Crime is set to top the local election agenda as Tony Blair tells voters tonight that anti-social behaviour is the "single biggest issue" facing the country.

As police officers prepare to take up playground beats, the prime minister is staking Labour's campaign on lowering crime rates.

"We have a duty as a society to give you a chance in life, but you have a duty to give respect back to the society in which you live," he will tell a selected audience in the Midlands.

"And certainly, at the heart of this whole issue of crime is the sense of duty towards each other."

But research by British Social Attitudes has found that voters who record the most fear of crime are those with the highest levels of mistrust in the political system. And an ICM poll on Monday for the Mirror and GMTV showed that as crime climbs the political agenda so does mistrust of politicians.

Since Labour came to power, law and order policy has become a graveyard for a series of initiatives in a political battle that has as much to do with fears or perception than tangible policy outcomes.

Juvenile crime has exercised government and newspaper leader writers for decades with only periodic abatement.

Statistics paint a mixed picture on juvenile crime.

Whilst some show show soaring street youth crime - driven by teenager-on-teenager phone theft - others point to a huge reduction in juvenile offences. In the battle of headlines and statistics a variety of measures have come to a sticky end.

Labour's 1997 pledge on fast track justice for teen offenders - to half the time from arrest to court to 71 days from 142 - was achieved in January 2002, six months after the general election. It has since returned to 74 days.

Local child curfews, Child Safety Orders and Anti-Social Behaviour Orders are all widely seen to have flopped - a situation the Tories and Liberal Democrats are set to exploit ahead of Thursday's local elections.

Blair is focusing on crime ahead of the poll - although some recognise the issue could be a gamble if voters use Thursday's election as a referendum of his party's law and order record.

The Conservatives and Lib Dems have reacted with anger to Charles Clarke's claim that they are soft on crime after opposition peers mauled David Blunkett's troubled Police Reform Bill earlier this week.

Amendments tabled by the opposition parties sought to limit new powers for the home secretary to intervene in local police forces to enforce central government policy.

Clarke said this was evidence that Labour's opponents were soft on crime.

"I believe that the vote by the Tories and the Liberal Democrats suggests they have more concern for the rights of the criminal than for the rights of the victim and I believe that is an issue which is at stake in the local elections," he said.