This is why we should bring back the death penalty

The US would have to do something about its gun laws also. It says something about the general disregard for human life there that they have both a serious lack of gun control and ineffective sanctions for murder.

Japan is not really comparable because in practice the death penalty is only used for aggravated murder, so it doesn't apply to one-off killings. Despite that, the statistics show that it is not a deterrent, and there are major concerns in Japan about wrongly convicted people being executed.

The case you cite doesn't show that the sentence was seven years. It was the minimum term before the prisoner can apply for parole, and was increased to almost nine years. The processing of an application for parole in itself takes a long time, and there is absolutely no guarantee that a prisoner will get it, particularly in relation to offences like these where the parole board has to be particularly careful about any potential danger to the public. Plus the fact that it is a life sentence means that after release the prisoner can be recalled to prison at any time without trial.

If you think prisons are like holiday camps, you have stayed in some very strange holiday camps. I certainly haven't come across one where you have to share a room with three thugs and and an open toilet, get locked up for most of the day, get food someone's spat in, have to watch your back in the open shower facilities all the time, and have other inmates shouting and screaming all night.

John Mortimer, the writer/barrister, used to say the most gentle, calm criminals he came across were generally the murderers, because the one person in their lives who had really been bugging them was no longer around.

tell themselves they are good people because they want to allow beasts to continue to destroy, taint and tarnish every human life they come in contact with

@ohnotthisagain2025, absolutely no-one on this thread or generally is saying they want to allow murderers to be allowed to continue. This has been pointed out to you already. Why do you persist with this lie?

Sean Conroy smoking cannabis and watching tv in prison. Having a whale of a time, using his mobile to upload a video of him enjoying himself. His crime was torture and false imprisonment -

Natalie Ennis (38) was taken to a flat in Henrietta House, central Dublin, over a false accusation about missing drugs, was beaten around the head and body with metal poles, burned with a makeshift blowtorch and a heated hammer head, cut with a knife, kicked and punched, had her hair cut off and was threatened with rape.

Prison works doesn’t it. He’s really suffering. 🙄

Thankyou @passingstranger and @UpDo

half the time I’m running around and so short on time (as we are so short staffed) I’m not aware of what crime they are in for, not that it makes any difference to me

This.

You do a grand job just wanted to tell you. You don't get enough thanks.
I feel really annoyed that you have to risk your life every day and run the risk of being attacked every day.

It must be he'll on earth ha ing to deal with some of the dregs of society.

Good point.

If the US abolished the death penalty my money is on there being no change to the murder and crime rates. Same in Japan. Same if we brought in the death penalty here. It's a shitty deterrent but it carries with it the horrendous risk of the state killing innocent people.

No they really shouldn't

prisoners would be hell bent on attacking staff in those conditions. I don’t go to work for that thanks

Her argument would also be his defence in her awful world. He killed a baby that had his genes therefore he 1) was removing them from the gene pool 2) only killed another sub-human which I'm guessing wouldn't even be a crime

So if the US abolished the death penalty the murder and crime rates would drop as a result?

Japan has the death penalty and very low crime.

I think we can all see what an amazing success the death penalty has been in the US where half the states have the death penalty and their rates for murder and violent crime are far worse than ours.

Or to put it another way, why is a sentence of as little as seven years termed a "life sentence" by our justice system? A life sentence should mean going to prison until you die. Come up with another name for a short sentence where they live with conditions attached which if breached could mean a return to prison.

And prisons should go back to being proper prisons, like dungeons, with bread, water and hard labour.

I wasn’t surprised

Oona doesnt have a clue! It’s entertaining if nothing else!

To be honest, for someone so outspoken and confident on the subject I’m surprised you don’t know…..

The UAE don’t amputate hands as punishment.

Countries like Saudi and Iran that have extreme and draconian punishment often do have less recorded crime, but a large part of that is because things we consider a crime - particularly violence against women and children - are simply not crimes there. If we made it legal to beat your children, or control your female relatives, we’d have a lot less crime here too.

I don’t know about you but I think I prefer it here.

Because they spend their whole life on licence, meaning that they can be recalled to prison at any time if they breach the terms of their release or commit another crime.

A life sentence is not a whole life order.

Why is someone that received a so-called "life sentence" being considered for parole after only seven years?

We don't live in a society with sufficiently robust and infallible criminal justice systems to avoid executing innocent people, so no.

I've asked her how many prisons she's been in. She hasn't answered.

Nothing says “you don’t know what’s going on” more than saying “prisons are like holiday camps” and not understanding that the sentence given in this case isn’t the time until these people are released but the time until there is the possibility of them being considered for parole.