The Death Penalty

Following on from the 'Abortion' thread, and in a desperate hope to post something other than a 'Questions about Timbuktoo' thread, I'd like to turn to the death penalty. Today a British citizen in Pakistan had his sentence commuted to life and was spared from death row. Perhaps there is some use for the monarchy, as Prince Charles seemed to be instrumental to this. It shows a commitment amongst the British political elites to oppose the death penalty. What do you think? Should it be reinstated in Britain and, if so, in what cases?

 

For serious crimes like double murder, child murder, rape, child rape and terrorist attacks, the death penalty should be in the form of hanging. According to a few inmates i shared with, a few old prisons still have a hang chamber with the rope still swinging in the wind.





But personally we should install the electric chair and have a thousand people watching like they do in America and apparently you can take food and drink inside. Now thats executin'

 

i think having to live with what youve done is worse punishment than execution...thats an easy way out...a long spell with what youve done, with no privelidges is how it should be i think

 

But this would be at the cost of public money. There are already too many people being squeezed into prison. There just isn't enough. should really start slaughtering a few natural lifers in the thousands. I know a lot who don't believe in death penalty think we should leave them to rot. Well having twenty thousand volts sent through your body is like very painful because your blood boils inside your veins. So infact this is even better justice, what many victims of some of the worst criminal acts would welcome and so would I.

But not everyone deserves the death penalty. One must look at their circumstances before and take into account and whether mittigating is the cause. If they are first time offenders then obviously life in prison should mean life.

But the mittigating defence cannot be used in a case of murder, rape/child rape or terrorist act.

 

I agree 100% with this, just the thought of that might even deter some criminals. Although if life actually meant life then that would also solve a lot of the problems. This country is too much of a soft touch.

 

It quite clearly doesn't act as a deterrent in America. And Britain has an incredibly low murder rate by comparison, even without the death penalty. And as to the cost, well, a long period on death row is essential so as to remove chances of doubt over the conviction. This has proved just as costly as imprisonment....

 

Oh I only said it might deter some of them. And our murder rate is lower because guns are not as easily accessible here compared to the States.

 

That is partly true, and shows that prevention is a much more effective means of reducing crime rates than methods of punishment....

 

what about selling their organs and using serial killers for animal experiments, and ok the death penalty as it now may not be a deterrant , but what about cruicifixtion or roasting do we have figures for those options

 

There is no evidence that the death penalty acts as a deterrent; particularly for the kind of crimes listed in some of the posts above, which are generally a result of criminal psychopathy in which fear of punishment plays little part in the decision to act. The argument for executing people on the basis of cost is a pretty hideous one both on its own terms and also when you think about the many, many instances in which innocent people have been killed by mistake. A death is a death, and retribution solves nothing. I don't believe we should kill people because it's cheaper than dealing with criminals and those who pose a danger to society in a humane fashion.

It is the mark of a civilised society to have seen the back of the death penalty.

Experience has taught me that I shouldn't be surprised that people hold these reactionary views on a supposedly liberal and progressive discussion board, but it still takes my breath away somewhat.

http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-index-eng

 

lol
Generally jokes apart ,Im not in favour of the death penalty as there have been cases of miss-carridge of justice, although we kill plenty of people in wars and we know most of them are innocent .

Also I would shoot O J simpson who is writing a book with if I did it this is how I did it in it,
Id shoot him for his rudeness to the familys and the dead people ,even apart from the possibility that he was the killer , much like my grandfather shot a man for not taking his hat off to my grandmother .

Really Im a bit split on the death penalty I think if the person is guilty and its not a miss-carriage they should be killed , but its the being sure thats the bastard .

I feel the possibility of angry just kin of the victim killing you should always be in the killers mind

 

Britain is like a bed. Giant soft pillow for justice system and a blanket of controversy surrounding the war in Iraq.

 

Kill someone to save mr and mrs smith 10p on their tax, yeah good idea man.

It can feel a shame to see some heinous slob still alive when the victim has none, but all this information you've apparently learned is press led, they never give you the full picture, you don't know anything about these people or the circumstances.

It's all very easy to join the mob baying for retribution, but I don't think we should.

We should never bring back the death penalty for any crime, apart from Faschist Dictatorship.

 

There is Just Something About killing Someone...I Do Not Agree with...

 

I would have no problem with execution in the clear-cut cases. What's most sad is that you cannot trust the police at all, so it would take a very public crime with lots of witnesses to prove it, which doesn't happen very often.

 

At 1 time in England picking pockets in England was punish by Death . Your head was removed in a public execution ...however this did not stop the picking of pockets at the public execution.

 

Looking again at our prison system, we are spending too much money on those who will be detained for life! These prisoners are nick named Mr Flakey due to serving 99 years 33 plus 33 plus 33 years for each crime running one after another.

It is these prisoners who should be slaughtered on Deathrow. Our country is too leniant that the whole justice system has become a joke.

 

Don't think you'll find it is a system of justice, its a system of law. I don't like the idea of authority deciding anyone is fit for culling.

 

It all comes down to how much longer society is willing to keep these natural lifers in prison. With costs spiralling into maddness and a prison system in desperation to ease the crowding, we are one of the most crowded prison systems in europe.


An idea by a member of parliament was that prison ships were to be considered. Somehow putting a dangerous criminal in an old rusty ship, there is bound to be ways of escape and it isn't exactly impossible to swim the thames in the right parts. The strong currents only occur near bridges and during tides and wiers. seeing as from Tower bridge, there isn't another bridge for miles, I assume the ships would be moored nearer Greenwich, Woolwich, and Crossness.


Death penalty should be used only in severe cases where it can be proved that it was intentional and that the accused in the dock has evidence against him or her that they pose a very high risk to society on return and that parole was likely to be rejected due to length of sentence and the persons age. If he was fifty years of age and had to serve a minimum of 25 years, I am sure that with all the prison brutality by the screws, he will die sooner rather than later. Due to environment of many prisons, it is not fit for human habitation, yet they are the only prisons we have. So maybe the death penalty can ease over crowding, wastage of public money and obviously not putting any society at risk because parole would be cancelled out and this would act as a deterrent. Most criminals in America don't care, they are total nutters compared to the British counterpart. Infact I saw prisonbreak on five and when I had sky tv, I saw that prison documentary on NatGeo.

Death of anyone must be considered carefully with reports and pre sentence reports. This isn't a light decision by any of our honourable Judges, this is a decision based on the evidence against the accused that stands before the jury and the honourable Judge himself and in todays society it isn't unusual to see a female Judge.