It’s time for punishment to fit the crime

I RECENTLY had occasion to speak with a police traffic officer. After discussing his workload, he gave me some sense of the frustration of his occupation.

Criminals arrested time after time only to later appear in court and receive the most lenient punishment for their criminal escapades. House burglars, car thieves and break-ins, thuggery and downright anti-social activity are all part of today’s behaviour that is allowed to go on and on with no real deterrent or end in sight.

Is it not time to say to all the do-gooders (who can see no wrong in these so-called members of our society) that we have all had enough, and let’s stop trying to understand their wayward ways?

We should go back to the old ways of making people who cannot live in a civilised society behave and start to dish out punishments that fit the crime and show that we no longer tolerate their behaviour.

May I suggest the following list of punishment that will get results?

First offence – A minimum fine of £500 or goods that they cherish and own taken and destroyed as a reprisal for their crime.

Second offence – A single stroke of the birch.

Third offence – Three strokes of the birch and then double for every time they reoffend.

I could bet all that I possess that crime would drop like a stone. Naturally this initiative will be an open excuse for all the do-gooders to start a rant of how these criminals are misunderstood and come from broken homes.

However, if someone could ask the policemen on the beat if they think this action would serve as a deterrent, I bet their answer would be an overwhelming yes. The law-abiding masses have nothing to worry about, but those that cannot toe the law-abiding line – beware.

From: Robert Reynolds, West Bank, Batley, West Yorkshire.

HOW much confidence exists for our public and business figures? After almost daily revelations of wrongdoing and indifference to us, the general public, I’m prepared to gamble that my following suggestion would be easily welcomed.

Our kings and queens had a solution for those who imperilled the nation. Taken through Traitors’ Gate, which still exists, they were sent to the Tower of London and later executed.

The law of high treason carried the death penalty because it is considered to be the worst of crimes – it imperils the nation.

Treason still exists, but without the death penalty. Let’s bring it back.

We shall begin with the bankers and the full boards of directors who brought our nation to its knees with their debts; the FSA who failed to adequately regulate; the utility firms after their obscene price rises and million pound bonuses; the police and bosses involved in various cover-ups and finally the 650 MP mediocrities who presided over this orgy of greed and incompetence.

Privatisation not to blame

From: MP Laycock, Wheatlands Road East, Harrogate.

AW Clarke (Yorkshire Post, November 16) blames privatisation for increased fuel prices. However, he concludes by saying “nevertheless, there is no guarantee that if they had remained nationalised that prices would have been any more acceptable”.

There certainly is not. No one will ever know what fuel prices would now have been without privatisation. Now we have competition : we can change our “supplier” when we find a better price.

Recently published figures indicate that British gas and electricity prices are cheaper than those in many other western European countries and 
that so-called “green levies” 
represent a greater proportion of fuel prices than do suppliers’ profit margins.

Sykes backs wrong party

From: Robert Craig, Priory Road, Weston-Super-Mare.

YORKSHIRE tycoon Paul Sykes has pledged to do “whatever it takes” to ensure that anti-Brussels Ukip tops the poll in 2014 (Tom Richmond, Yorkshire Post, November 23).

Mr Sykes, one of Britain’s wealthiest businessmen, gave Ukip £1.5m in 2004.

It is not clear what he hopes to achieve, since it is obvious to anyone who gives it a little thought that Ukip will never be 
in a position to take the UK out 
of the EU.

The peripheral Celtic countries will not allow it.

As an Englishman he should throw his weight behind the English Democrats, who with their policy of seeking independence for England 
from both the EU and the UK have a real policy for taking England, (freed from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) 
out of the EU.

Far from a wilderness

From: Matthew Shaw, Golcar, Huddersfield.

I AGREE with Charles Taylor that Highland Scotland is wonderful (Yorkshire Post, November 16). However it is not an “unspoilt wilderness”.

To start with, Highland 
towns, such as Inverness, 
Fort William and Aviemore, 
are among the ugliest in 
the UK.

The Highland region, unlike our own Peak District, Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors, has not enjoyed the status or protection afforded to national parks.

The Highlands are, in fact, highly industrialised. Vast swathes of land are buried beneath conifer plantations.

Once remote tracts of land 
have been breached by 
bulldozed tracks allowing 
access for the annual stag cull, or for the planting of gigantic wind turbines.

Many inland lochs have been lengthened and deepened in the pursuit of hydro power generation, many more 
are used by fish farming enterprises.

The rugged west coast is a convenient setting for MoD fuel depots or as a parking lot for redundant oil industry paraphernalia.

We must acknowledge that all this activity is vital to the Highland economy and, 
despite everything, it is 
still a great place for a walk, but prepare for foul weather and midges who will feast upon 
your flesh.