THE trouble with corporal punishment is that it is either too mild to deter any serious offender or too cruel to be tolerated by any civilised community.

Any convict who is flogged so painfully as to be unable to sit or lie down for a week will certainly need medical treatment and thus take up the valuable time of doctors, nurses and other hospital or clinic staff.

Such time which would be far better and more usefully spent on genuinely law abiding people whose own natural and intrinsic ailments require urgent and prolonged attention.

Corporal punishment will therefore cause more trouble than it is worth.

The time has certainly come to take strong action against both children and all other people who are a hazard, menace or danger to the public.

That strong action is either strict confinement of the prospective culprit's person in a secure place or enforced occupation of his or her time in community work, useful study or healthy sport.

All such persons should be firmly controlled and frequently watched to ensure the safety of all members of the public.

Perhaps a civil camp might be set up to accommodate such dangerous people and occupy them in ways that will benefit both them and the general public.

John Buckle, St Albans Road, St Annes on Sea.