The quality of assessment and a staffing crisis are not the only problems facing probation (“What will it take to stop the rape and murder of women on probation?”, Comment). Risk management begins in prison with effective treatment programmes. These have all but disappeared. Management continues by establishing and maintaining links with people in allied organisations. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to get the assistance of psychiatric staff, who are overwhelmed by their workloads. Community drugs workers, often funded by local authorities, have vanished as funding dried up. Housing, employment and adult education services have little room for the homeless, drug-raddled and mentally ill people who leave prison with a discharge grant and little more. The crisis in probation is part of a wider crisis that has been brewing for more than a decade, and is systemic.
Rob Wakefield
Nailsea, Somerset
Sonia Sodha asserts that more investment in children’s services is the answer to addressing the problem of male violence. She quite rightly identifies that “experience of childhood trauma for boys is associated with a higher propensity to violence in adulthood”. What she sidesteps is that childhood trauma experienced by boys is also caused by divorce and parental separation. How much more research do we need to accept the fact that boys denied the close support of their fathers during their formative years can cause very significant emotional damage? In some disadvantaged young men, the ticking timebomb begins with the loss of their father as a steadying influence on their lives.
Elizabeth Mueller
Glasgow
Apology does not go far enough
The Trevelyan family’s efforts to publicly apologise for the historical ownership of more than 1,000 enslaved Africans and to pay reparations of £100,000 to the University of the West Indies is commendable (“They kept 1,000 slaves. Now this family is paying up and saying sorry”, News). However, this does seem to be just the start of the matter for them. The name of their ancestor, Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, is for ever remembered by the Irish when they sing the ballad The Fields of Athenry. In the summer of 1846, during the Great Famine, as treasurer to the British government, he shut down the relief programmes in Ireland. This action condemned 1 million Irish civilians to die of starvation and a further 1 million to emigrate. Trevelyan wrote to Lord Monteagle of Brandon, a former chancellor of the exchequer, that the famine was an “effective mechanism for reducing surplus population”, and was “the judgement of God”. He further wrote that “the real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people”. The Trevelyan family may also wish to consider atonement for their ancestor’s role in this genocide.
Dr Bridget Callaghan
St Albans, Hertfordshire
Dire outlook for charities
Another unintended consequence of government policy on retirement and pensions, combined with the housing crisis, will be the effect on the voluntary sector (“How Britain’s retirement boom created an economic headache”, Business). There are nearly 170,000 charities registered with the Charity Commission and many millions of people engaged in voluntary activity. Recent research shows the 65-74-year-old age group had the highest share of participants volunteering. Many of the baby boomer generation retired on decent workplace pensions and in relatively good health and enjoy spending their time volunteering; they can also donate both worldly goods and money, now and with luck after death through legacies.
Once they can no longer do so, who will replace them? The squeezed generations, looking after elderly relatives and adult children unable to leave the nest? The WASPIs [women against state pension inequality], having to work years beyond their expectations in order to get a full state pension? Their children who are sacrificing their pension contributions to pay their energy bills and housing costs? Who will be running the charity shops and food banks then?
Ruth Eversley
Paulton, Somerset
Why I may vote for Erdoğan
Simon Tisdall questions the usefulness of Türkiye/Turkey to the west (“Turkey’s two-faced ‘sultan’ is no friend of the west. It’s time to play hardball”, Foreign Affairs Commentary). In his words, “Turkey’s reliability and usefulness as a trusted western ally is almost at an end”. For decades, Turkish people thought that we were in partnership with the west, then we understood we were just being useful.
He accuses the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of having a “long-running anti-Kurd vendetta”. Erdoğan is not anti-Kurd, he is anti-PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ party]. In fact, one of the main reasons he was elected was his strong anti-PKK stance. While the PKK was running a military campaign against Türkiye, the west never allied with us. Türkiye suffered a lot from PKK terror.
I emigrated to the west in the 90s and lived there for six years before moving back to Türkiye. I know the living standards in the west and the living standards of Türkiye when Erdoğan came to power. In my opinion, Türkiye has never been more prosperous. I have not decided who to vote for in the next election. This piece by Simon Tisdall has added one item to the list of reasons for voting for Erdoğan.
Serif Selcuk
Ankara, Turkey
Another empty NHS promise
Even more preposterous than Boris Johnson’s promise to build 40 NHS hospitals is the idea that, once built, these hospitals can be adequately staffed (“‘Zero chance’ Tories will meet pledge of 40 new hospitals”, News). A large, 500-bed hospital requires at least a combined full and part-time workforce of about 5,500 and a mid-size, 250-bed hospital about 2,500 staff. Assuming that just 10 of these hospitals built are large and 30 mid-sized, they would require at least 130,000 new or redeployed staff. This is a figure almost identical to the current vacancy levels in the NHS, proving what a shameful, empty promise this always was.
Paul Dolan
Northwich, Cheshire
Warning: may contain zombies
Catherine Bennett casts doubt on the usefulness of trigger warnings for Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (“Who’s going to be triggered by Northanger Abbey? It’s hardly Game of Thrones”, Opinion). Perhaps preceding the warning with a summary of the plot would do the trick. I’m thinking of TV guide summaries that go something like: “Crazed zombies terrorise a remote village, dismembering and eating the inhabitants. Warning – contains some scenes of violence.”
Michael Bulley
Chalon-sur-Saône, France
