherited, 9,000 people (mostly young men) who are walking the streets today would have been killed. Overall crime in New York fell by 62 per cent in the Giuliani years. The headline total of all crimes in the city in 2001 was 161,642. This compares with a figure of about one million in London. The population of the two cities is virtually identical.

Crime figures are notoriously unhelpful in measuring what is actually happening in the real world. No one would sensibly read across directly from one city to the other. Nor, for that matter, should we infer too much from year-on-year changes in, say, the number of robberies. The extent of police activity and public reporting will affect the results. Also, a decline in the number of young people within the population will also have had an effect. However, the staggering extent of the New York change makes it impossible to argue that nothing has happened. The murder rate, without doubt, tells a real story.

Anyone who regularly visits Giuliani's city will know that it has changed out of all recognition since 1994. It is cleaner and safer. Usage of mobile phones, though less prevalent in New York than London, has grown rapidly, yet there has been no plague of highway robbery. The key to Giuliani's success was his decision to tell the police to adopt an aggressive approach to so-called nuisance crimes. Squeegee men, minor drugdealers, fare-dodgers, aggressive beggars, drunks and even people urinating in the street were hauled in for their misdemeanours. Once arrested, many were found to have committed other crimes.

The number of people summonsed for these "quality of life" infractions grew from 150,000 to more than 500,000 in 1994. Lobbyists for the dispossessed were incensed by the new, tough, approach. But the wider population - including many traditionally-liberal registered Democrats - were so fed up with the carnage and chaos on their streets that they silently assented to Giuliani's radical policies. London-is certainly not as dangerous as New York was in 1993.

For most people, most of the time, personal security remains acceptable. But the direction of change is real enough. As New York's murder rate topples below 600, London's may soon break the 200 barrier - moving in the opposite direction. It is not impossible to imagine the New York murder rate falling below London's within a few years.

As Mr Giuliani meets Mayor Livingstone, Prime Minister Tony Blair and Home Secretary David Blunkett, he will be asked again and again how he turned the tide in New York. He will doubtless explain how he told the police to get back on the streets - on foot - and how they, in turn, targeted nuisance crimes. Although the words "zero tolerance" will be avoided, this is what most British politicians will be getting at.

Could the Giuliani approach work in London? The answer is almost certainly not. First, there is no direct control over the police of the kind enjoyed by the Mayor of New York. In London, responsibility is split between Mayor Livingstone, the Metropolitan Police Authority, the Commissioner and the Home Secretary. No one can tell the Commissioner how to approach operational policing.

Moreover, if the Met Police were to be told to arrest people peeing in the streets, behaving drunkenly or begging, there would be an outcry. Such an approach would be seen as heavy-handed and, in some ways, as infringing basic rights to use the streets in ways that have changed little since Hogarth.

Indeed, there has been much recent media interest in the Lambeth police experiment with, in effect, partially decriminalising minor drugs offences. The Borough Commander, correctly reading local public opinion, found himself attempting to enforce laws that many local people - notably the young - think to be stupid. If he carried on enforcing the letter of the law, he would alienate many residents and divert police time from more serious criminality. Imagine if police chiefs tried to arrest people for public drunkenness, playing loud music (another Giuliani target) or minor traffic violations. The truth is, London-is not ready for the kind of policing that has so changed New York. People may feel, or be, threatened, but they obviously fear the alternative more. The idea of arresting people such as squeegee merchants, beggars, the street homeless or fare dodgers would offend deeply-held British notions of tolerance and sympathy for the underdog. Summonsing those who are drunk or urinate in public, or who play music too loudly, would threaten people of all backgrounds every Friday and Saturday night.

Moreover, the fact that the police have a track record that includes an array of wrongful arrests, corruption and an official report accusing them of "institutional racism" has ensured that many within the liberal establishment would be afraid to give the Metropolitan Police the freedom Giuliani gave the NYPD. During the eight years of his mayoralty, there were a number of serious complaints of police brutality.

Perhaps things are just not bad enough in London. After a few more years of rising gun crime, random rapes and violent muggings, Londoners might be ready to give their mayor and police the power to act aggressively against the minor crimes that pave the way for much worse. For now, Mr Giuliani's approach to policing may be one American trend or fashion I suspect, regretfully, the British will not import.