FEWER burglars and robbers are convicted in England and Wales than in other leading western nations, according to a study of crime trends by the American government.

The research, by the US Department of Justice, shows that England and Wales have had some of the largest increases in theft yet some of the biggest falls in conviction rates.

Robbery suspects in America are now five times more likely to be convicted than those in England and Wales, while convicted burglars across the Atlantic are twice as likely to be punished.

The study of eight countries amounts to an indictment of the prosecuting agencies, including the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and police, exposing for the first time the gap between the best and worst countries.

In the best ?? Australia ?? robbers are seven times more likely to be convicted than in England and Wales, where only 18% of recorded offences result in a conviction.

The research, which will be published later this month, is the most comprehensive yet conducted into international crime trends spanning nearly two decades. Teams of academics in each of the countries used sophisticated calculations to compare data from each nation.

They found that America is the most successful in improving conviction rates for burglary, up by 50% between 1981 and 1999. The rate in England and Wales fell by half, the worst record of the countries studied. For the 889,000 break-ins last year, only 26,300 offenders were convicted ?? a rate of less than 2.9%.

Robbery convictions in England have remained almost static during the same period, according to the research conducted in Britain by Professor David Farrington, a criminologist at Cambridge University. Such convictions have nearly doubled in Australia and have risen by 25% in America.

Experts attribute the American success to its ??zero tolerance?? approach where minor crimes are blitzed by police and severely punished. This has led to a tenfold increase in America??s jail population since the mid-1970s and lower crime rates. American criminals also serve more time in prison. Convicted robbers have spent an average of 40 months in jail over the two decades, while those sentenced in Britain served 20 months.

??Here in the United States we have been on an incarceration binge,?? said Alfred Blumstein, professor of public policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. ??Before, a burglar had to work hard to get into prison. But there has been a big increase in incarceration rates and much more attention is paid to these sorts of crime.??

While robberies nearly quadrupled in England and Wales from less than 21,000 to almost 79,000 over the two decades, they fell by 10% in America. In the same period, burglaries in England and Wales increased by a third, while falling by a third in America.

The tougher American approach has been accompanied by a huge expansion in prisons. In Britain, by comparison, courts have been advised to use alternative methods of punishment to ease the overcrowding in jails. Two years ago Lord Woolf, the lord chief justice, proposed community punishments for convicted burglars, who would previously have been jailed for up to 18 months.

Based on this advice Judge David Radford of Snaresbrook crown court in east London allowed Danny Coulson, a 28-year-old drug addict, to walk free despite confessing to 18 burglaries. Coulson was given a 12-month drug test and treatment order and an 18-month community rehabilitation order.

England??s poor conviction rates have also been blamed on the bureaucratic burdens on police officers which distract them from frontline roles, and the incompetence of the CPS.

An investigation by The Sunday Times two years ago revealed that case files were routinely lost and prosecutors were failing to gather sufficient evidence to take cases to trial.

Official figures for 2001 showed that 172,000 cases out of a total of 1.4m were discontinued by the CPS; 6,000 were dropped because lawyers failed to prepare paperwork in time.

David Blunkett, the home secretary, has moved to limit jury trials. He is also introducing tougher sentences for burglars and is championing antisocial behaviour orders to stop troublemakers taking over neighbourhoods.

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