Question: Abolishing the double jeopardy rule has come under heavy criticism from civil rights groups. Is it justified?

Chris Mullin: Yes, in my view abolishing the double jeopardy rule is justified, provided there are safeguards to ensure that a case can only be re-opened if compelling new evidence, such as DNA material, becomes available that wasn't available at the original trial. By way of a safeguard the attorney general will have to carefully consider that compelling new evidence before a retrial is sanctioned.

Question: Are juries useful in the case of complex fraud trials where ordinary members of the public are expected to decide over tax and business law?

Chris Mullin: There is a case for judges trying complex fraud trials on their own given that ordinary people may find the complexities of tax and business law rather bewildering. In courts in the past this has led to a number of acquittals that ought not to have occurred.

Question: Magistrates are to be allowed to sentence people for up to 12 months in prison. Will that push up the prison population?

Chris Mullin: It ought not to but we shall need to watch that carefully. What it ought to do is enable cases to be dealt with quickly and reduce the pressure on the higher courts. It will also stop people pleading not guilty with a view to stringing out the process in the hope that either the witnesses will give up and go away or that some technicality discovered which results in an unjust acquittal. That happens quite a lot at the moment.

Question: Should ministers be considering more radical forms of punishment for young offenders?

Chris Mullin: There has been a wide range of non-custodial sentences introduced in the last five years though it's proving a problem to get the courts to use them as often as they should.

For example; it's now possible require young offenders to have to face their victims which some of them would find a great deal more stressful than being locked away and not have to face up to their responsibilities.

We also use tagging; both to reduce the prison population by releasing some non-violent offenders early and to enable some remand prisoners to be bailed who might otherwise be kept in custody.

Question: Is the prison system part of the problem of high offender rates? Chris Mullin: It's certainly true that re-offending rates are very high among prisoners but I'm sorry to say that some are career criminals before they go inside. It's not all that surprising that once in prison they graduate to other forms of criminal activity.

A high proportion of prisoners are illiterate or semi-literate and if you can hold their attention for long enough then there is a chance of educating them to the point where other possibilities then can open up in their lives. Sometimes prisoners benefit from prison.

Question: David Blunkett has fallen foul of Lords over the Police Bill. Was he being too radical or have the two Opposition parties found a way to make mischief?

Chris Mullin: No, I think it was a genuine disagreement and David Blunkett was willing to modify his proposals in order to accommodate the concerns expressed.

The bill had to address a serious problem. The fact is there are wide variations in performance between different police forces. Retirement on grounds of sickness for example vary from nine per cent in the best performing to 65 per cent in the worst. The aim of the Police Bill is to try and get a grip on this.

Question: The home secretary wants the power to remove chief constables. Are there really bad managers at the top of the service or is it merely a threat?

Chris Mullin: What the home secretary really wants is a lever to put pressure on chief constables in areas that are performing badly. I don't envisage it will be much used but it does provide him with a fallback in the extreme cases.

Question: Does the government's new stance on cannabis go far enough?

Chris Mullin: For the time being, yes. There is an argument that if you legalise and regulate cannabis in the same way as we have done with cigarettes then you would keep young people out of the hands of those who deal in heroin and crack. The down side is that legalisation would undoubtedly lead to an increase in cannabis use and I don't think the public would stand for that.

Question: Has the government reacted fast enough to the problem of street crime?

Chris Mullin: At the end of the day street crime is a matter for local police to deal with but the buck stops with the politicians. Actually there are signs that since the measures that the home secretary announced six months ago came into force, street crime in London and elsewhere is beginning to fall. But it's still far too high and in the end effective policing is the only solution.

Question: Is the government's September street crime target anything more than a gimmick?

Chris Mullin: You can have too many targets and plans but there are signs that the street crime target has had the desired effect. It focused attention on what was undoubtedly a short-term problem and, touch wood, it's on the way to being sorted.