STEPHEN LEWIS reports on a few simple ideas for cutting crime through design.

THE failure of manufacturers to build simple anti-crime features into many everyday and household goods is leaving British consumers at the mercy of opportunist thieves, a new report claims.

The Design Council report Cracking Crime Through Design published today, claims the criminal's life could be made much more difficult if everything from mobile phones and women's handbags to lawnmowers, TVs and videos was designed to be thief-proof.

Household and garden objects that a criminal could use as tools for a break-in - such as wheelie bins, often used by burglars to get a 'leg up' to an out of reach window - also need to be redesigned, the report, written by Ken Pease, Professor of Criminology at Huddersfield University, says.

He suggests a number of simple design solutions that could help make the criminal's life more difficult. They include:

- Wheelie bins with sloped or collapsible lids

- TVs, videos and hi-fis linked to a plug in your home, so they won't work in anyone else's

- Suitcases with detachable handles so no-one can walk off with your bag in the airport

- Mobile phones tied in to an individual charging unit in your home - or with built-in rape alarms to make women feel safer

- Lawnmowers with built-in surveillance systems (some manufacturers are already developing these)

- Blue lighting in public lavatories so that drug users cannot see their veins.

Professor Pease also recommends manufacturers develop a "star" rating system for household products, so consumers know straight away how crime resistant the phone or TV they are buying is.

And he has called on the Home Office to work with police to develop a "hot list" of the 50 household and everyday products most often stolen, so strategies can be devised to prevent theft.

The report has already received the enthusiastic backing of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens.

He said today: "There is now a real demand for resources to be invested in the science of crime reduction. Investing in crime - rather than simply reacting to it and cleaning up the consequences - makes common and financial sense.

"The Design Council has provided us with an accessible and practical framework to build on."

Manufacturers are becoming more clued up to the ways in which effective design can deter criminals.

Car crime has been reduced by a third, Professor Pease's report says, by the incorporation of in-built security features by manufacturers.

But Andrew Summers, chief executive of the Design Council, says much remains to be done.

"Examples of good practice are all too isolated," he said. "The practice of designing out crime needs to become mainstream."

Duncan Brooks, head of the highly-regarded design programme at the College of Ripon and York St John in York, welcomed today's report.

Crime reduction was just one aspect of the way in which better design could improve the quality of people's lives, he said. It had a vital role to play in everything from making it easier for older people with arthritis to open a tin to improving the quality of life of people in the Third World.

He added that manufacturers themselves would benefit if they could produce better-designed products.

"The role of design is responding to people's needs," he said. "It is putting people first. If manufacturers can make products which people can see would be of use to them in certain contexts, then they will buy them."