ONE of the good things that have come about from the riots that have wrought such havoc to some of our major cities is that they have provoked much deep thinking. Either lessons are learnt and acted upon or they will most surely erupt again.

It does not help to fulminate about "the criminal classes." Action is required but it must be the right action and that requires trying to understand how such a huge number of young people went on such an orgy or destruction and violence.

When I saw a press photograph of a row of gutted houses in Croydon I had a flashback to June 1942 after a raid by 45 German bombers on Canterbury. I still recall the air raid warning at 2am and hurrying into our Anderson shelter in our dressing gowns.

The police certainly earned their overtime but they were deployed to deal with a demonstration not wholesale pillage and mindless destruction. Trouble has been simmering for years and the police should have shared their worries instead of lots of PR?about how well they are doing. Last year there was a detailed inspection of all 43 police authorities. In the league table, Lancashire came top, Kent did well, and Gloucestershire was down among the "could do betters." The point is that there should not be such variation in quality of policing. It is absurd that in dealing with severe national problems there should be 43 chief constables establishing different strategies and operational procedures and sometimes not getting on too well with neighbouring forces. In Scotland the Chief Minister has announced mergers into a unified, flexible police force and we should do the same.

All psychologists and enlightened teacher know punishment does not make people better. In times past I spent seven years teaching young offenders (as most of our rioters are) in the evenings in a remand centre and then a borstal institution. In my class the inmates had, on average, 14 convictions even though all were assessed as being able to make a good honest living. The borstal did everything possible to re-orientate them, but within three years of their release over 60 per cent were back in court awaiting sentence. Imprisonment had simply strengthened their criminality. They had learnt new criminal skills, they had learnt how to manipulate the system but not how to beat it. And who wants to employ a hardened criminal?

What had gone wrong in their lives? Most lacked a secure loving family upbringing. They lacked hobbies and wholesome interests. They had attended schools that insisted on uniformity, praised docility and were often run by freakeries miscalled discipline. A UNESCO survey charged the UK with having the least happy teenagers out of 19 European countries. My own observations while visiting schools abroad support this. Schooling is not just about exams and we are near the bottom of the league there too. They are about preparing pupils for life, boosting self esteem, creating self-confidence, a questioning attitude, enjoyment of the world around and achieving healthy relationships. As a school inspector I used to ask secondary school pupils how often had they talked to a teacher about anything other than school work. I recall one girl who wrote: "I would rather eat worms." I asked if they had been given any personal responsibility at school. That was also rare. Adventure courses such as the Duke of Edinburgh's Award should be treated as important as maths. Everyone should succeed at something.

As for the young rioters they should be made to confront the people whose lives and properties they have wrecked and made to help restore and repair the damage done. This is estimated at £130 million.

But let us remember too the fat cats who avoid their taxes to an estimated £80 billion a year. Neither can be morally justified but both, I suggest, need rigorously tackling. When I was an undergraduate at Oxford I was sometimes kept awake by the Etonians trying to ride cows round Christchurch Meadow. I used to think "Wouldn't it be funny if these chaps one day ran the country?" It isn't. Their parents put them into care at just under 30 grand a year to protect their elitism. But at what real cost?

– Roger Horsfield, Pastors Hill, Bream.