Bring back old ideas (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Bring back old ideas

8:35am Thursday 31st May 2012 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

SIR – Karl Dallas (Letters, May 26) is right: I have not visited Norwegian prisons. However, what I have seen in several British and Spanish prisons showed me what is not happening inside.

There is a high level of reoffending, so prisons are not effective in achieving better behaviour. Therefore, some old ideas might usefully be reconsidered. In addition to treadmills, we could reintroduce the pillory, or provide a large rock and a small hammer, and sentence persistent offenders to a spell chained to the oars of new waterbuses on the canal.

Perhaps some physical activity instead of the idleness of prison life, with or without flat screen TV, might deter them from burgling my garage yet again.

L A Hobsbaum, Willow Crescent, Bradford