I hope his sentence is doubled.

No, no - you have to emphasise with the poor little mite.
Obviously he is capable of reason and remorse and you have to build on that.
I don't know - you "hand 'em high" brigade!!

For telling the truth? How fantastically Orwellian TDH.

I am glad he told the truth. Just shows how little morales he has. SCUM.

Ever been burgled Bofem, or are you a burglar yourself?
Only way I can explain your strange supportive views of our criminal fraternity.

Indeed! As I understand it, part of his rehabilitation is to write to his victim to explain his actions and (hopefully) demonstrate his remorse. If he cannot see anything wrong in what he's done, or more likely, doesn't care, then his sentence should continue until he does see the error of his ways, and is sorry. Not much of a punishment otherwise is it?

At least he is honest in his letter - most would write the letter saying how sorry they are, not meaning a word of it. As a method of determining the length of punishment it seems pretty feeble. The only thing most of them are sorry about is being caught - even then many don't seem to care.

OK he was honest about his inability to be a contributive member of civilised society, but it does not say much for this type of "restorative" justice does it?
I must admit I am surprised by the comments coming forth on this thread so far as I mistakenly assumed that most law abiding people would be outraged by this, which I believe was the reason for the authorities publishing it in the first place.

You get the impression that some people would like to send him on holiday to swim with dolphins at the tax payers expense to get over the 'ordeal' of the burglary he committed! Poor mite.

On the balance of cost and out-comes, RJ is meant to be more effective than other more commonly applied 'solutions'. Abandoning common sense for vengeance will get us nowhere.


It is funny. But it also might show that this person is going to cost us a lot of money before they decides to behave himself.

He's seen 'Shawshank Redemption', thats all

There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bull**** word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a ****.

Who's suggesting that?
Not me.
But what is going on here with this person and may others, to me, is not common sense.

Perhaps we should go back to sending 'em to Australia.

Send him to me, I'll cut the little sods hands off. its Ok, Allah says so.

You were, when you questioned RJ's effectiveness. I suggested that it is more effective per £ than other more 'traditional' methods, which I am sure you would prefer.


It is common sense to know that no one method works fine for everyone every time. It is ill advised to take individual examples as proof that a system doesn't work.

Lets face it, 'restorative justice' won't work - we've always known that. Its simply the age old appeasement schemes, dressed up to cover the deficiencies in the criminal justice system. To illustrate, at the back end of the 1930's a yob (lets call him Adolf) was running amok. So after yet another nasty incident, an older chap (say Neville) had a 'restorative conversation'. They wrote a very positive letter, where Adolf promised not to do it again, and both signed it... Can we stop this nonsense and get back to measures we do know that work - no matter how personally distressing for the perpetrator.

What methods are they? Do you have the appropriate statistics to support them?

A good birching, always works.

Traditional; prison, humiliation (stocks / pillory), boot camps, etc. We have to remember that punishment is supposed to do three things. Retribution (or paying back society), deterrence and reformation. We 'claim' that we concentrate on the last. And no, I'm not falling for the produce statistics argument - you know where to find them. The Titanic didn't have enough life boats because the Board of Trade statistics proved they were unnecessary.

Titanic? In other words you have no argument to support your assertion.

Yes it does if you are a sadomasochist.

Reading many of your posts, I can't help feeling you'd be much happier living in Saudi Arabia.

No I wasn't.
Just because I think RJ is a waste of time and money doesn't mean I support "vengeance".
What I support is a form of RJ that these little thugs understand and works.
Nothing to do with "vengeance" more a need to deal with these social ,misfits in an effective way.
If that involves some of the suggestions by OTE and Turin then so be it.

No I think THEY should be sent to Saudi Arabia!!
(Why should we move? )

I saw that on the news the other day and even though he is scum he does make one or two good points. Nevertheless his letter shows we are far too soft on the scum, and society doesn't show enough compassion towards the victims (i.e. the real victims, and not the one who robbed)

If the person who was robbed lives in a bad area then why did they leave their windows open downstairs? You can't blame them for living in a high risk area (as they probably haven't got much money), but you can blame them for leaving their windows open.

RJ is a tool, as is prison, fines, fear of getting caught etc. It should not be applied to every offender, and the process followed should recognise those for whom it will be inappropriate. As this letter was never sent to the victim, as it was captured by the process, it seems the system worked. However, I would like to think the writer was then dealt with by another means.

The victim can do a lot to prevent a crime being possible, but responsibility always sits with the offender.

Statements like that really annoy me, there is NO excuse for stealing someone else's stuff ever. It doesn't matter where they live, how they live or where they keep their stuff.

Totally agree.

If you are robbed by some scrote, how can it be your fault - theft is theft, end of.

Unless of course you are an Financiar, Banker or MP then it is a mistake.......perhaps another thread though?

No just a far wider vision. Start reading; Dickens would be good Mr Gradgrind

I totally agree with you, however, we should live in the real world. If one leaves their door open in a bad neighbourhood then they will get burgled. Of course it is wrong; but it happens and it will continue to happen whilst people give the burglars the opportunity to break into their house.

Fair enough; so you leave your downstairs window open then. And instead of blaming your stupidity we'll all join with you to blame the scrote who robbed you. I am sure you'll feel a lot happier for that.

When it is you saying it, I think it does.


Perhaps you could educate the country of what that is? Naturally, proof would be required.


I agree; just prove it.

There is no point in having a debate with someone who simply demands proof for any point made.

As H G Wells once said, Satan delights equally in quoting statistics and scripture.

Statistics and scripture is not proof; a good argument is. HG Wells, I understand, made his money out of fiction.

But you aren't willing to do that - see your response to Biker!! He made his money out of fiction and name from his intellect. Not an uncommon practice.

I understand that RJ is more cost effective than other more 'traditional' methods. Methods that involve vengeance before efficacy it seems.

He was asked to write a letter about his feelings towards the crime he committed.

Why would you double someone's sentence for doing as they're told?

That is a good point.

Indeed. One would also be forgiven for surmising that a reasonable percentage would use the opportunity to try for a more lenient sentence. Put your Sunday best on when you are in front of the beak! Well at least it gives the Probation Service something to do.

Except that it doesn't - hence why developed and democratic societies have moved on from whipping people.

More to the point surely it's better to remain honest (as that letter seems to be) rather than say sorry for something you're not sorry for...

Now there seems to be a great void between action and re-action. There seems to be a bit of a passing of blame away from a "victim" (use that term loosely) and the "perpetrator".

For example, if you leave your car unlocked, or your doors/windows open in your house, and you are burgled, that is a preventable incident which would have 95% been prevented had you not been a moron to begin with. You are mouthing off some person in the street, or perhaps a road rage incident, and you end up getting assaulted; again, preventable. Another example, someone is raped. On Tumblr (my social network of choice) I follow some pro-life/pro-equality (of women, men, lgbt community) blogs and while I agree with a lot of what they're saying that there should be equal pay, rights etc (up until it goes to far and they start to be sexist against one group - luckily those I follow don't fall into that trap of bleating on about it) but anyway back to the rape - a woman who goes out on the town, you know - really short, tight skirt, heels, lots of cleavage, etc. They get wasted on bicardi breezers or shots or whatever and unfortunately something bad happens. Maybe they end up with a strange guy. Maybe they are raped. Now they say "we're free with our choice of sexuality and what we were and what we do. I dress sexy for me" - And yes, they are, and they are free too, but it's a biological purpose of a woman to attract a mate.

I'm not going to get all Attenborough on you but if you take away the fact we have houses, the G12 summit and have "developed" in fair and diplomatic people; we are a species of animal in the world and instinct for nearly all is to reproduce and it's the woman who gives birth and it's her biological purpose to make men go "pwhoar!" - If they dress to receive attention they generally will. They can't then complain if guys keep coming up to them in a club and while I'm not saying it's an excuse to be raped (because it's not and it's horrible) on the way home or after they got wasted and couldn't learn the difference between saying "oh yeah f*** me" and "no I don't want to have sex with you thanks". Nor would they likely draw as much attention if you couldn't see the flesh on their perfectly rounded toosh in Reading town centre. Likewise with rape on men it's unlikely it just "happens" unless there's some sort of fuel to the fire.

Before anyone says "wow you heartless jerk" or "how dare you say that", I am not advocating rape nor saying you can use the excuse of "but she/he was pretty". It's horrible and having to see a friend go through it and what she's now become can mess up most of your life.

But I'm just trying to explain that for most crimes there are things which the victim can do to reduce the risk by a large factor and how a victim can't sit there saying "it was completely undeserved"...well no, you left your window open. Shut it next time.

Because, reading the letter, this is obviously what is needed.

No need.
The current methods of corrective justice are obviously failing as this letter shows so a change is needed.
If it fails then I would stand corrected, but give it a chance.

I have already seen many articles that state RJ is the most cost-effective option available. Stating that a candid letter is proof that it doesn't work is not true. No one method is 100% effective, plus, the letter in itself is not proof of failure.

I assumed that a high-risk area meant an affluent one.

Well...... not in this case. In an affluent area they would probably have better security. This kid was a moron so he would want easy pickings.

A couple of years ago - and a hot summer - people left their downstairs windows open (in Turnpike) and they got burgled.

Really? If we were really 'developed and democratic' we'd still have the death penalty.

Interesting that you didn't put the first adjective in bold tags.

I don't think that is certain.