Tuesday TV Choice: You Be the Judge: Crime & Punishment (5, 9pm)

​The channel is bringing us a mini-season of shows dedicated to the always contentious theme of law and order. As 5’s chief content officer Ben Frow points out, it will be addressing some very big issues about why people are so worried about crime.

He said: “Throughout this series of programmes, we seek to ask why that is and how we can begin to take back control. Do we have the right measures in place? Is the length of sentencing appropriate? What can we do about prison overcrowding? Are our prisons fit for purpose? Are our police forces across the country well-equipped to fulfil the increasing demands on their limited resources?”

On Monday, we got the documentary Wandsworth Prison: Out of Control, and on Wednesday, there’s a look at the stark realities of capital punishment in Dead Man Walking: Dan Walker on Death Row. There’s also a one-off drama, The Trial, on Thursday, set in a future where parents are held criminally responsible for the actions of their children.

Perhaps the most intriguing programme though is You Be the Judge: Crime & Punishment.

Hosted by Anne Robinson, who is making a welcome return to our screens, it tackles the subject of sentencing.

Surveys have shown that 71 per cent of British people believe that sentences are currently too lenient. But what punishments do the public think should be handed out?

This social experiment finds out by reconstructing four actual sentencing hearings – a key part of the trial system that juries are absent from.

Viewers can then decide what sentence they would give to someone who stabbed his ex-girlfriend 13 times and then tried to clean up the murder scene, and if it would be harsher than the punishment they’d hand out to someone convicted of causing the death of a pregnant mother by dangerous driving.

Does intent matter? Or remorse? And what mitigating and aggravating factors should be taken into account?

The programme-makers have also gathered together four groups to offer their opinions – retired judges, former inmates, retired police officers and relatives of crime victims.

So, the viewers will be able to compare their own sentences to the panel’s opinions as well as the punishments that were ultimately handed down by the judge in the real trial.

In the process, the show raises some bigger questions about the justice system, while also asking about the practicalities of introducing longer jail sentences in an overcrowded prison system that it already struggling to cope.

Anne Robinson believes it will make for eye-opening viewing, saying: “Why is the sentencing of criminals so widely inconsistent? Why does a protester who climbs up a bridge to stop the traffic spend more time in prison than someone who punches an innocent man who dies as a result?

“This programme tells a jaw-dropping story. The government needs to watch it.”