Is it time to crack down to ensure our streets are safer for the public?
THUGS regard fines they won’t pay and community service they won’t carry out as getting away with it, as do the public. Protection of the public and the avoidance of anarchy on our streets should be a priority. The days of Dixon Of Dock Green are over. It is time to recruit more officers, arm them and replace England’s regional forces with a national service. PETER ROBINSON, Milton Keynes, Bucks. THE way to reduce minor crime and possession of knives is to increase the sentences so offenders fear imprisonment. All sentences of five years or under should be exactly that, with no early release.
JEM TUGWOOD, Worthing, W. Sussex. THE terrible number of street assaults and stabbings is blamed on the fact there are no youth clubs and playing fields, but this is an insult to the majority of youngsters who go to the same schools and walk the same streets as
these thugs, but choose not to carry a knife. Crime is down to personal choice and the values learnt in the home.
JOHN COYLE, Wombourne, Staffs. IN NORMAL circumstances, I would agree that knife-carrying offenders should not be spared jail. But in Wild West Britain, if you are a teenager and live in certain parts of many of our cities, would you feel safe without a blade?
STEVEN HERBERT, Swansea.
THE Mayor of London says it will take ten years to get knife crime under control. My answer to that is to bring back the death penalty for murder; recruit thousands more police
and carpet our streets with them; and impose jail sentences of ten years for being caught in possession of a dangerous weapon. Fight fire with fire should be the new motto of the Government, not weak and insipid ideas that would take years to implement.
KENNY ALLEN, Newton Abbot, Devon.
IN THE Eighties, my first visit to New York was nerve-racking. I was hassled on the street and advised by the hotel staff to be careful where I walked. The atmosphere of violence was palpable. When I returned years later, the difference was fantastic. I walked everywhere, talked to everyone, and
picnicked and watched families playing sport in Central Park, once a no-go zone. It was all down to New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s zero-tolerance policy. Perhaps the Home Secretary and Mayor of London could try this approach.
WENDY DOEL, Hook, Hants.
WHY do politicians think the answer to any problem is to throw more money at it? Knife crime won’t be solved by spending millions on youth clubs. Does anyone really think murderous thugs are going to put away their weapons and play ping pong? MPs are just lazy and take the easy route.
JUDY GOODWIN, Altofts, W. Yorks.