Stiffen sentences
East week we suggested condign penalties for those convicted of hooliganism or gang warfare at Association Football matches. Since then a youngster has been killed; and various magistrates have imposed on various malefactors what look like heavy fines. These latter, whatever the cries of the Minister of Sport, are mostly illusions. The fines will have to be exacted penny by Penny from boys too poor to pay in a lump sum, and too selfish and self-preoccupied to resent the small imposition through Which week by week they discharge their penalty. More: because of the last Labour government's Children and Young Person's Act, it is impossible for a magistrate to consign a youngster to a period of cooling his heels in a cell. No magistrate would want to send a hot-headed kid to gaol for more than six months; but he cannot send him there for less, since all sentences below six months are automatically commuted. It is time, we think, for a revival both of the short sentence, and of the fine that will cripple a young hooligan's pay packet or pocket money.
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