Community sentences 
do work

I COULDN’T agree more with Judge Paul Darlow (Yorkshire Post, August 22) when he says that short prison sentences are “largely ineffectual”. The evidence is clear that rehabilitation will always deliver fewer victims of crime than approaches based solely on punishment.

However, I don’t agree that the public has lost confidence in community sentences.

In 2011-12, West Yorkshire Probation Trust managed more than 10,500 offenders in the community on Community Sentences and on licence from prison. More than 90 per cent of those offenders successfully completed their sentences.

In addition, 852 community organisations and charities benefited from Community Payback work carried out by offenders. Furthermore, 4,736 offenders carried out 458,189 hours of unpaid work to benefit local communities across the area.

This work included clearing snow, filling sandbags, clearing parks, ginnels and gardens, repairing fences, building new facilities for schools, community centres and old people’s homes, clearing rivers and streams, building walls, working in 
charity shops, running lunch clubs for older people and much more.

Community sentences, including Community Payback, work to both punish and rehabilitate offenders and provide the interventions to 
stop offending behaviour.

Most people tell opinion polls that they think the main purpose of a court sentence is to stop offending, not merely impose punishment – something that 
we are doing year on 
year through effective and innovative community 
sentences.

Students face huge debts

From: David Cook, Parkside Close, Cottingham, Hull.

THE UK, like the United States and most of Europe, is in a financial crisis due to excessive borrowing, resulting in a debt problem that is spiralling out 
of control. No-one, certainly 
no politician, seems to have a viable answer.

At the same time, our brightest and best pupils are being actively encouraged to create a huge personal debt of their own in the form of student loans. How can a policy that leads a country to disaster apparently be so good for 18-year-olds?

In order to sell the package, figures are quoted for one year – £9,000 sounds much more acceptable than £27,000 for three years or £45, 000 for a five-year course.

Students are told not to worry as nothing needs to be paid back until they are earning £20,000 a year. What they are not told is that the debt will continue to grow in line with inflation. Apart from tuition fees, students are also faced with living expenses, adding to the burden.

Which teacher or parent would wish to see children saddled with such enormous debts before they earn one penny?

Prince Harry be warned

From: Heather Causnett, Escrick Park Gardens, Escrick, York.

SO young Prince Harry has been letting his hair down in no uncertain terms, and the world won’t let him forget it.

I only hope that this lovable rogue, who is only behaving the way most young men would if given the chance, does not overlook the very real chance of some predatory female who sees her chance crawling out of the woodwork and claiming she is pregnant by him – can you imagine the effect on the Royal family and our much-loved Queen in particular?

High spirits can be excused, but a very real threat to the monarchy that particular situation could bring about would be devastating. It would be poor Boris Becker in the broom cupboard all over again, but with far more dire consequences.

I feel so sorry for any man who is in the public eye because he is such an attractive target for so many women, and so very vulnerable to that sort of threat. I hope that this whole affair can now be brought to an end, with nothing more than a sensational but fleeting fall from grace by a man who hopefully will now be a little more careful of his actions – some woman with a camera will always be lurking in the shadows ready to take advantage of him for her own ends.

Architectural arrogance

From: David F Chambers, Sladeburn Drive, Northallerton.

I EXPRESSED my (uncomplimentary) views on London’s latest major building, The Shard (Yorkshire Post, August 8) and the following day Norman Rosenthal presented his vastly more cultured opinion in an article in the Guardian.

It is apparently a masterpiece of visual design by one of the greatest living architects, the greatest and most beautiful sky-reaching building to be erected in London since St Paul’s Cathedral. Sheathed in pure glass, it resembles an amazing cut diamond both by day in the sunshine and when lit up at night – as thrilling as the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Well, through the eyes of the former head of exhibitions at the Royal Academy, maybe so.

Nothing is said about the practical or safety aspects, yet The Shard was not built just as a shining beacon, but to provide lucrative office space and apartments, from which the chances of escape in the event of fire must surely be as slim as the building’s cruel profile.

To me the building remains an arrogant, one-fingered gesture, and if intended as a celebration of big business and the power of money, it has made its appearance at an unfortunate moment.

Blame the last Government

From: David Downs, Mountbatten Avenue, Sandal, Wakefield.

WITH reference to the comment on output figures (Yorkshire Post, August 25) by Leeds MP Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who said: “It is clear that this is a recession made in Downing Street.”

This is the truth. However, it was the occupants of Downing Street prior to the 2010 General Election, when Gordon Brown and Ed Balls were in charge and created the conditions for the position we find ourselves in today. It was Gordon Brown who sold the country’s gold reserves at ridiculous rates, raided the country’s pension funds and over-borrowed billions of pounds, some of which no doubt were used to support the MPs’ and civil servants pension funds.

Yes Rachel, the country’s financial situation does stem from Downing Street but it is the result of policies instigated by the previous occupants.