Lynne's Parliament and Haringey diary

I don't know about Seb Green other than how his case has been reported in the media, so with that caveat - it looks an interesting story of how someone who has committed a crime paying restitution to the community can be better outcome for all concerned than simply locking them up.

This teenager from Weymouth stole a boat in 2003, headed out to sea, ran into trouble, had to be rescued (running up large costs for the emergency services), was prosecuted - and given a supervision referral order. So far, so normal - and you can easily imagine how this case might have seen people jumping on the 'tough on crime' soapbox demanding tougher sentences for people in such cases etc etc.

Except - and to his credit - Seb Green is now carrying out a sponsored walk around Britain to raise funds to give the local coastguard and also another charity in order to pay amends for his earlier behaviour.

All in all, I think his future (not a trivial matter - both because he's a fellow human and also because even if you give someone a tough jail sentence in such circumstances - they still come out of jail again at some point) and also our community are better off for this outcome.

This makes it a good reminder that simply always demanding longer jail sentences isn't the smart answer to tackling crime. Having youth and charity workers help put Seb Green back on the straight and narrow has almost certainly worked much better than sending him to jail would have.