I COULD not agree less with your comment that Adam Belcher should have been sent to prison for kissing a girl when drunk (comment Stroud News & Journal May 27).
As you say prisons are overcrowded, so he would unlikely to get any form of rehabilitation inside.
As for deterring others, those who are drunk do not think of the consequences of their actions.
Furthermore, I feel a prison sentence would be unlikely to be of much comfort to the victim, apart from the brief satisfaction of revenge.
Far better if she could meet Adam Belcher in a restorative justice conference, where, with skilled facilitation, he could apologise, and she could explain in person the effect the kiss had on her.
He would be far less likely to do this again, might look at his drink problem, and could perhaps do something to make amends for his behaviour. She might be enabled to stop seeing herself as a victim, and get her life back together.
Restorative justice has been shown to have this power, which a prison sentence does not.
Mary Brown
Stroud
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