Jail for all burglars

But has it not come to a pretty and lamentable pass when people are, in effect, being advised to make breaking and entering easier for thieves -- by making their homes less burglar-proof in order to make them safer in case of fire?

For firefighters were last week warning residents in a burglary-plagued area of East Lancashire not to make their homes 'too secure' against intruders by fitting locks on doors inside their houses even though they make them feel safer.

They fear that, otherwise, people could be prevented from escaping from their homes if there was a fire.

And it's a real concern. Only this month, an elderly couple died in a fire in their Manchester home after internal locks stopped them from getting out. And just as householders in the Sunnyhurst area of Darwen were warned against adding extra locks in the wake of nine burglaries there in just over a week, we saw a family of five having a narrow escape at Oswaldtwistle after firemen forced open a high-security window that trapped them in an upstairs room of their blazing house.

It is, we are told, a question of finding the right balance between securing one's home against burglars and the need for personal safety.

No doubt it is. But is it not high time that the balance was shifted in householders' favour -- so that they no longer need to make their homes into miniature versions of Fort Knox in order to feel safe?

There may be no going back to the long-gone days when people could leave their doors unlocked. But if there are now thousands of burglary victims like me -- who, in a fire, would need to swiftly undo the five locks, bolts and chains on my front door that the small print on my insurance requires -- who can only dream of that era, isn't it time that in return for less self-protection, we had much stronger deterrent from the law?

Heaven knows, nowadays, burglary is now so common that if you haven't been robbed yourself, you personally know others who have.

But wasn't it the case that in the days when people's homes were not fitted with alarms, deadlocks, mortise bolts, door chains and all the other expensive security, burglary was much more rare -- because offenders knew that conviction automatically meant a stiff jail sentence.?

That's no longer the case -- though it should be. Yes, I know that if all thieving druggie scum were automatically sent to prison for burglary, the places would be bursting at the seams. They're so full at present that we are in for another spate of no-deterrent early release, coupled with electronic tagging.

But fact is, that when these criminals are kept behind bars rather than roaming the streets with or without a tag on, they are incapable of committing any crime at all.

Answer: automatic jail for all burglars. And if the jails aren't big enough, build more of them - decent people would be happy to pay the price in taxes and glad to pick up the savings on no longer having to spend a small fortune on alarms, locks, bolts and so forth and feel safer in the process in case of fire.