I READ with wry amusement 'Fight conditions causing crime' (Letters, September 26). Create Utopia, and all criminals will disappear. If only it was that simple!

Proving cause and effect is notoriously difficult. The poor and abused can often be the most honest, while the affluent, free from childhood trauma the most hardened criminal.

What is the solution to this complex conundrum? The iron fist, the kid glove, or somewhere in between? It is an interesting debate. Unfortunately, it is of little consolation to the vulnerable old person, mugged in the street, to be assured that a phalanx of politicians, psychotherapists and social workers are earnestly discussing the motivation behind anti-social behaviour. All they want is protection from thugs.

Incidentally, it is all very well exhorting the ordinary person, already heavily taxed to pay for public services, to stop 'whingeing' and join in a crusade to cure all the ills of society. Usually, such people are too busy working, bringing up families and struggling to pay a mortgage to indulge in such idealistic pursuits.

It is paradoxical that the more tolerant society becomes, the more it seems to descend into chaos and anarchy. It is probably despair rather than ignorance, which prompts people to suggest that penal reform has gone too far. Especially when they see the criminal, acutely aware of his 'human rights,' but oblivious to his responsibilities, roaming free and untouchable, while the law-abiding are often frightened prisoners in their own homes.

The 'good old days' might not have been entirely halcyon. However, compared to this era of moral relativism, where there is no crime so heinous that some apologist will not crawl out of the woodwork to excuse the perpetrator and attempt to imbue society with a kind of 'collective' blame, they seem positively blissful.

S LOVE (Mrs), Avenue Parade, Accrington.