Letter: Causes of crime: a simplistic analysis that puts men in the dock

Sir: Judging by the tone of her piece about males and crime, some of Anna Coote's best friends are men, but she would not let her daughter marry one. If she had limited her remarks to saying that crime by West Indian, Muslim or Chinese men, or their British descendents, was due to lack of tenderness in their culture, she would be recognised as a born-again bigot, and face trouble with the Commission for Racial Equality.

But generalising about men, all 26 million of them, is fine. Thank god for sexual equality as the All Men are Bastards Diary sells better than ever before. I note that Frances Crook of the Howard League for Penal Reform calls for an end to knee-jerk reactions on the same page as Anna Coote produces them.

Yours faithfully,

TOM TICKELL

London, N19

16 February