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Bring back discipline
• IT was good to see our MP, Jeremy Corbyn, attend the anti-knife crime gathering on Highbury Fields (Knives bring heartache and pain, warns brother of stabbing victim, September 14).
He quite rightly attacks the wall of silence around these crimes, but I was shocked to read him blame “league tables and competition” for somehow putting too much pressure on young people and apparently leading to knife crime.
This is woolly, old-fashioned liberalism that would be funny if it had not caused so much pain and anguish to Islington parents over the years.
It is the socialist beliefs of Mr Corbyn and his ilk that have created a situation where children and parents live in terror of a handful of out-of-control yobs who have no fear of retribution. We need to reintroduce strict discipline into our local schools. We need punishment to be seen and delivered quickly.
I understand there is currently a local police campaign to arrest yobs in front of their mates at school or in front of their parents at home for being involved in attempted muggings and other street crimes.
This is good news and I hope will be encouraged by Mr Corbyn. It must not be a flash in the pan but a consistent reality for badly behaved children.
The use of remote, delayed punishments, such as exclusion, does not work. It only makes the situation worse. Children like to know what the boundaries are and as soon as they step over them they like to know there is instant retribution – not a drift in authority.
Even the limited reintroduction of corporal punishment for kids who hurt other kids or adults would get over the message that society does not find this behaviour acceptable.
TIM NEWARK
N5
• READERS may be interested to know about a public meeting, with the title “Our safety, our future”, planned for 7.30pm on Thursday, September 27, at St Mellitus Church.
Following the recent tragic death of Martin Dinnegan, I hope it will provide an opportunity for the whole community to consider what we can do to make such events less likely. We will be discussing a list of suggestions.
Councillors, MP Jeremy Corbyn and representatives of the youth service and the police will all be there.
If anyone would like to help in publicising the event, please call me on 020 7281 1779
ROBIN LATIMER
Tollington Way, N7
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