Letters: Problems with crime and punishment in our society

In some areas, murder has become commonplace and crime actually does pay for two very good reasons.

First of all, the police have been cut so far that they no longer bother to even try to detect some crimes and, in some cases, do not even record some minor crimes.

Secondly, justice has become so limited that courts are obliged to dole out suspended sentences or community orders.

Should an offender be sent to prison, it will be served in a cushy jail or one where the inmates rule.

Meanwhile, I believe that much of the violence in under 10s is caused by the continuous programmes and games in which violence is the core.

Young children have difficulty in discerning true actions from fictional characters they see on TV, who fight and use weapons to injure others.

Children, being children, will always attempt to copy

what they see to be exciting.

In my youth, it was Cowboys and Indians but all the fighting was mimed as we well knew that, if we hurt someone, we ourselves would be punished.

Peter Hyde

via email