Ever wanted to know how many crimes were committed in your local area?

Well, by the end of the year you’ll be able to get some idea with every police force required to produce online interactive “crime maps”.

West Midlands and West Yorkshire are two of the forces who have put information about the number of offences in different neighbourhoods on their Web sites and on Wednesday the country’s biggest force, London’s Metropolitan Police, activated its crime mapping site.

The government believes that the maps will help alleviate public perceptions about crime, revealing that the number of actual offences is far lower than many people fear.

“By rolling out up-to-date, interactive crime maps, we can better inform people about crime problems in their area, and enable them to have much more of a say in what their local police focus on,” said Home Secretary Jacqui Smith last month.

“The latest annual crime figures showed another drop in crime nationwide but it’s important that people understand what this means to them in their local area and where challenges remain.”

New London Mayor Boris Johnson, who made providing the maps a key manifesto commitment, said it gave people the chance to see how their local police were performing.

‘This new online service means that Londoners will, at long last, be able to get information about crime levels in their neighbourhood at the click of a button,” Johnson said.

But how much use are they? The Met’s maps currently only provide details of burglaries, robberies and vehicle crime. The Police Federation, the body that represents rank and file officers, said the maps are not going to help and could even give criminals an idea of where the police are vulnerable.

Criminologists also argue that the data can be misleading as areas with high crime often have low reporting rates.

Looking up the crime statistics for my “sub ward” of London, I discovered the number of crimes fell from 6 to 5 last month, with my area given an “average” crime rating. And to be honest, I don’t know whether that should make me feel relieved, or worried.

A policeman’s lot is not a happy one, sing the officers in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance”.

Judging from views expressed by many delegates who gathered in Bournemouth for the Police Federation’s annual conference, it is a refrain that is appropriate for Britain’s bobbies today.

From anger over pay and talk of possible strikes, to underlying resentment about the growth in the number of community support officers, rank and file police are far from content.

“The sergeants of England and Wales are not happy,” said Paul McKeever, chairman of the Federation’s sergeant committee, as he began his speech before delivering a damning verdict of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government.

Brown was a “Mr Bean” figure he said, borrowing the scathing reference from Lib Dem MP Vince Cable, a “bean counter” who had broken the trust between government and police officers over the decision not to backdate a pay rise recommended by an independent panel as expected.

“How feckless, how incompetent and how very imprudent Gordon Brown must have been to get us into this dreadful state, McKeever went on, before reminding his colleagues that Brown has registered the fastest fall in popularity of any British Prime Minister.

It was hardly surprising that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith bore the brunt of the resentment over pay when she faced the delegates. A brave decision, said Jan Berry, the Federation’s chairman, but not one that spared her from ridicule or mockery.

But it wasn’t just pay that had got the delegates’ heckles up. The growth in the number of community support officers (PCSOs) — officers who have less training and fewer powers than full police officers — was another issue arousing strong feeling.

Smith was greeted with jeering and laughter when she suggested that the public would be as happy to have a PCSO as a proper bobby on the beat. Berry said her members feared that it could mean proper officers only dealt with confrontational issues, “a paramilitary force and one fundamentally different from the concept of policing by consent”.

Berry continued: “The inept management of modernisation is nothing short of a scandal.”

Despite the anger directed at the government, perhaps the recipient of the greatest derision was Richard Bobbett, the Chief Executive Officer for Airwave, the police’s radio communications system.

It often didn’t work properly in London, didn’t work at all in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff — just making a “beep, beep” noise, and radios needed to be put in plastic bags if it was raining, delegates told him.

Alan Gordon, Police Federation vice chairman, said he suspected it would struggle to even cope with “a well-attended village egg and spoon race”.

Jacqui Smith has probably faced some unwelcoming audiences in her time as Home Secretary but it is unlikely she has faced one as tough as the 1,000 angry police officers she encountered on Wednesday.

Smith knew she was in for a grilling when she spoke to delegates at the Police Federation conference, furious that a pay rise, recommended by an independent panel, had not been
honoured in full.

Only the day before, it was announced that police had voted in favour of seeking the right to strike and so she understandably looked apprehensive as officers filed into the
vast conference centre in Bournemouth.

And barely had Jan Berry, the Federation’s outgoing chairman, begun her speech than the audience was putting the boot in.

Berry said she had seen a lot during her five years as chairman, including two Prime Ministers “and counting” and four Home Secretaries. “And counting” came a cry, to laughter from the delegates and a resigned smile from Smith.

It got worse. Berry said she admired Smith’s courage in coming to face the inquisition.

“I am sure when your Private Secretary reminded you of today’s event you felt like reaching for the nearest stab proof vest,” she said, in a mocking reference to recent pictures of Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman out in her constituency.

That was followed by a dig at Smith’s confessions she had smoked cannabis when she was a student.

“Your recent crimes have been more for the serious fraud office than the drug squad,” said Berry, drawing appaluse and more laughter from the delighted officers.

But the chairman was still warming up.

She asked how it was the government found 2.7 billion pounds to resolve the row over the abolition of the 10 percent tax band just days before an important by-election but couldn’t find 30 million money to pay for the police pay rise.

And when teachers went on strike recently over pay, Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, had said it would be irresponsible to override the
settlement agreed by their independent panel, Berry told her.

“Home Secretary, what is it that Mr Balls has but you do not?” she said, to howls of appreciation from delegates.

Smith, smile long gone, now had a face of thunder.

The problem of yobs causing misery for their neighbours and local communities is a daily reality for many people.

Be it from gangs of drunken teenagers to more serious cases of vandalism, assaults or even murder, stories of problems involving young louts are rarely out of the newspapers.

However, coming up with an effective plan to deal with the troublemakers has proved difficult for politicians, police and local officials.

Anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) have probably been the best-known antidote the authorities have used. But experts say these have their limits and some serial offenders just view them as a “badge of honour”.

The latest initiative to get the backing of the government is a scheme to turn the tables on the yobs with the police hounding them to make their lives uncomfortable.

Residents in Essex, where the Operation Leopard idea was first introduced, say it was a great success.

But it is likely to alarm some civil rights groups, who have expressed concern about the use of ASBOs.

Is it time to get tough on those who refuse to abide by the rules the rest of us adhere to? Or is this just a headline-grabbing announcement? Send us your comments

The latest initiative to tackle anti-social behaviour and an apparent loophole in airport security feature prominently on Thursday’s front pages, along with the Chelsea gun siege and the Austrian house of horrors.

The Guardian says Home Secretary Jacqui Smith  wants police to harass anti-social youths and make life as unpleasant for them as they do for their victims. Young thugs should be hounded and filmed.  Story here

The Daily Telegraph is among several newspapers to pick up a BBC 2 “Newsnight” expose that foreign employees working in sensitive airport locations are not having their criminal records checked because of the time and effort that would involve. Story here 

The Daily Mail features a picture of the wife of the Chelsea siege gunman looking on in horror during the standoff and runs the story under the headline: “I Love My Wife Dearly” — the message the paper says he threw out of a window before his death. Story here

A report that suggests Britain wastes around 10 billion pounds worth of food a year is the subject of The Independent front page. The paper says most of the waste is made up of entirely untouched food products. Story here

The Sun splashes what it says is the last picture of Elisabeth Fritzl before she was imprisoned for 24 years in a cellar by her father. Story here, while the Daily Mirror leads on the father’s insistence that he is not a monster because at least he did not kill his daughter and the children he fathered with her. Story here

The Times carries allegations from an Iraqi cleaner and two cooks that a culture of sexual harassment, abuse and bullying exists at the British embassy in Baghdad. Story here

The prospect of household energy bills rising up to 40 percent this Winter as oil prices continue to go up is the lead story in the Daily Express. Story here 

The Financial Times meanwhile concentrates on the link-up between Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy of the U.S. Story here