This is what you get, when you don't have the death penalty.

Updo will carry out the sentence then in capital punishment then

I'm sure you'd be fine with a job that involved just lethally jabbing people. There are, however, quite a few steps that have to be taken to bring a dangerous prisoner to the jabber, and subdue them sufficiently for it to be safe to jab. Those are the ones people are talking about. You know, the sort that involve taking on all the physical risks of assault. You might not like those quite so much.

Locking people away with nothing to do makes them more dangerous

This.

I could happily work in a jail, and administer lethal jabs. I could even be in one of those Horlicks Ads "how does she sleep at night?", only I wouldn't need any Horlicks. We are far too SOFT in this Country.

For those of you who want the death penalty, one of the best arguments against it is the obvious fact that we don't have a good enough system to be sure everyone that's convicted is guilty. That problem is also something that we could practically affect, whereas things like philosophical beliefs about the rights of the state and cruelty are more abstract.

With that in mind, if I really wanted capital punishment, I'd be pouring all my energy into campaigns for the funding we need to tackle the backlog of cases. Invest in court buildings, recruit more judges, stop pissing about with the CPS, fund juror expenses properly, pay more to criminal defence solicitors and barristers so the system would run more efficiently and it would be a more feasible option for courts to run at weekends until we'd got the numbers back down.

Exactly. To do otherwise puts prison officers at risk.

There are inevitably going to be people in prison who pose a risk to the staff there, and this would be true even if we brought back the death penalty.

Well not if we only had the death penalty. No need for prisons then.

Call me Draco.

Yep.

There are inevitably going to be people in prison who pose a risk to the staff there, and this would be true even if we brought back the death penalty. It's best to have mechanisms for managing their behaviour.

Cheaper than the death penalty.

That's the point.

Those fry ups probably aren't doing his arteries too much good.

Levi Bellfield is the most despicable man and what he did is horrendous but having worked in prison I just wanted to explain how you’re missing the point. These articles are always framed this way but the purpose of prison is deprivation of liberty. That is the punishment. It’s also a really shitty place generally and you get to stare at the sandals sometimes for 23 hours a day. But in terms of what’s being termed ‘luxuries’ here -

There are prison rules for enhanced prisoners (enhanced status is based on behaviour in prison) that apply to all and aren’t changed based on the crime. Those include number of visits allowed, buying what you want from canteen, getting a tv or Xbox etc. They can’t have specific rules based on what a particular offender did.

Lifers often have more ‘luxuries’ and their stability makes life easier for prison staff.

I’d love to see Levi Bellfield live in conditions akin to hell for the rest of his life (I think for men like him suffering for life is way better than the death penalty which is an easy way out) but that’s not how prison works.

But having fry-ups and x boxes and other activities lifers might do - let's see, studying, working in the prison, watching TV, radio - isn't a lot in the scheme of things is it, in that rightly they'll never been able to do normal things we might take for granted like go shopping, feel sand in their toes on the beach, going out with friends, and so on.

I guess if people are just left in a cell without any kind of 'entertainment' they could become harder to manage, one way or another and create more problems and difficulties for staff.

Will be an interesting conundrum in 20-30 years time when nothing will work if it's not online ... (as some "smart" gadget enthusiasts have discovered when their home goes down).

I was reading about an old American case the other day, someone who killed multiple people. What struck me is that he asked for the death penalty and said that no one should intervene on his behalf to get it overturned. He actually said it would be "a cruel punishment" to keep him alive!

The death penalty is only a punishment from the time of sentencing until death. Once you're dead you don't know anything about it. Being in prison until you die naturally is a worse punishment imo.

No they wouldn’t be allowed online.

If an Xbox is what is needed to control a dangerous prisoner then I don't object. I don't really see the connection between this and dp, there is a spectrum of measures between.

You could just say you had no answer. Less electrons - better for the environment.

I don’t think the prison service give you an X Box live subscription

Good point. I assume they wouldn’t be allowed online ??

That's what Donald Trump says.

Providing he is not online with the Xbox- as he could be chatting to anyone though that if he does.

Apart from being able to select halal food and have prayer time what other benefits could there be ?

Will what?