Anthony Goodman argues that probation officers have increasingly lost their autonomy, while Joe Sim says rehabilitation will not work in a society divided by brutal social divisions. Plus letters from Chris Parsons and Tracey Burley

Your editorial on overcrowded prisons and probation (13 October) was most welcome as it highlights a crisis in community justice that shows little sign of abating. You say that problems date back to the failed part-privatisation of the probation service, but in reality political interference has been happening for far longer than that.

Having worked for years as a prison probation officer and then in an aftercare and resettlement unit for ex-offenders, I saw good practice and ongoing practical and emotional support that demonstrated all the important points raised by Enver Solomon in his recent Guardian article.

Reform leader did not say who should be targeted but party figures have been critical of small boat rescues by RNLI

Charities and volunteers who help asylum seekers get to the UK should face potential criminal prosecution, Nigel Farage has said in an interview with a rightwing US podcaster.

While the Reform UK leader did not specify which organisations should be targeted, he and other senior Reform figures have been heavily critical of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), which has faced a campaign of intimidation for its work in rescuing asylum seekers in the Channel.

Jane Middleton says the question we should be asking is not how can we use up surplus food, but how we can ensure that no one has to rely on charity to eat

Charlotte Hill (While British children go hungry, we waste 1.1bn meals a year. Bring on the redistribution revolution, 6 October) conflates two separate problems. One is food waste; the other is domestic food insecurity. If, as she suggests, we use the former to address the latter, we are simply creating a two-tier food system where people living in poverty do not have the dignity of making their own choices.

While the work of food-waste charities such as the that one Hill heads is commendable as a sticking plaster, in the long term it entrenches poverty and removes any incentive for large corporations to tackle the food waste they create.

Broadcaster apologises after admitting claims against Benjamin Cohen and Anthony James were defamatory

The BBC has apologised and paid “substantial” compensation to the couple behind the PinkNews website, after conceding that stories accusing them of sexual misconduct were false and defamatory.

In a sweeping admission, the BBC accepted at the high court that a 2024 iPlayer documentary about the PinkNews founder Benjamin Cohen and his husband, Anthony James, called PinkNews: Behind Closed Doors, had made “a series of very serious, false, and defamatory allegations”.

Fiona Lindop says she will always be grateful to the TV presenter for establishing the Meet-a-Mum Association

Esther Rantzen (Obituary, 1 October) is rightly remembered and honoured for her wide-ranging charity work, including establishing Childline and the Silver Line. One of the charities that she pioneered was the Meet-a-Mum Association (Mama), founded in 1979. Mama established a network of local groups offering friendship and support for new mothers.

In 1984, I was a young mum with a toddler and a two-week-old baby, and had just moved to Hertfordshire from South Yorkshire. Mama was a lifeline that helped me become part of the new community with access to support, and I joined the local Mama committee soon after.