PROSECUTING the parents of young tearaways (Letters, April 13) is a great idea and the sooner it is made law the better, but it's not going to work, like so many other good ideas, It is the parents who are at fault, not the children.

If young mothers have more children than they can house or afford to bring up with out relying on handouts from the state, what do you expect?

These mothers are breeding grounds for slums. They are condemning their children to live in crowded housing in order to get a bigger house or a bigger handout from the state, no doubt to spend down the pub, and then complain that they are getting a raw deal, like they can't afford to buy a house.

As for charging them for the crimes their offspring commit, there's no chance of a judge sending a mother to prison if she had six screaming children waiting outside the court.

But all is not lost. Let us turn the clock back 80 to 100 years, a little before my time. I remember receiving thick ears off the village bobby.

And God help you if he took you home to your father.

How that hiding hurt. You learn from your mistakes, painful ones you learn the fastest and remember the longest.

MICHAEL THORPE, Woolston, Southampton.