I HAVE followed your recent stories on youth crime and the new sentencing guidelines for youth courts with great interest, and not a little sadness and dismay.

Sadness because we've heard it all before, and dismay because, yet again, those with the power to turn the system around and begin to stop the terminal rot in society have abdicated responsibility and have hidden behind hackneyed phrases and platitudes.

Some plain speaking and home truths (not considered politically correct nowadays in some quarters) are called for and here are a few of those truths. The majority of these "youths" have no respect for anyone other than their immediate circle of friends and accomplices. They see the rest of society as prey or, at best, as opportunities to exploit to their advantage. They have no fear of retribution for their crimes, for they know that the law continually makes excuses for them and treats them as innocent little infants who are the victims of every form of abuse and deprivation under the sun.

I have news for the law -- the real "victims" are those who are forced to come into contact with these specimens of humanity, be they teachers, members of their own communities who suffer at their hands, or the police, who feel powerless to stop them because the law protects them.

They are overwhelmingly cowards who hide behind their age in order to get away with appalling crimes.

The idea that youth courts must prevent young people from re-offending is a laudable one, but, sadly, the reality in many cases is that sentences are so lenient (by order of the system) that they have no deterrent value.

Is it not remarkable that so many of those who act as apologists for the appalling behaviour of "youths" have little or no contact with them in their "natural environment"? The judges, magistrates, social workers and MPs who consider vandalism, harassment and shoplifting to be trivial, see the perpetrators when they are scrubbed, suited and briefed to say all the right things, not when they are running riot. But then, of course, the areas where they run riot are rarely in the neighbourhoods where the apologists live.

In the absence of parental standards, the law must step in and, if necessary, take severe measures to instill respect for others. Wake up and smell the pungent whiff of decay -- no more lame excuses for anti-social behaviour. We all have free will and freedom of choice -- the sooner these yobs are made to take responsibility for their actions the better. Personally, I care little for the feelings of these young thugs, but I do care about the health of our society and, like many others, am disgusted by the way it is heading.

John Thorpe

Haslam Street

Bury