Members of the Sentencing Advisory Panel (another highly-paid government quango no doubt, with totally soppy ideas) has said that thieves and burglars and anyone convicted of dishonesty, normally sentenced to prison for under 12 months, should not be given jail.

Instead, they should be given a community punishment.

Isn't that great! Just imagine, someone has burgled your home, ransacked the rooms, searched through all your belongings, perhaps caused hundreds of pounds of damage; police have spent hours upon hours trying to catch the culprit and all the magistrates can do is to give poor little Johnny a dose of community service.

It's just another load of nonsense from a disgraceful government which should never have been elected.

If community service involved putting offenders into work gangs and having them do sweated labour for 12 hours a day seven days a week, for a month or two, then bring it on.

I think that burglars should always be sent to prison, and prison should not be the soft touch it has become.

We need punishments that are real deterrents to crime and tough sentences must surely be a better deterrent than the soft touch brought about by soppy do-gooders who seem to care more about the criminal than the victim.

Unfortunately, these woolly people are in government and have in turn appointed more woollies to these quangos advising the government.

The sooner they're swept aside the better. Hardened criminals are not going to be persuaded from crime by woolly nonsence.

This takes me conveniently on to this dreadful knife crime that is causing so much worry and misery in Britain.

The do-gooders want to pour bucket-loads of money into deprived areas to move youngsters away from gang culture and the sort of lives which create a need for teenagers to carry weapons for protection or peer pressure.

I would rather the money was spent on bringing back National Service.

And I wonder how much youth crime would be reduced if in the arsenal of punishments available to courts was public birching.

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