30 November 2008
11:389994One of the well known stand ups used to reference the death penalty: if the electric chair had been around 2000 years ago Christians would be walking around with little silver chairs with a fella on them around their necks. But imprisonement for a truly just cause can be powerful too, don't forget - Nelson Mandela, Aung San Sui Kyi. The issue really is whether or not to validate a murderers actions by creating an opportunity to martyr him/her. Grubby imprisonment and reduction to ordinariness is a powerful tool - imagine Hitler on trial, reduced to ordinary observation and probing?
30 November 2008
11:389995One of the well known stand ups used to reference the death penalty: if the electric chair had been around 2000 years ago Christians would be walking around with little silver chairs with a fella on them around their necks. But imprisonement for a truly just cause can be powerful too, don't forget - Nelson Mandela, Aung San Sui Kyi. The issue really is whether or not to validate a murderers actions by creating an opportunity to martyr him/her. Grubby imprisonment and reduction to ordinariness is a powerful tool - imagine Hitler on trial, reduced to ordinary observation and probing?
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
30 November 2008
13:5710001A point so well made it was worth repeating. Far from being the 'mamby pamby' option, keeping them alive takes guts and the ability to realise that there is a better way than more mindless killing. The families and friends of the victims do not get a quick release why should the perpetrators?
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
30 November 2008
14:1010003on the subject of terrarisiom would you say that george w bush and tony blair where terrorists to in there counter terror war in iraq and afganastan wars.what sort of punishment would be used,ie the death penalty or a life inprisonment.in my my mind terrorisam works both ways,one group lets say bombs the empire state building and parliment,we then retaliate by either sending a large force after them there fore commting an act of terrism against them, so in conculsion we are no better than they are.
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
30 November 2008
15:1410006Sorry Chris - I couldn't disagree more with you - but we don't have to agree with everyone do we ?
It's my view that we do not sink to their level at all and it is not "revenge" killing either. They are executed because they have committed heinous crimes against people and deserve the death penalty, not dress it up in woolly reasons why they should not receive the death penalty.
Roger
30 November 2008
15:2810007Brian - One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter - it depends on context. Roger - the reasons haven't been wooly at all, but have been quite clear, just different to yours, and made in a very articulate way. You are a confident man to be able to say catagorically when one person "deserves" death. I am afraid Life is not quite so straightforward and simple.
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
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30 November 2008
18:1010017I would hate to live under a government that had the power of life and death over its citizens. It is no good saying that it is 'up to the courts' because we all know that once the power is there the less scrupulous will use it.
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
30 November 2008
20:5210025roger
the use of the phrase "woolly reasons" suggests that you do have an adequate answer to the points raised.
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
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1 December 2008
18:1210048Yes I do Howard - as stated above.
Roger
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
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1 December 2008
18:3910059We are all potentially capable of murder (a lot of domestic murders, where one partner murders the other during a row, are first time crimes) and, therefore, we must each consider whether we and our loved ones are more at risk of being murdered or being executed for committing murder.
We must also consider what the likelihood is of innocent people being executed - it is inevitable that it will happen sooner or later.
Can the police, the courts, and the system generally be trusted to get things right on every occasion? They never have been able to previously.
Will juries be willing to convict in capital cases? Would you like to have to make the decision as to whether the person in the dock should live or die?
Will the government really be willing to carry out death sentences or will they find every excuse for not doing so, thus returning to the injustices of earlier centuries?
Will executions really prove to be the deterrent that the supporters of capital punishment expect them to be? This is a very important point as it is always put forward by the pro-capital punishment lobby as the principal benefit from reintroduction. It is unlikely the very worst murderers would be deterred because they are typically psychopaths or of such dubious sanity that they are incapable of rational behaviour (sometimes taking their own lives immediately after the crime, as in the Hungerford and Dunblane massacres) Certain criminals, e.g. drug traffickers, may be deterred because they have a clear option with defined risks but would the person who has a violent argument with their partner give a second thought to what will happen to them when in the heat of the moment they pick up the carving knife?
It is unlikely that a handful of executions a year will have any real deterrent effect particularly on the people whom society would most like to be deterred, e.g. serial killers, multiple rapists and terrorists. Yet these particular criminals are the least likely to be executed, the serial killers will be found insane and the terrorists will use any means to avoid conviction, e.g. intimidation of witnesses. So we go back to the situation where only "sane" murderers can be executed. Thus a modern day Ruth Ellis might also hang because she was sane, whilst Beverley Allitt, who murdered 4 small children, would be reprieved because she has Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy or so she and certain psychiatrists claim.
Do two wrongs really make a right?
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
1 December 2008
20:4910065marek
i refer to the 4th paragraph in your post, about juries convicting.
having served on a jury, it is most disconcerting to be sent out time after time, whilst the clever people decide if we should hear certain evidence.
would many juries convict if capital punishment was on offer to the defendant?
we would end up walking free from court.
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
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1 December 2008
23:4210079And what deterent would the death penalty be to terrorists prepared to die anyway? As stated, the majority of murders are spontanious domestic killings, how would it prevent them?
My apologies Roger but the thinking behind capital punishment as a deterent has to be considered 'wooly' at best.
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
Ross Miller
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,695
2 December 2008
00:0910082All the evidence from those states in the USA that allow capital punishment is that the murder rate has not dropped one iota.
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
Guest 677- Registered: 8 Jul 2008
- Posts: 150
2 December 2008
19:4310142One thing that I haven't noticed on reading this thread (please correct me if I'm wrong I may not have read it as thoroughly as I should have) but I believe you are all overlooking one very important point. Terrorists are extremist, passionate about whatever cause they have undertaken, they don't care about death, ESPECIALLY NOT THEIR OWN. I appreciate that this thread is probably a debate more about the pros and cons of the death penalty but putting a terrorist to death be it justified or not is an exercise in futility, they care not a jot about their live any more than they care about their victims and in fact are more likely to believe that when they die they go on to a better place. So maybe we should keep them alive just to torment them with the absence of that?
It's not the man in my life, its the life in my man!!
Ross Miller- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,695
2 December 2008
23:0010165Stephanie many of the posters have argued a similar point to you including myself, Marek, Chris etc.
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
3 December 2008
07:4810172At least when they're executed, they can't do it again.
We've had some horrific stories recently about sadistic killings of children and young people. Their lives have ended in the most sickening way and the perpetrators will spend a lot of time in our holiday-camp prisons. Why should we waste money on these kind of evil, sick people (I was going to use another word, but thought better of it.
Murderers, rapists and paedophiles are let out of prison and go and do the same thing again - they are sick, evil people who cannot be changed, why should they have the luxury of prison, they gave no thought of compassion to their victims - young or old.
Roger
3 December 2008
08:0410176Which prisons have you been to recently Roger?! I don't think you'll find any argument from any of us about the worthlessness of rapists and murderers and paedophiles, but that's not the issue. The issue is not about them but about us and how we respond to them: do we commit the same errors or do we demonstrate a grown up and human attitude. And prison is never a holiday camp! That is a myth spread by the Daily Mail to titilate its readers. Paedophiles and rapists get a (deservedly) hard time in prisons, without let up and without escape, and no amount of TV and ping ping will make up for that - and frankly I am not bothered! I don't give a second thought to their suffering in prison, and I would not for a second condone their murder in my name either. if someone hurt someone about whom I care I would probably want to kill them with my bare hands, but that doesn't mean it would be the right thing to do.
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
3 December 2008
14:3610203Making killing an economic issue takes morality down to new depths. Early release of convicted felons is a mistake based on the same nonsense. If prison space is short maybe the courts should look at some of the others that are sent there. I once spent time in the local court (observing as part of a course) and the legal female repreenting DDC was asking for custodial sentances for rent arrears (obviously a good way to improve the debtors employability and thus ability to pay). How many others are taking up spaces that should be used to keep those that are a danger to society, rather than to somebody's budget, locked up and hopefully rotting away from decent people?
Executed people can't do it again but then neither can innocent people wrongly convicted be apologised to. The death penalty damages the society that practices it and puts too much power into the hands of the legal and governmental elite that could too easily be turned against us all.
No Roger, we will never agree on this one. The death penalty is wrong and no amount of spurious economics, appeals to religious writings, justifications for immoral revenge or ill-founded concepts of prevention will ever make it right.
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
Guest 670- Registered: 23 Apr 2008
- Posts: 573
3 December 2008
15:2610206I agree Stephanie, however taking up one point you made, I do think the law needs reform. It seems incredible that you can be sent to prison, however old you are, for Council Tax when a young thug who assaults somebody gets away with a community service order or a fine.
Imprisonment for civil debt was abolished many years ago and Council Tax must surely rank as a civil debt, it certainly isn't within the scope of criminal law.
3 December 2008
19:2710230Chris and Dave - absolutely! What is the point in criminalising people and rendering them even more disadvantaged, especially when there are some whose "crimes" are, to normal people, much more serious, who get a lesser sentence and more assistance to reintegrate. And no, killing someone is never going to be right, there are always options.