‘There are enough options open to courts for sentencing as things stand before prison is chosen’

• I REFER, initially, to the letter from Cristel Amiss, (What future for policing? March 18).

Personally I do not accept that centuries of parliamentary legislation have not provided sufficiently for the practical enforcement of criminal law and its accommodation of offences, and see little need for the forthcoming Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021 – unless it is to provide proper protection of the public by reducing the tendency to favour criminals’ rights over those of victims.

Example: there are enough options open to courts for sentencing as things stand before prison is chosen, so it can be assumed that the lack of incarceration favours those truly repentant and desirous of changing their ways before it appears to be a risk to them; and that those who go to prison probably richly deserve it.

I note the terminology chosen by your correspondent about the events on Clapham Common. She writes “…we witnessed police violence against women who were holding a vigil against violence”.

I note the omission (obviously intentional) of words like “illegal assembly”, with no reference to the behaviour of those seen deliberately encouraging onlookers to disobey the requests by police to disperse.

If that caused “violence”, then honesty requires that it – the how and why – be placed in context with what happened. Vigil? Merely a euphemism for evading what, in reality, occurred there.

I turn now to the letter from Labour Assembly Member Murad Qureshi about misogyny and hate crime, (Make misogyny a hate crime and establish a register of domestic abusers, March 18).

No real surprise at the blatant political opportunism, but the whole basis of “hate crime” is far too fluid and flexible and can threaten elementary engagement with thought, words, and criminal acts themselves.

Ergo: a rabble-rousers’ stick to beat freedom of views they don’t like. If I proclaim a vehement detestation of politicians, should this be a “hate crime”? Should I expect to feel the snap of the bracelets on my wrists?

We are in “Looking Glass Land” here. Let us beware of what we create for ourselves.

MARK NEWBERRY
Harcourt Street, W1