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Capital punishment - yes or no ?
No, why give them the easy way out?
No.
And un-friend anyone who posts it.
it makes us no better than animals.
Or Americans.
Quote: Lazzard @ August 21 2012, 9:45 AM BSTNo.
And un-friend anyone who posts it.it makes us no better than animals.
Or Americans.
Except when they kill your child.
It's worth remembering the UK dumped the death sentence some years before most of Europe.
Perhaps there is an English sense of fairplay?
But if there is it certainly was offended by the treatment of Ruth Ellis and Derick Bentley.
Every year some poor sods are released from jail for murder, who otherwise would have been executed.
Quote: sootyj @ August 21 2012, 10:00 AM BSTEvery year some poor sods are released from jail for murder, who otherwise would have been executed.
Funnily enough, I don't quite buy this argument.
If it was proven that it acted as a deterrent and you could almost completely eliminate murder etc, then I would say it's almost worth the rare miscarriage of justice.
Almost.
I just don't believe it to be a deterrent.
It's us wreaking vengeance.
And we should be above that.
It's a futile debate as it will never be repealed. The arguements against the death sentence will always outweigh the for's.
And, you'll never hear any politician who has ambitions of 'getting on' lobbying for it to brought back.
It doesn't.
Murderers can be roughly divided into 3 categories.
1 Impulsive people who don't think things through or act on the spur of the moment
2 Arrogant people who think they'll get away with it.
3 Those whose thought processes are malfunctioning.
There is no category 4. Meh I can live with spending 25 years in a small cell, but I couldn't face death.
Quote: Stephen Goodlad @ August 21 2012, 10:09 AM BSTIt's a futile debate as it will never be repealed. The arguements against the death sentence will always outweigh the for's.
And, you'll never hear any politician who has ambitions of 'getting on' lobbying for it to brought back.
There is one reason why it would be appealed, if we wanted to get out of the EU.
Same reason Russia kept the death sentence.
Nope.
I may well personally believe some people would be better off dead, but I'm never going to support capital punishment. Murder by the state is just as morally repugnant as any other murder.
I do however think prisons should be a hell of a lot worse for violent criminals. But that's another matter.
That said I would like to see "glorifying revolting murderers" a crime made punishable by; a kick up the arse and writing "I must show more respect for victims families" on a blackboard for 6 months.
I did not watch that revolting program on Ian Brady last night.
Quote: sootyj @ August 21 2012, 10:00 AM BSTEvery year some poor sods are released from jail for murder, who otherwise would have been executed.
Precisely. Our justice system is far too fallible to allow executions.
Execution is revenge, not justice - it satisfies the basest instincts of humanity rather than serving the best interests of society. It has evidently never worked as a deterrent, and so it doesn't serve any purpose except to remove undesirable people from the world.
That said, I don't think our prison system is particularly useful either. Nobody has decided whether prison is supposed to protect the public, punish the criminal or rehabilitate the criminal, and so we have a mixture of elements from all three that achieves none of the aims. Prison is something that does need an ideological approach for it to be effective - otherwise it's just a holding-pen for criminals who are released in much the same condition as they went in.
Quote: sootyj @ August 21 2012, 10:17 AM BSTI did not watch that revolting program on Ian Brady last night.
I did, and it made me feel sick.
I can't agree with capital punishment, and in Brady's case I was glad they kept on force-feeding him.
The problem is prison is hugely expensive to do a mediocre job. And our prison service is reckoned to be pretty much one of the best in the world.
I'd say shorter more purposeful sentences is the way.
Quote: Oldrocker @ August 21 2012, 1:07 AM BSTThis is going around Facebook . . .
Just thought it worth pointing out that here we have a picture of a guy -still innocent in the eyes of the law - next to a hangman's noose.
Capital punishment just feeds this sort of 'lynch-mob' mentality
Quote: Lazzard @ August 21 2012, 10:27 AM BSTJust thought it worth pointing out that here we have a picture of a guy -still innocent in the eyes of the law - next to a hangman's noose.
Capital punishment just feeds this sort of 'lynch-mob' mentality
That's a very good point.