Short, sharp shock

NOT only is our justice system failing victims, but it is allowing an increasingly violent attitude to grow without check.

As a magistrate, I saw victims of crime left with no reassurance that an appropriate punishment would be meted out.

We have become a pathetically soft nation, too keen to offer lawbreakers endless opportunities to reform and become good citizens when hardly any do.

Our tolerant society tries not to offend anyone except the genuinely good citizens who work, pay their taxes, look after their children and don’t break the law.

It’s time prison was seriously uncomfortable: no perks, privileges or socialising, with food to survive on and not necessarily to enjoy.

If sentences are to be shorter, they should also be sharper. Those who recommend prison reform have had years to try out their ideas and failed. It’s time to get tough.

Name supplied, Farnham, Surrey. WHAT does it take to get locked up (Mail)? Confronting the burglar raiding your house and knocking six bells out of him is your ticket to prison.

Meanwhile, the low life will receive compensation, counselling and support. Do-gooders will want to help the misunderstood young man because he is a victim of a society that has let him down.

MALCOLM CRAVEN, Bognor Regis, W. Sussex.