IN connection with the admittedly legally, ethically and practically tricky area of whether prisoners should get the vote, P Howard (Oxford Mail ViewPoints, November X) laments the passing of the robust regime to which he was subjected when incarcerated in Oxford Prison just over half a century ago.

As is his prerogative, he fails to mention the nature of the crime involved, or whether he was in fact guilty of it, but one wonders whether the office concerned was one for which he could have been flogged not all that many years previously or executed just a few generations prior to that?

If so, does he regret missing out on these even more stringent penalties?

DAVID DIMENT, Riverside Court, Oxford