SO, the criminal justice system takes crime and its prevention seriously, does it?

Such, at any rate, would appear to be the key point of Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner Barry Coppinger’s needlessly long letter on the subject (HAS, June 2).

Forgive me for being somewhat cynical.

Why am I cynical? Well, for starters, look at the general pattern of sentencing for truly abhorrent crimes – the sort that inflict death or life-changing injuries on their victims.

The norm in such cases appears to be around 12 years. But does that really mean 12 years? No of course it doesn’t. At the very outset the sentence is halved; then allow for such nonsense as parole and ‘good behaviour’, and the murderer, rapist, or whatever other variety of psychopath, is unlikely to serve much more than two years, if that.

So, Mr Coppinger’s assurances are, in actual fact, just a heap of eyewash, like the criminal justice system itself.

A heap of eyewash, I might add, that we pay through the nose for, while criminals have a good laugh at our expense (and can you really blame them?)

Tony Kelly, Crook