Public Exposure ( A Letter To A

Newspaper’s Editor) Essay, Research Paper

Dear Sir

I’m writing to you because I want to publicly express my thoughts about a very serious

problem, a problem which tortures our society.I’m talking about young offenders, those of

about 16-18 years old who seem to be the cause of a big part of the crime which keeps

going on.These juveniles do just about anything to cause trouble: vandalism, burglaries,

kerb-crawling…. the list is endless. And what do WE do?We arrest them, put them in jail

for a few days, soon they are out, and they start doing the same things all over again.”But

what can we do?”, I hear you ask. All we have to do is support the measures proposed

recently by the home secretary, Michael Howard , who chalenges one of the fundamental

principles of the English law,and suggests that young offenders’ names should be puplished

in magasines and newspapers to be known by the public.In other words he suggests that

these young troublemakers should be exposed and shamed. And I agree with him 100%.

The threat of public exposure will encourage young offenders to face up to the effects of

their crimes.This will also have, hopefully, some effect on the parents too, who will be

forced to be more strict and control their children because, as the ministers believe,

parents are the key to reforming youngsters’ behaviour.And that has to be done before

they grow up, because there will be no conrolling them then.So no more anonymity, and

no more “Blitz Boy” kind of nicknames which only glorify the young troublemakers and

make them look like heroes, but full publication of offenders’ genuine name.And we’ll then

see how many will dare doing something that will result in that. Because a thing like that

not only humiliates the offender, but also destroyes his future, and eliminates his chances

of finding a proper job.

Yours faithfully