“ONE last chance” – this pathetic phrase must rank equal with “community service” and that all-time favourite, “suspended sentence” in the minds of the judiciary when it comes to sentencing generations of serial predators on our all too vulnerable society. 
Did these feral burglars, fraudsters, arsonists and thugs give their victims “one last chance?” Fat chance of that!
A cat is reputed to have nine lives but this pales into significance beside the innumerable lives enjoyed by those convicted villains who time and again are let off the hook to sneer at the ineptitude of authority. 
Successive governments bleat that our prisons are full to overflowing but they are remarkably reluctant to build new ones. 
Is it that they don’t wish to admit to the ever-increasing criminality of the society they are meant to serve? 
If so, then we are all suffering. 

Julian R Powell
Larch Grove
Malpas Park
Newport