The biggest problem in North Kent is youth crime.

This is not news to the average man and woman in the street for we have known this for years.

That it is reaching epidemic proportions is, in my view, an understatement.

Gravesham MP Chris Pond is to be applauded for raising the youth crime issue in the Commons not least because it is there the buck must stop.

It is our do-gooder MPs of all parties both past and present who must take the blame for what has been an ever-worsening situation for at least two decades and is now being made worse by stupid EC dictates.

The chief legal advisor at Dartford Magistrates' Court reportedly said courts "sometimes" have "their hands tied", when it comes to dealing with young criminals.

"Sometimes" is in my view an understatement. What is the use of spending vast amounts of money on CCTV cameras if, when these criminals are caught, they are given non-deterrent sentences?

One time MP Bob Dunn caused a furore in Dartford not many years ago when he said a curfew should be imposed on young people at night. How right he was.

The biggest mistake which was ever made was the abolition of corporal punishment in schools and generally, too, for offenders particularly for crimes of violence and bullying of pupils.

It is amazing what a 3ft rattan cane applied to the bare buttocks can achieve.

Paul Whittington-Ince

Maple Road

Dartford

December 6, 2001 10:03