The Death Penalty

Surely a saner, safer and method would be to stop putting people who don't need to be in prison, there in the first place. Killing people to make room to lock up more is a wonderful notion. Judges can only judge on the evidence put before them so the data is open to corruption by the presenters, you can't rely on the system to be infallible.

There has been a prison ship in Portland for years now, if memory is correct, instituted by our dear old PM Thatcher.

 

True. The prosecutions job is to make sure that whatever happens, the accused is locked away for a very long time. They are not on the accused side but on the victims. The victims usually give an impact statement toward the final phase-sentencing. The defence team are there to make sure that you are given a fair and accurate sentence even if it means a few years in prison. If it was up to the prosecution, mate you aint never seeing the light of day again.

Prosecution make the accused out to be a terrorist. That they are an extremely high risk to society. This is why many people at their first hearing in a magistrates, usually get remanded in prison and not bailed. Because of this very fact.

There are prisoners who shouldn't be there. This could be for mental health reasons and also the crime they commited. It must be fairly judged and it is important to attain all written pre sentence reports and for the judge to make the right judgement. Unfortunately it is oh too easy to send someone down because the preparation of the community order alternative may be too overwhelming or that the defence team have not been able to get one up and running.

I am aware that there are opportunities for your barrister to speak to the Crown prosecution but the majority of the time this is frowned upon by the honourable all mighty Judge. Except where some minor cases can be settled out of court in the form of lots of pounds.

I would say that fifty five percent of inmates should be condemned to death. The 22.5 percent of prisoners should be detained till the end of their sentences and the other 22.5 percent should be sectioned where appropriate under the mental health act and also under mental health act be given probation with community order provisions.

 

Firstly, as has already been pointed out, there is zero evidence that the death penalty acts as a deterrent. Secondly it's almost impossible to prevent miscarriages of justice happening: you have a death penalty like you suggest, you kill innocent people. Thirdly the argument that we should commit the most inhumane act and the most basic violation of human rights on the basis of cost and convenience is utterly despicable.

 

We are being taxed for the Olympic games in London. With a bill of five billion tax payers money, it is hardly surprising that attention has also turned to prison. There are too many natural lifers in prison who have commited the most dispicable of crimes. Remember, it is the victims side we should take, not the criminal. If it was the other way around and the criminal was the victim, then we would assure that he would get a good outcome.

Many people who have commited multiple murders are out again in no time flat. An eternity in prison, a breeze on the outside.

I don't personally see the death penalty as a dispicable form of justice. It doesn't affect human rights of prisoners as once convicted they have already lost their liberty. They are scum of the earth who have commited terrible crimes. Killed children, tortured people, kidnapped or killed an entire family. Surely you can see the anguish and anger from those who are the victims?

I am beginning to agree with Ann Widdecombe. The human rights lark has gone completely politically correct mad. Now prisoners are getting compensation because they are being denied their heroin. Wait a minute, wasn't the stuff illegal? Now we must bow down to the prisoners wishes. It is bad enough they have tv sets, kettles, education and free gym facilitys plus free meals and excellent canteen service! Now we must delight the prisoner even more by feeling sorry for them and letting them walk out of prison and start a new life for themselves after murdering someone else.

The prisoner can walk free and live a life again but the victims cannot. And the lasting legacy of the crime lasts for a lot of people, for the rest of their lives. It is not so much that it all revolves around cost, but we the public have to have a living. If we spend all our hard earned cash on prisoners liberation, then we affectively are giving them the easy life. They don't deserve the easy life. they deserve to be locked up and made to think about their crime. For murderers, child rapists, they should be sentenced to death.

America do the death penalty and many other parts of the world. To note that executions in the west are done humanely. They have destroyed the electric chair and have opted for lethal injection. Three or four drugs. The first sends prisoner off to sleep.

 

Your argument is all over the place. We have a justice system which removes vengeance from the equation and tries act equitably justly and dispassionately.

You're still left with the basic objections:
1/ the death penalty results in the killing of innocent people
2/ the death penalty does not appear to act as a deterrent

So you're left with the argument that we should accept that some innocent people will be put death by the state on the basis that it will save the taxpayer a fairly small amount of money.

 

Tax payers money is more important than the rights of any prisoner detained under Her Majesty the Queen.

 

Including the innocent ones? OK.
That's called a police state...

 

Don't you love a discussion with the right wing.

 

Haha

Well I'm glad that this discussion is just completely hypothetical, and that it's enshrined in law both in the UK and in European human rights law that this backwards and barbaric punishment which violates the most basic human right is something we've moved beyond.

 

Who said anything about executing innocent detainees


Obviously those who are innocent should have their case put as far forwards as possible, let the court drop the prosecution and let them go home.

Perhaps that is what Britain needs. With youth crime some of the worst in Europe, knife crimes up, only a few days ago, a torch gun was siezed and only recently has the most ruthless gang of England been put away behind bars. With politicians absolutely brain dead,a prison system with too many inmates, and lots of sympathists letting prisoners have even more rights than us. For example having heroin subscriptions because they cant do cold turkey. well tough tits. Cant do the cold turkey, shouldn't have taken the drugs. Cant do the time, dont do the crime and the sooner prisoners who ARE guilty realise that, perhaps they can eventually be released into society as rehabilitated young people.

As for your cute troll smilie.............

 

The point has been made quite a few times in this thread. Miscarriages of justice happen all the time. If you have a death penalty you will execute innocent people. It's pretty much a given.

This is absolute ill-informed tabloid-scaremongering rubbish. Prisoners don't have more rights than other people, but our system of justice and the rule of law do require that we have in place safeguards to ensure that people are treated in accordance with human rights law, that miscarriages of justice can be identified and reversed and that the justice system is equitable, humane and dispassionate.

This whole idea that once found guilty people forfeit their human rights and can be done away with at the whim of the state is contrary to the defining principles of a liberal democracy.

But yeah, if you are arguing for a police state on a liberal forum then that's pretty much trolling

 

Screw the british you let your own goverment strip you off your self defense weapons .

 

Woof, Woof, barking at the moon.

 

The United States is almost the only country in the developed world that world that still has the death penalty, and has a higher violent crime rate than any other developed country. Not only does it not act as a deterrent to crime-just the opposite. It contributes to a culture of death and violence that actually creates more violence.


The only people that receive the death penalty in the US are people with no money and lousy lawyers. An advocacy group in the US has succeeded in vindicating 135 people that were sentenced to death, by use of DNA evidence. Many of those people aren't alive any more. And, in fact, the government was totally disinerested in the subject of whether these people were really guilty or not. On top of that, many people in the US that receive a death sentence were convicted on purely circumstantial evidence. The government, courts, and prosecutors really couldn't care less if these people are guilty or innocent anyway. It's mainly an exercise in cowboy justice and in demonstrating how powerful the state is.

An independent candidate that recently ran for governor in Texas (and lost) was in favor of completley rethinking the whole idea of the death penalty in Texas. He asked the question, 'when was the last time Texas executed a rich man?' Everybody knew the answer to that.

 

A little off topic I think....

 

I have no sympathy for anyone who killed their own family, slaughtered hundreds of kids or stabbed an innocent civilian on his way to work. I would look at the circumstances and order the death penalty. Why keep that prisoner if he is to spend the rest of his life in jail. Forget money, it doesn't make sense to keep millions of natural lifers in jail affectively clogging up the system. We either build new prisons or reinstate the death penalty in extreme cases.



I am with the Texans here in that Execution should be mandatory in severe extreme cases. Don't tell me everyone has suddenly got a heart for criminals

 

John, you're continually missing the point. It's not about having a "heart for criminals" and the emotive language you're using ("slaughtered hundreds of kids"? Come on!) is all very well but you're failing to engage with any of the points raised. We need to ensure that miscarriages of justice don't end with the ultimate irreversible injustice.

Further, a life is not ours to take away as we see fit, and if as a society we belive that killing people is wrong, what message does it send to have a state which believes that slaughtering people like rats is fine? It's arguably the case that the death penalty makes a society fundamentally more brutal. It certainly doesn't solve or deter the problem, it just adds further wrongs.

Of course we need to protect society from those who pose a threat. A violation of the individual's right to liberty when that person violates the rights of others is a civilised compromise, and one which is reversible when inevitable mistakes are found to have been made.

 

I realise that we perhaps have a different point of view. That is okey after all this is a place for all opinions. This thread was well thought out and is important to get the opinions about reinstating death penalty. But what do the politicians think about it? That is the ultimate question we should ask ourselves and also whether in the future all death penalty across the world will be abolished. This thread leaves room for many more questions




Lets get the ball rolling.

 

The overwhelming consensus among the liberal democracies is that the death penalty is inhumane and needs to be abolished worldwide. The UN has passed motions calling for the abolition of the death penalty in all states across the globe. The abolition of the death penalty is a condition for entry into the European union, enshrined in European Human Rights law.

No mainstream political parties in Britain believe in returning to the death penalty and there's an overwhelming consensus among the political establishment of Britain that the death penalty is a violation of basic human rights. From an intellectual and philosophical point of view among the liberal democracies the issue is pretty much closed. (The glaring exception being the USA)