I AGREE with Iain Macwhirter that our prison system has failed ("Let us have sex equality on our policy on prisons", The Herald, April 19).

Tabloid-fuelled fear may well have increased the public appetite for sending more people to prison but it has not made us any safer. We both jail too many people and treat them in a foolish way once they are in prison.

The country that has perhaps the greatest success in dealing with offenders is Norway. That country jails far fewer offenders and those who are jailed have a very different prison experience from our own offenders with a far more effective programme of rehabilitation. The results speak for themselves. One in five Norwegian prisoners reoffend within two years of release compared to two-thirds in Scotland and violence and drug use are far less prevalent. This is in a country where more sparing use of prison sentences mean that the average Norwegian prisoner is serving a sentence for a worse crime than the average Scottish prisoner.

There needs to be a wholesale change to the Scottish criminal justice system. Prison must be used far less. The abolition of short-term sentences is a good start, but it must go much further.

To the greatest extent possible non-violent offenders should not be jailed at all. Those committing crimes to fund a drug habit should be given treatment and if that fails they should be given the chance to acquire their drugs in a legal manner, conditional on doing legal work.

People who commit crimes like theft should be given curfew orders rather than go to prison and should be given the opportunity to work to earn money to repay their victims. Similarly, those who go to prison should be able to do meaningful work for proper pay, both to allow them to have a more secure financial base when they leave prison, reducing the chance of them reoffending, and so that they can pay into a fund to compensate victims of crime. Rather than simply punishing criminals we should change the focus so that they repay their victims. This would surely be better than revenge.

These solutions do not appeal to the natural urge to punish those who offend, but they are necessary if we want to live in a safer society.

Nobody wants to be a victim of crime and an approach to offenders that focuses on rehabilitation is much better for society as a whole as well as for those who come before the courts.

Iain Paterson,

6 Methven Avenue,

Bearsden.

THE Joint Faiths Advisory Board on Criminal Justice applauds The Commission on Women Offenders for the Report which it has produced. We heartily concur with the findings and support its vision of a radically different approach. Too many fine reports on women offenders remain only words on paper.

We call upon the Government to have the same courage as the writers of this report and to implement the recommendations.

Rev Elaine H. MacRae,

Convenor Joint Faiths Advisory Board on Criminal Justice, The Manse, Kippen.

IAIN Macwhirter suggested non-payment of the TV Licence fee can result in imprisonment (April 19). That is not the case. The maximum penalty for watching TV illegally is a fine of up to £1000. A custodial sentence can be imposed as a result of non-payment of court fines, including fines for TV Licence evasion; that is a matter for the courts.

Fergus Reid,

TV Licensing Scotland Press Office,

87 West Regent Street, Glasgow.