IS it really only four years since the last election? For me, the weeks running up to the vote in 1997 were quite extraordinary as Tony Blair, his wife Cherie, and the then Shadow Home Secretary Jack Straw all rushed up to Middlesbrough to hear our crime reduction strategy.

They even brought Prime Suspect star Helen Mirren with them to make the photographs look better.

The Conservative Home Secretary Michael Howard also came to Middlesbrough to seek our views.

Four years on and my own circumstances have changed greatly - although my views have not. This is what I told them back then, and this is what I tell them now. Until our politicians start listening, they can never truly claim to be tough on crime, nor tough on the causes of crime.

The best indicator of the amount of crime in Britain is not the statistics that rival political parties punch at each other, but it is the simple human heartbeat.

Thankfully, most people should not expect to be burgled next week, but many will feel their heartbeat quicken as they walk down a street on a dark night or edge their way past a gang of youths outside some shops.

That quickening heartbeat is the "fear of crime", and it is a daily reminder that the politicians - and the police - still have some way to go before Britain's streets can be perceived as safe.

Even the police themselves are victims of fear of crime. Nowadays, they double up far more than they used to 15 years ago. This, they say, is because our society is more violent, but having two officers in one car makes them less visible - they can only be in one location when they should be in two.

I believe that the way to cut the fear of crime is for police officers to get involved. They should intervene rather than walk on by. They should confront rather than turn a blind eye.

By doing so, they lay down a marker not only to the thug but also to the watching public. The criminal becomes afraid to walk down a street, to be seen out late at night, because he knows he will get his collar felt. The member of the public gains confidence and will help the police by reporting crimes and passing on information. If the police do not intervene, it is the criminal who gains confidence, and street crime and muggings will continue to spiral.

Crime can be viewed like any other profession. People work their way through the ranks, starting with petty vandalism and shoplifting and progressing onto street mugging and house burglary. So, the fact that a recent 14 per cent rise in muggings was attributed to an explosion of schoolyard mobile phone robberies is worrying because it shows some children are already beginning their careers.

The Metropolitan Police was applauded for sending detectives to the playgrounds to confront the problem. But every police officer should do their bit. If they see a group of youths at a school gate, they should go over and talk to them.

And, please spare me the whingeings of the apologists for crime who offer no solutions, only criticisms. Criminologists and researchers have come up with a host of trendy ideas as to why people commit crime. They blame unemployment, drugs, social up-bringing. Undoubtedly, these concerns play a part, but the fact is that people generally break the law because they think they can get away with it. It is true for every one of us. Most of us break the speed limit every day. We know there won't be a speed camera on every corner, so we know we can get away with it.

That's why there's no such thing as an opportunist thief. That person is a thief who is always on the look-out for an opportunity, and he is given one when he sees that he can get away with it.

Resources, therefore, have to be devoted to frontline policing so that people can see that they won't get away with it.

The latest national crime survey showed a worrying 29 per cent increase in violent attacks, often at pub closing times. This is where positive policing is most effective, but it requires the police to demonstrate a "zero tolerance" of crime. If a yob sticks two fingers up at a police officer or hurls a kebab at a passing car, they must be confronted.

If a police officer ignores such behaviour, the yob has won. He has got away with it, and next week it won't be a kebab he hurls. It will be a brick or a glass.

In Hartlepool and Middlesbrough, we had great success in reducing crime because we took the battle to the criminal. We knew the public were fed up with living in fear of crime, and once we got stuck in we had a terrific response.

Most residents were honest people, with just one or two misfits responsible for the majority of crime. Gradually, we won the respect and confidence of the people and it culminated in a successful raid in which we arrested the crime dons of the area. Other residents in the street actually came out of their homes and applauded as the yobs were led away - they were not in hiding any more. The streets had been reclaimed.

And the potency of the police force had been increased. Not only did we have the people on our side, but also crime reduced. We still had the same resources but were now tackling a smaller problem.

So it is not all about more police officers and extra taxpayers' investment. It is also about how you use more efficiently those officers that the taxpayer already pays for.

More efficient also means cutting the bureaucracy, including time in court, that officers have to endure on many occasions when they make an arrest. But one of the points of this strategy is that they are fewer crimes committed and so there will be less paperwork.

This strategy is all about nipping crime in the bud. For example, most crime is committed by young people aged between 11 and 24. Therefore, the police have to target them.

In fact, the police have to look at it more closely than that. It is true to say that some schools produce more criminals than others and these are the classrooms to which police resources should be devoted.

I advocated targetting certain schools which had become breeding grounds for criminals, sending officers in to speak to children as young as nine every three months. We tried to educate them in good citizenship and stressed the message that anti-social behaviour - be it swearing or stealing mobile phones - was not acceptable. In this way we broke the cycle.

As I said in my column a fortnight ago, cracking crime is about punishment, deterrence, rehabilitation and diversion. I do not believe the punishment courts hand out is enough of a deterrent, and rehabilitation is only effective after a crime has been committed, and victims have suffered. So diverting people - be they young children or anti-social yobs - from careers of crime is vital. Zero Tolerance policing is a strategy that works in doing that - we have proof in Middlesbrough and Hartlepool.

Politicians of all shades, including those we spoke to four years ago, tell me they support the Zero Tolerance stance that we took - it is up to those politicians to ensure every police officer of every rank in Britain gets the message.