Are we becoming too soft? Your recent story about a 20-year-old caught with a knife came to my attention. He received a suspended sentence, placed on supervision and ordered to do 100 hours community service. Fair enough you might think, until you read that this is the fourth time he has been sentenced for carrying a knife. What has he got to do, stab someone, before magistrates impose a tougher sentence and take him off the streets? Maybe if they had done that earlier he might have learned his lesson and there wouldn't have been a fourth time.
Ian Preston
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