What the Dickens!

Catherine Bennett comments on a recent 'sentence' by a UK judge. A 21 year old, male, white supremacist was found guilty of amassing a hoard of terrorist material. Instead of giving the young man a prison sentence, the judge ordered him to read the classics of English Literature. The judge was especially enthusiastic about Jane Austin; Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/05/i-love-jane-austen-but-im-not-her-novels-can-save-neo-nazis). This was certainly an unusual sentence for a terrorism-related event and it may not survive the appeals mechanism. I have two questions. Firstly, what evidence is there that reading 'classic literature', reduces the chances of someone moving from collecting terrorism handbooks, to actual violent action? Many people, with questionable beliefs, have studied English Literature at University. Reading English Literature, hasn't always civilised them. Secondly, would any darker-skinned individual, with a 'foreign sounding' name and a 'different' religion, receive such a sentence if he/she was on a similar charge? One might also note that murder and violence, are far from absent from the plots of some volumes of 'classic' English Literature!