To the best of my recollection the history student teacher who put me off taking 'A' level history spent more than a term with us in the year I took my 'O' levels.She was what was then known as a 'young liberal' and had pronounced views on crime and punishment.
Back in 1968 she was my first real encounter with a simplistic, starry-eyed, unrepentant do-gooder.
To my unbelieving ears she announced that 'punishment did not deter crime but only the fear of getting caught'.
It sounded like piffle then and 4 decades of runaway crime have proved her to have been 100% wrong.
Our school's 34 year old, career criminal burglar got a measly and insignificant 15 months last week.
Under current, governmental panic measures in our prison system, he will probably serve little more than 20 weeks.
He will exit Doncatraz well before Christmas and I would wager my house that he will have committed burglaries before the end of his first week out.
I have visited Doncatraz and can assure all you potentially criminal blogreaders that you may offend freely. Life is comfortable inside - you have nothing to fear.
[Your fellow hotel guests may leave a bit to be desired but then, you can't have everything.]
Dear Teacher. He is not a good burglar. He is caught regularly. He keeps offending. I wonder if life has yet taught you that society needs an element of carefully directed FEAR? I hope so.
