Police forces are putting government targets ahead of serving the public, criminalising law-abiding people for minor crimes in the process, according to a report published on Friday.

The critical report by right-wing think-tank Civitas said in order to meet demands from the Home Office police were alienating the public by classifying incidents as crimes that previously would have been dealt with informally or ignored.

"Bonuses are paid to senior officers based on how they comply with targets," the author Harriet Sergeant wrote in the summary for "The Public and the Police" report.

"As in the NHS bad targets are coercing otherwise ethical public servants into unethical behaviour. Serious crime is ignored and minor crime elevated to the serious in order to satisfy the measurement regime."

The report said senior officers could earn bonuses of between 5,000 and 15,000 pounds if government targets were met, meaning they put pressure on junior officers to concentrate on these.

As police performance was measured by "sanction detections", where offences are detected or someone is charged, officers would focus on minor crime as dealing with a child stealing a chocolate bar would be judged the same as solving a murder.

"We are bringing more and more people to justice - but they are the wrong people," the report quoted one officer as saying.

At the same time, officers only spent 14 percent of their time on patrol because they were bogged down with so much paperwork.

Despite extra cash and staff, police popularity was at a very low ebb, Sergeant said.

"Complaints against the police have risen, with much of the increase coming from law-abiding, middle-class, middle-aged and retired people who no longer feel the police are on their side," the report said.