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

People in care homes pay all of their income towards their fees except £30.65 pw which is their Personal Allowance. It’s galling that this criminal has more than this each week for his personal spending.

they are

It's completely understandable but victims and their loved ones also aren't a monolith and will have a wide range of reactions/ feelings about the idea of this which are all very valid.

This is also the reason why victims and their loved ones aren't the ones to set the terms of punishment.

I think it's police stations. Not prisons. Unless the poster means the observation panel in the door?

Oh dear 😆

Tree of life ! ( sorry!)

Yes, he was.

Was his mate a lifer?

Just to add giving prisoners small “perks” like a slightly nicer meal once a week or short access to fifa, is another way of controlling their behaviour. If that’s all you have to look forward to, then you are more likely to be well behaved and easier to manage, less likely to harm prison staff or other inmates. When you lock a load of dangerous people up altogether you need to ensure you have ways of managing them.

Yep, I have a friend who has done time in prison. Years after he came out, he still does some matchstick modelling. He made a beautiful gypsy caravan. He said one of his inside mates made a huge tree house.

The punishment is losing his liberty. You don’t have to feed them gruel and make them stare at the wall while they are in there. It’s also important to keep prisoners occupied or it has a detrimental effect on mental health across the prison population, and can lead to violent episodes and other issues with controlling the prison population as a whole - idle hands and all that.

You are looking at this far too simplistically.

Ian Brady used to transcribe books into braille. When they took the machine away they refused his request to be euthenised

Gross

He’s changed his name

he's part of the brotherhood now according to that article with all the benefits that brings

Well, that's a philosophical point about the relationship between the subject and the state. It's part of the social contract. We forswear personal vengeance (because that way anarchy lies) in return for the state undertaking it for us.

Part of the defining characteristic of a state is it has a monopoly on violence.

They do modelling with matchsticks, I’m often impressed with what they create! I’ve no patience for that

Bellfield is a psychopath and will never change. I'm glad he'll never get out. I agree that the interest in him is prurient and a bit disgusting. I'd like to never hear his name again. I'm sure his victim's families feel the same.

But that is not the interest. The interest is to fantasize about all the nasty things they could do, or methods of killing people.

Either for enjoyment or to pretend they have power over people.

Bellfield hasn’t shown any remorse. The idea he’s going to sit in a cell and suddenly regret his conduct is laughable. He loves stories being printed about him. He likes people reading the details of it. He gets off on it.

Of course it's different when the victim is connected to you.

But the justice system isn't a personal vehicle for the vengeance of victims and their families.

Yes I might. That’s why we have a criminal justice system, not vigilantism.

Who are you to decide?

In the US they have vast numbers of people serving whole life sentences and five times the homicide rate of the UK.

Meanwhile Norway, with its notorious 'soft' prisons and shorter sentences, has homicide and recidivism rates far lower than both the US and the UK.

If your interest is preventing crime, the last criminal justice system you'd want to emulate is the US.

As someone who has been directly affected by by the use of the death penalty - I do wonder how many would actually oppose if it if it concerned a loved one and it was proven. I knew someone who was actually murdered and their murderer got the death penalty. I have no sadness for him whatsoever. He admitted guilt and took the punishment. It’s very very different when it’s someone connected to you.

That’s what I was wondering?! Unless it was my reference to Oliver Twist in a completely
different context purely in order to explain what gruel was?! Nothing to do with leisure pursuits!

To be fair my son wouldn’t see this as punishment. (Sort of) joking aside I think I agree with you. Xbox distracts. He should be made to sit and think for many years on what he has done without the aid of a dopamine salve.

I can understand the victims or their relatives being sickened at the thought of the criminal having enjoyment in their lives!