A Sorry State Of Affairs

‘IT seems, pace Elton John and the boys from Blue, that ‘sorry’ may not be the hardest word to say after all.

‘I could not give a shit’

In fact, it comes pretty easily from the mouths of young criminals and – shock! – they often don’t appear to mean it.

The Guardian says a Home Office report into “restorative cautioning”, in which offenders are forced to apologise to their victims, concludes that it has very little effect on reconviction rates.

And it dismisses previous research which concluded otherwise, suggesting that success rates were down to the police making an extra effort because researchers were present.

“Within Thames Valley,” the report says, “the type of caution was not a significant predictor of resanctioning rates.”

It suggests that saying sorry should be replaced by other punishments – such as doing lines or being forced to sit on the naughty step for five minutes…’

Posted: 4th, January 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink