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Time to bring back the death penalty?

Another week and another mass-murdering woman-hater gets sentenced to life imprisonment for a campaign of terror against innocent people. Having snatched lives away from so many people, they get to remain alive, in some comfort in prison. Like other murderers, they'll be out in 15 years, free to kill again.

Does anyone else agree that it is time to change that? Some people commit crimes so foul that they no longer deserve to be alive. Some people have committed crimes that strike so terribly at the heart of society that society should no longer have to pay to keep them fed and watered.

I'd like nothing more than to see people like Bellfield tortured to death, they should be killed just as they killed so many others. Yes, it has everything to do with revenge and no, I don't think the death penalty will lower the murder rate.

But what's wrong with revenge? Punishment of any sort for the crime of murder is about revenge, why not do it properly and make filth like Bellfield beg to die? Rather than put him up in prison for the rest of his life, get him waterboarded until he's begging to die and then eletrocute him. It's what he deserves.
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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You can come up with as much emotive bullshit and examples as you want. None of it changes the arguments against the death penalty:

    1. Mistrials.
    2. More expensive.
    3. Doesn't deter crime.

    Have I missed anything?

    More bizarre is the idea that we should put rape and child abuse alongside murder. If ever there was a reason to not only rape your victim, but then kill them and dispose of the body afterwards, it's putting rape up to the level of murder in sentencing.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Life imprisonment doesn't deter people from murdering, shall we do away with that too?

    If not, why not?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    No - As tempting as the option is with some people its morally wrong and has no deterant factor.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Although I'd be in favour of reinstating the death penalty, this debate is largely pointless. Until the political establishment change their minds about it, it will never return.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    Life imprisonment doesn't deter people from murdering, shall we do away with that too?

    If not, why not?

    Same reason we lock up anyone - public safety and rehabilitation.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    Life imprisonment doesn't deter people from murdering, shall we do away with that too?

    If not, why not?

    It prevents people who have already murdered from murdering again. Come on, you're a lawyer. Do you want the entire justice system explaining to you?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Even the S*n newspaper agreed in its editorial today that the death penalty was not the answer (check 'The S*n Says' before the end of today).

    All my sympathy to the relatives of murder victims but highly emotional people in distress (understandable as their state might be) are not exactly the best judges on what sentencing should be fair.

    The death penalty is as monstruous as the original crime. End of.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Id shed no tears if someone killed him, but i wouldnt want the state to take on that job as though it was ok
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    Although I'd be in favour of reinstating the death penalty, this debate is largely pointless. Until the political establishment change their minds about it, it will never return.

    Just out of interest, I assume that you would also support the death penalty for the likes of Tony Martin?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    At the very least, in prison they can consider why they are there, and deal with that.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Just out of interest, I assume that you would also support the death penalty for the likes of Tony Martin?
    I'm not getting started on Tony Martin. Not after I managed to embarrass myself on the issue last year. There was a thread about a similar issue in August 2007, which got distracted. I was hopelessly ill-informed about the man, to be blunt. So, I'm not touching that question with a 100ft bargepole. Sorry. :p
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    Life imprisonment doesn't deter people from murdering, shall we do away with that too?

    If not, why not?
    The thing is, if proper life without parole sentences were given to certain murderers there'd be no problem of them killing again (outside the prison walls at least), and they'd be serving a punishment that some would consider worse than death.

    That's what you should be campaigning for.

    Executing a human being, regardless of what their crimes might have been, is never acceptable, and it is an abomination as despicable and barbaric as the very crimes it pretends to administer justice for.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    the death penalty lowers society to the level of the killer so no....

    then there's the chance of mistrials etc

    it's also nice to know most serial killers try hanging themselves in prison so it's doing a good job of giving them a lifetime to think about what they done

    stories like this help
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6707865.stm
    Musumeci said he was tired of dying a little bit every day.

    We want to die just once, he said, and "we are asking for our life sentence to be changed to a death sentence".

    It was a candid letter written by a man who, from within his cell, has tried hard to change his life.

    He has passed his high school exams and now has a degree in law. But his sentence, he says, has transformed the light into shadows.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It prevents people who have already murdered from murdering again. Come on, you're a lawyer. Do you want the entire justice system explaining to you?

    If they're hanging from a gibbet they may also have trouble
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    budda wrote: »
    No - As tempting as the option is with some people its morally wrong

    That's probably the only good reason, but a clincher in it's own right
    and has no deterant factor.

    Not neccessarily true - it may not deter some, but it deters others.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Just out of interest, I assume that you would also support the death penalty for the likes of Tony Martin?

    He appealed his sentence and it was reduced to manslaughter. I've not heard of anybody calling for manslaughter to be a capital offence.

    In principle there are certain cases where the death penalty is justified and in times of war the death penalty may be necessary. In practice in a civilian context I wouldn't want to bring it back.

    Reading how the death penalty works in Japan/US I wouldn't like it back here. I'm sure that in this country as in Japan/US most people support it - but that doesn't mean it's right to bring it back.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    He appealed his sentence and it was reduced to manslaughter. I've not heard of anybody calling for manslaughter to be a capital offence.

    I know that, but presumably before the appeal, he would've been happy for him to be given the death penalty pending appeal, since he was a convicted murderer at that point?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I know that, but presumably before the appeal, he [Stargalaxy] would've been happy for him to be given the death penalty pending appeal, since he was a convicted murderer at that point?
    You can do a Jeremy Paxman and ask it 13 times in a row, and you still won't get a straight answer on this from me.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I know, because the truth would show your hypocracy. You'll make a great politician. :thumb:

    Perhaps a question you will answer then. Undoubtedly, any objective court with the death penalty would probably execute in similar circumstances. So what would you do as soon as there is someone executed for killing an intruder, and you disagree with it? Would we end up with you being against the death penalty? Or the death penalty only for people who you think deserve it? Because by supporting the death penalty, it's an absolute inevitability that you will be supporting the execution of someone who you don't think is deserving.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I know, because the truth would show your hypocrisy. You'll make a great politician. :thumb:
    Why thank you. All I need to do now is learn how to lie convincingly on my expenses claims, and I'm sorted!
    Perhaps a question you will answer then. Undoubtedly, any objective court with the death penalty would probably execute in similar circumstances. So what would you do as soon as there is someone executed for killing an intruder, and you disagree with it? Would we end up with you being against the death penalty?
    That's a completely hypothetical question. There's no way I can definitively answer that one.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    Although I'd be in favour of reinstating the death penalty, this debate is largely pointless. Until the political establishment change their minds about it, it will never return.

    Actually we have already signed away our right to reintroduce it. All EU members have.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    That's a completely hypothetical question. There's no way I can definitively answer that one.

    Yep, definitely a politician. It is really a simple question. Do you trust our justice system to deliver the death penalty only to those who you believe are deserving, and if not, then how can you support the death penalty?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yep, definitely a politician. It is really a simple question. Do you trust our justice system to deliver the death penalty only to those who you believe are deserving, and if not, then how can you support the death penalty?
    What you're ultimately asking there is whether I trust the justice system. Obviously, I don't have some kind of blind faith in it - far from it. All I'll say about that is, when the justice system gets it right, it's excellent. When it gets it wrong, it's simply awful.
    Actually we have already signed away our right to reintroduce it. All EU members have.
    Indeed, which renders this debate somewhat pointless and a way to fill tabloids on quiet news days.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    What you're ultimately asking there is whether I trust the justice system. Obviously, I don't have some kind of blind faith in it - far from it. All I'll say about that is, when the justice system gets it right, it's excellent. When it gets it wrong, it's simply awful.
    So given that fallability, how can you trust the life of a person to it? At least with prison, they can have a chance at living. I mean you've spent other threads arguing against giving the state increasing it's power over the citizens, and then you want to give them the ultimate power a state can have?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So given that fallability, how can you trust the life of a person to it? At least with prison, they can have a chance at living. I mean you've spent other threads arguing against the state increasing its power over the citizens, and then you want to give them the ultimate power a state can have?
    Okay, time for me to do something almost completely unheard of from alleged politicians, and come clean. I am starting to have doubts about the death penalty. There are some criminals out there who would be no loss to the human race, as I think pretty much all of us agree. I don't think it's some kind of fail-safe punishment. I think the reason that this debate happens is because we have a government which has no real strategy for dealing with crime.

    Over the weekend, we found out that prisons all over the country are effectively stuffed to the rafters. "Not one prison cell to spare", shouted the Daily Mail's front page on Saturday, for instance. The Government knew years ago that prison numbers were going to rocket, and they did nothing. No long-term look at why so many people were being imprisoned, no attempt to build some new prisons just in case... and now look at what we've got. Meantime, there's the perception that crime is out of control, (fuelled by the newspapers? Only to an extent, I'd say) and the perception that criminals are laughing at the justice system. Given this pathetic set of circumstances, is it really any surprise that people are now talking about bringing back the ultimate punishment?

    In a sense, the current system is actually more cruel. When a criminal is in prison for the rest of his life, (I say his, because most those doing life sentences seem to be men) it means there's no escape from what they're doing. Whereas with the death penalty, the only one who gets to judge their actions is... well, God if you're religious and no one if you're not.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    the death penalty lowers society to the level of the killer so no....

    for once, you say something i completely agree with.

    the death penalty degrades society, and death is an easy way out. a life in solitary confinment is much harsher.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You can come up with as much emotive bullshit and examples as you want. None of it changes the arguments against the death penalty:

    1. Mistrials.
    2. More expensive.
    3. Doesn't deter crime.

    Have I missed anything?

    Death penalty would be the easy way out as well.
    the death penalty lowers society to the level of the killer so no....

    Exactly.

    I don't know if this would be the same for other people, but I personally don't feel that the death penalty isn't 'justice'.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I actually don't care about the "lowers us to the level of the murderer" argument. I would have no problem saying that a mass murdering dictator deserves to die, for example. It's just that I don't believe that any man is capable of making such a judgement.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    er...no, because if we kill murderers we take away any chance they have of repenting.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I know this is very unlikely to happen now, because of the advances in forensics, but there's nothing that can be done if the wrong person is put to death. Obviously, I know that if someone's been put in prison and then found innocent, it's not going to be a case of releasing them and expecting them to carry on with their life...
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