Time to fine and humiliate vandals

REGARDING the story about the spree of vandalism in The Reporter on September 28 I believe it was less than 12 months ago that we saw a similar headline about vandals leaving a trail of misery. They were caught and found guilty.

I seem to remember the sentences were small with fines of about £100 and some community service.

I felt at the time that the punishment was minuscule compared to the costs of repair to damaged property, the time needed to get repairs done, the loss of policy excess amounts and the increases in owners' insurance costs. The distress and anger caused could not be measured.

Is it not surprising therefore, that another lot of vandals go on a spree.

There is no deterrent - to them it's all a joke to cause the damage and they know that even if they are caught, the punishment will not cause them any hardship.

Perhaps they should have their property 'publicly' vandalised, be sprayed bright purple so they stood out as vandals wherever they were.

They should be forced to wear placards saying what they have done while they do many hundreds of hours' of community service on Friday and Saturday nights cleaning up the town and being prevented from committing even more vandalism.

They should work in the town during Saturdays in full public view.

Additionally, they should be fined thousands of pounds so they understand the distress, anger and hardship that is felt by their victims.

But hold on, I'm forgetting that they have Human Rights.

They would be deprived of their leisure time by working at nights, would be humiliated by being identified in public, be angered by having their property vandalised and would be distressed by the number of hours they had to serve in community service. They would feel they were being punished.

Will the punishment ever be a deterrent again?

Name and address

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