I PARTLY agree with David J Crawford (Letters, March 13) regarding life sentences for murder.

Someone who has committed murder should certainly be appropriately dealt with; and given that we no longer have capital punishment for this crime, the "next best thing" seems to be a whole-life jail sentence actually served in jail (not "out on licence" after a few years of incarceration).

And I think that this should certainly apply to some of the "revolving door killers", reports of whose continuing activities we all see in the media.

However, it seems that, as reported in your editorial ("Verdict on criminal justice: serious reform is needed", The Herald, March 12), our criminal justice system needs serious reform both to address the multiple personal problems of many in prison, and who we put in prison in the first place.

But this should not mean that we become afraid to do what needs to be done, which is, if required, lock-up –for a whole life term – those murderers who are judged, by rational experts not influenced by a politically-correct agenda, too dangerous ever to be released.

And by politically-correct agenda, I mean that which seems to completely ignore the victims of murder, both direct and peripheral, in favour of a rush to protect the "human rights" of the murderer. This is the agenda of the misguided.

Philip Adams,

7 Whirlie Road, Crosslee, Renfrewshire.

I DON'T know how many murderers David Crawford has met, but in my experience of years of prison work those who "deliberately kill" are in the minority. Mr Crawford wants to "dispense with the Victorian concept of redemption" but seems happy to espouse other old-fashioned ideas such as banishment to an uninhabited island.I can think of far worse potential next door neighbours than a life parolee who is trying to get on with his life.

Cathy Baird,

36 Jubilee Road,

Dunipace.