SO let's put the notion of a life sentence into some kind of perspective.

Around 20% of children born in Western and Central Africa will die.

There will be two General Elections.

A high-speed, 30-minute rail link between Glasgow and Edinburgh will be built.

Oh and some killer, rapist, sex offender or especially nasty thug will have done their time and be back on the streets ready to create more mischief, mayhem and murder.

All within the space of five years.

Raw figures dragged out of the Executive on the sharp end of a Freedom of Information request are, for the most part, meaningless.

"Life sentence" is just legal cant, part of the rhetoric judges have to go through when delivering sentences for the worst offences. The important parts are judges' discretion, the jail term, parole status and release on licence arrangements.

If someone serves less than five years, chances are there are pretty strong extenuating circumstances. As for the inmate still behind bars after 44 years and eight months... well I wouldn't even want to meet him or her in broad daylight, let alone on a dark night.

But buried, almost unnoticed and slopped out with statistical precision, is a single terrifying fact.

The average age of the Scottish murderer is 18.

Think about that a second, because if the average is 18, there must be a helluva lot of younger ones locked up: kindergarten killers who, at an age when most kids are starting out in life, have already laid out their path in blood.

As individuals, the young murderers aren't important because it's already too late for them.

Despite what most believe, society does not forget and rarely forgives - whether it's gossiping among neighbours or little things like job applications, the past will always keep up with young killers.

What has to be recognised, and by politicians most of all, is that a life sentence is not a cure but a consequence.

Pretty well everyone knows the reasons for Scotland having such a youthful crop of killers: fear, insecurity, bravado, booze and the willingness to carry a blade.

Many murders and culpable homicides are accidental. The boys, or more rarely girls, just meant to frighten or maim.

The only sure way to stop yobs carrying knives is to surgically remove their fingers at birth, which is, sad to say, unlikely to find much favour.

Alternatively, education is trotted out as the universal solution - and it is, so long as time is not a luxury.

Short, sharp, shocks have been discredited and yet, in this instance, may have a part to play.

Were pre-yob youngsters taken into accident and emergency units to see the screaming results of violence perhaps they would see themselves for what they really are: victims in waiting.