Death Penalty? Yea or nae...

[Sam Slater]

Here's a country which still has te death penalty.



Arrested for loud music and dancing in a shopping centre !hmmm!

[colonel]

HANG THEM HIGH!

[fudgeflaps]

If Justice can be served: Yea; 'Triple-A' crimes should easily forfeit any notion of 'Human Rights'- the perpretataor sacrificed theirs in callously denying those of the victim.

In today's society, where there are too many miscarriages of Justice: Nay; it would be brutal for Society to award a Death sentence to the wrong person. Very hard for it to be practicable now, except in the above 'bang-to-rights' cases. A lot of the 'bang-to-righters' take their own lives, eg Fred West, Harold Shipman.

Therefore, before a custodial life sentence (ie a 'proper' never-to-be-released affair) is meted couldn't (hypothetically) suicide be offered to the guilty?? That way, if their own guilt is too much, they 'request' a death sentence. Thus, an optional death sentence for the hopelessly no-escape, highly dangerous, lifer may be practicable and would only serve to confirm a guilty verdict in court.

Sounds dark, but it's all theory and hypothesis.

[harmonyhex]

Are you asking if it is ethically correct to take a life for a life? If someone has shown no regard for human life and human rights then I think, theroretically, yes they should be put to death.

And to quote Ron White "In Texas we have the death penalty and we use it. If more than 3 people saw you do what you did, you don't sit on death row for 5 years, you go straight to the front of the line."

Obviously the difficulty is in implementing the death penalty. Which crimes would carry a death penalty and how tight would the case have to be? A woman defending herself against an abusive partner, who at one point were put in prison and treated as a murderer. Someone who kills a person in an RTA?

I think you would have to look at every single case on an individual basis rather than having a set of laws and rules where you just tick the boxes.

[wayne]

There is always talk of the revolving door of crime get arrested, go to prison, come out and commit crime etc.. so a door marked exit would make alot of sense.

[Sam Slater]

I'll always be against it. There's something wrong with a state that kills it's own citizens, in my opinion.

Most murderers are sick. No feelings of remorse, no empathy or ability to see aothers point of view. They're abnormal and to be abnormal means they didn't ask to be that way. They may be told it's wrong, but they don't feel it's wrong.

Death will never be a punishment....unless you sadistically torture them in the process, but what sort of blood thirsty society would want to do that? 'Capital Punishment' should really be called 'Capital Revenge' because that's all it is.

As for saving money......that's an old, laughable defence of the death penalty. It costs ?300-?400 a week to keep a person in prison, which is ?624000 over 30 years (round it up to ?1million to compensate for inflation if you like) so the 'millions' it will cost to keep a person in jail is an exaggeration. I could, however, see the trial/appeal/retrial/reappeal scenario of overturning a death penalty costing much more.

There's nothing civilised about killing, whether it be your average, loony axe murderer joyfully cracking open someone's skull, or a state executioner who goes home for tea after sticking a needle into someones arm and watching them die.

I don't agree on these early releases btw. Putting the public at a greater risk to save money is awful.

[Peter]

A 'rest of life scentence' would be mostly unworkable under our current system and 'everyone has rights' culture. Someone who is going to be imprisoned until he dies has nothing to look forward to, and no reason to behave. Someone spills your tea, kill him. Leave the toilet seat up, kill him. They can't punish you any more for it. The only way would be for the 'real lifers' to be in solitary, and we know Shammi will be screaming about that and it will never happen.

Therefore the death penalty and release dates are the only workable method.

I doubt the death penalty would be used much, Only the Huntleys would get it, I don't think those yobs who kicked the guy to death would have got it.

But ti should be an option available for use.

[Mike_CFC]

One thing is for sure.Steve Wright and that other piece of vermin will get their daily kicking in D-Wing.No doubt that they'll be requesting to be moved to the fraggle wing.....for their own 'saftey'.

[Sam Slater]

[quote]Someone who is going to be imprisoned until he dies has nothing to look forward to, and no reason to behave.[/quote]

You're looking at a killers motives and behaviour from your own point of view. They had everything to look forward to on the outside, but still murdered. It's not about having something to look forward to when you're a psychotic killer (only looking forward to killing more because you enjoy it so much).

Normal people don't want to kill. Whether they have something to look forward to or not. Giving them rays of hope in being released might make a sociopath behave better, but only to get out and kill again. It won't make no difference to your local psycho.

With these two sets of killers, life sentencing is the only way to protect the public, and lessbarbaric than becoming a society that kills it's own citizens for being sick.

[Goodkat]

A very big ....YEA