Baby P's killers

So here they are, in all their scumbag, slack-jawed glory. Tracey Connelly and Steven Barker, responsible for the torture and death of 17-month-old Peter Connelly. When the toddler died, he had over 50 serious injuries, including a broken back. His Mum got 5 years. His Mum's lover got 12 years. The lodger got 3 years.
I'm generally a wooly liberal, but who's with me on chemically-sterilizing these worthless c**ts so they can't harm any more kids when they get out? If you don't believe in the idea of enforced sterilizaton, what would you suggest would be helpful to get these people out of society for good? Because that's the only fair and right thing, surely.

Sorry to go all Daily Mail on you but sometimes it helps to let off steam.

This is a comedy forum.

I dunnno what you do with people like this, genuinely I don't. I certainly think the idea that 2 people carrying out a murder get a shorter sentence than an individual murderer is insane, if anything it should be longer.

Oh and it looks like we'll have to pay a bloody fortune to protect them when they leave jail.

Nice.

Quote: Godot Taxis @ August 11 2009, 3:12 AM BST

This is a comedy forum.

View original

This is a general discussion forum of a comedy forum, where we don't have to talk about comedy if we don't want to.

Quote: sootyj @ August 11 2009, 3:12 AM BST

I dunnno what you do with people like this, genuinely I don't. I certainly think the idea that 2 people carrying out a murder get a shorter sentence than an individual murderer is insane, if anything it should be longer.

Oh and it looks like we'll have to pay a bloody fortune to protect them when they leave jail.

Nice.

View original

So what's your best guess at an answer then Sooty? You have to admit that chemical sterilization's a good 'un for these kind of monsters. I mean I fully get that the both of them were probably abused as kids themselves, but that fact doesn't fix the problem. The mother will be out in probably 3 years, free to go and get preggers again.

This case has really resonated with me, sorry for the emotive prose.

Chemical castration unless entirely voluntary is an absolute no no. Once we give permission for surgical modification as a punishment we risk opening a door that won't be shut. I guess a long prison sentence and close monitoring afterwards, there'll always be scum but we shouldn't let it make ourselves lesser people.

Albeit I pass by Holloway quite often so I suppose I could shout at the windows or something.

When you have no empathy - as these people have - then you have mechanistic behaviour.

The answer is not castration, but to stop making these people. At present, our society has almost no role in how we parent.

It has a huge role if anything it has too much of a role. The social worker and the teacher have replaced communal pressure on none functioning parents.

As for people like this, they've always been with us. Child murder and abuse is not a new thing, it's actually in decline.

I can't see where society instructs parents. Most people seem to make it up as they go along.

You mean education for parents? Certainly that exists for troubled families who've had contact with social services. But for people who don't, I don't think there's much of it.
It's part of the general paranoia of being accused of telling people how to parent.

Quote: Godot Taxis @ August 11 2009, 3:34 AM BST

When you have no empathy - as these people have - then you have mechanistic behaviour.

The answer is not castration, but to stop making these people. At present, our society has almost no role in how we parent.

View original

So you advocate better education in parenting, etc. Totally agree - but my question is, what do we do with the people who are committing these crimes right now? Jail isn't enough. The killers in the Baby P case will be out in a few years, invisible and protected by the law.

How can that be right? Shouldn't there be a cut-off point for particularly-heinous crimes, where the perpetrators are rooted out of society for good? Or at least rendered incapable of doing it again?

If you're talking about the death sentence then maybe you have a point. But anything else...I don't know. Not least of all because ultra nasty punishments tend to make jurys squeamish and allow the guilty off. Besides what good would it do? People as far from normality as those 2 don't really consider the consequences of their actions.

I do think we need to reemphasise that the rights of the child supersede that of the parent. And that families are not inherently good things.

Make them the new hosts of Young Mums' Mansion on BBC Three?

This is a very emotive subject and you will no doubt get a myriad of responses, the vast majority in the 'eye for an eye' camp. But strangely, I agree with Soots on this one, once you allow the state to alter / torture / murder it's citizens in the name of justice, you are going down a very dark path.

If you put an innocent person in jail, you can always let them out again. Similarly, societies with heavy handed justice systems tend not to be the safest places either, so the deterent effect is neglible.

The vicious acts these monsters carried out is beyond a criminal matter as far as I'm concerned. They should be locked up in a high security mental institution and never see the light of day again. (a la the Moors Murderers).

Quote: Lee Henman @ August 11 2009, 3:01 AM BST

If you don't believe in the idea of enforced sterilizaton, what would you suggest would be helpful to get these people out of society for good? Because that's the only fair and right thing, surely.

View original

If they cannot be rehabilitated while imprisoned, they should remain incarcerated and be put to work. Didn't the boyfriend also rape a baby girl? Convicted child molesters/killers tend to die behind bars, or is that not the case in the UK? The former headmaster of my primary school was jailed for interfering with young boys and then had his head kicked in while in his cell.

In the case of Peter Connelly, isn't the system partly to blame? Social workers or the doctor who failed to raise an alarm? Merely sterilizing the offenders is unlikely to prevent a similar case from happening in the future.

Ellie! Ellie?! ELLIE!!!

No, no asnwer - please go on, nothing starts my morning like a peadophile thread.

It's a General forum Paul. People can discuss what they want. It's not heated so fine to go.