AIBU to ask whether the death penalty should apply for certain crimes in the UK?

Excuse the Wikipedia source but it does the trick:

Rudakubana was arrested at the scene. He was charged with three counts of murder, ten counts of attempted murder, and possession of a bladed article. He was later separately charged under the Biological Weapons Act 1974 and Terrorism Act 2000 in relation to the possession of ricin and a military study of an Al-Qaeda training manual. He pleaded guilty to all 16 charges on 20 January 2025, when his trial was due to begin, having initially entered a not-guilty plea.

Pretty heinous and clear to me.

There is no evidence that the death penalty is a deterrent (the available evidence is that it is not).

There is no evidence that the death penalty saves costs (in fact, the evidence is that it is more costly).

The only real argument for it is a moral one - retribution (an eye for an eye).

Then it's a question of whether you believe in that as a general moral principle, and next if you believe it moral for the state to administer it. Then, it's whether you trust the state to administer it and, finally, if it is worth the killing of some innocents as collateral damage.

Ultimately, even if you accept the underlying "eye for an eye" principle, the moral argument has to fail.

But you can't make a definition of the law so that it describes an example from the past. You have to be able to frame it in a way so that the next person that commits such a crime can be charged and sentenced in such a way. So how do you define it? The murder of a child? What about a mercy killing of a child by her mother. Is that in or out? How about racially aggravated murder? You'll have Restore and the right wing campaigning against that as soon as it's a white person goes on a killing spree. But it doesn't matter because what you're proposing is an extra level of certainty that can't be defined. "Yes Your Honour, we're super -certain this man is guilty. Not just certain, we know he did it. We can tell."

How more certain do you think people would be of a black man than a white woman?

Both failures of the Prison Service in their own way.

The point is, these are known criminals who are no longer at liberty to attack unsuspecting members of the public, which is precisely what the "but it will stop them killing other people" argument revolves around.

Yes, in some cases they will clearly remain a threat to prison staff and other inmates, but the key difference is they are in a confined facility, not at large in the community, they are known to those with the duty of care, not moving around unknown to the general public, and therefore there is knowledge of who and what they are and preventative steps can be taken to pre-empt future problematic behaviour.

A lack of proper procedure, care and attention, or facilities post-incarceration is not a justification for bringing back execution, it's an institutional failure, the causes of which need determined and put right.

There is also another point to bear in mind -

The study of criminality is vital in itself in order to prevent and detect future potential crime. The reason we don't really see prolific serial-killers any more is because of past study of known serial-killers leading to the development of techniques like criminal profiling. If you simply execute anyone aberrant, you totally preclude the ability to study them and learn from them, and then use that learned knowledge to understand and predict aberrant behaviour, therefore saving lives because of the fact people doing similar things in the future are detected and apprehended more quickly.

Aberrant people, including the ones people find more repellent like serial-killers, murderous paedophiles, torturers and so on, all exist as part of society whether people like that or not, so killing them out of hand does not, in any way, help society to understand why they exist, what motivates and drives them, how they operate, how they stay hidden, how they select victims etc etc. You can not solve a sociological problem by only removing all known examples of the problem and then calling it job done, because there will invariably be the ones missed because you are operating on an reactive and not proactive basis, you don't understand what it is you are dealing with, and then there will always be new ones popping up to replace the old simply because they occur naturally in the population in any case.

Like it or not, murderers, paedophiles, sexual sadists and the like are a learning opportunity, and it's stupidly closed-minded to think they are not, because refusing to learn from them just enables future versions of precisely the same thing.

The Southport killings. A horrendous act and no doubt as to guilt. And I very much doubt that he can be rehabiliated. But he was under 18 anyway so even if we did have the death penalty for certain acts it wouldn't have been imposed on him.

Well it doesn't actually. It protects the general public but not other prisoners or the guards.

Hasn't Axel F attacked a prison guard - was that the hot water attack? And then there was Ian Huntley being killed.

Define what is required for it to be clear and heinous though.

His case is as case a good a case to argue against the death penalty as any other. None of my reasons have anything to do with the nature of a crime but they are all about the kind of society I want to live in.

1. State sanctioned killing is a slippery slope.
2. The state and society as a whole should always hold the moral high ground. I don't want to live in a society that thinks that killing is acceptable especially when we have prisons and other means to keep dangerous people off the streets.
3. Miscarriage of justice possibility
4. Biased sentencing towards minorities (imagine if reform or restore were in power and we had the death penalty...)
5. I believe that anyone dangerous to society needs to be kept away from society but beyond that justice should not be about revenge. It should be about keeping society safe.
6. Neuroscience tells you that there is no faculty that can be taken away from a human through injury or disease. Including moral faculties, knowing the difference between right and wrong and acting on this knowledge. Any of us might be so unlucky to be born or develop a lack to act morally and benevolently. Yes, even you, OP.

Against. Always against no matter what the crime. The state and society should never be involved in killing a human being.

To add - for all the resources the US invest in attempting to limit executions of innocent people:

The wrongful conviction rate of persons who are executed is at least 4%.

The general murder rate, by contrast, is around 0.004%.

I think we will have to agree to disagree!

My point was that a job is a job, and some jobs are tougher than others. There are jobs that require the employee to look through proof regarding CSA cases. I certainly wouldn't want to do that either, but there are people who do it.

Taking a life is taking a life. In one instance it helps the person, and in another it helps society.

So you want to cut back on procedural safeguards and access to legal representation at the same time as bringing back capital punishment?

You don't see an issue with that?

Being a secondary school teacher is hardly comparable to being an executioner! Nor is be helping someone who wants to end their life to do so humanely.

Singapore manages to make execution cheaper because they routinely deny people access to legal representation during questioning and for the appeals process.

Imagine if Sally Clarke had been denied legal representation for her appeal?

Singapore is not a nation to seek to emulate. If you fancy living in a country able to execute you without proper legal process, move to Singapore. Don't drag the UK down to your barbaric level.

No, I don't think I would be willing to do it, much like I wouldn't be willing to become a secondary school teacher. But whether I would or not doesn't really matter though, as somebody would. Assisted Suicide is being pushed, and in the countries that already have it those with non-terminal illnesses are killed. There are employees at Dignitas.

Would you .... know[ing] that you might murder the wrong person?
Like I said before, only in very clear cases. Black and white, no grey area.

But would you be willing to do it and know that you might murder the wrong person?

That's a fair question as it would probably be one of the toughest jobs, but if the job paid enough the yes, I think someone could.

Throughout history men have done the job. Maybe not here in the past sixty odd years, but it's always been done. At least we wouldn't have to raise an axe above the block these days.

My opinion on the death penalty has changed in recent years. I used to be very much opposed, but slowly I've gotten my head around the idea that perhaps we do need it as an example in order to deter others. But as I said before, only in heinous, clear cases.

And who would do this? Would you be willing to do it? Not for AR specifically, but generally.

I think the Axel Rudakubanas of the world should have it applied. When the crime is so heinous and there is no chance of a miscarriage of justice then yes, put them to death.

"How many people are wrongly convicted of a crime that would be severe enough to merit the death penalty, however?"

Even if it is 1 person in 50 years, it's still an innocent person being killed.

Would you still be for the death sentence knowing your child could get wrongfully convicted? And it's your child that was killed?

It doesn't matter if you think they'd never do anything wrong. It's a thought exercise if sorts.

Imagine living in a country where there is a death penalty, and the system makes mistakes. Would you support the death penalty, knowing it could be you, or your child or a loved one that could be executed by mistake. Would accept that as collateral damage because 99.9% of others were "deserving " and actually guilty?

Evidence here says otherwise...

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/research/analysis/reports/international-perspectives-on-the-death-penalty-a-costly-isolation-for-the-u-s

Where's your evidence for your claim?

I wasn't the one who started the dog comparison. I haven't mentioned it because it's irrelevant. So no hypocrisy there.

You on the other hand are someone who doesn't value innocent human life. If you think it's acceptable for someone who has not committed any crime to be killed by the law then you are indeed no better than any murderer. You are running away from that.

Yes, the Singapore outlier, which has been brought up repeatedly in this thread, and always by people who completely ignore the fact that politically speaking Singapore is every bit undemocratic as the PRC, and it's also one of the most regressive, illiberal, backward, and callous nations in Asia.

No wonder they execute people "efficiently" when they have practically no regard for human life, legal rights, civil rights, equalities etc.

"We should be more like Singapore" is the last thing anyone should be advocating

You're conflating risk with certainty. We know for certain that the death penalty, which isn't necessary or particularly effective as a deterrent, will kill innocent people. The average family Labrador is not certain to kill anyone. Yes there's a (very small) risk but not a certainty. Equally, as you point out, we allow cars which are significantly higher risk and with some adjustments to the public transport system potentially unnecessary. Accepting risk is different to accepting certainty.