Death sentences

[usernamechanged1]

Saw on another thread a couple of “he should hang” type comments in respect to a man who has been convicted of murder. The victim was 9 (Olivia Pratt-Korbel).

I expect it’ll be a resounding no, but does anyone genuinely feel that there should be a death option for certain crimes?

Or are these throwaway comments people tend to make in response to particularly shocking/heinous crimes?

I believe that a minority of people can never be truly rehabilitated and must remain in prison to keep the public wafe.

This. I believe that some people should be kept in prison purely as a punishment - why waste money trying to rehabilitate them? More whole life tariffs should be handed out and less pandering to the prisoners, e.g. Levi Bellfield changing his name and religion and now wanting to marry some sad case who contacted him.

Are you basing this on The Dirty Dozen? I don't think Lee Marvin is available to knock them into shape.

Countries that focus on rehabilitation have lower violent crime rates than countries that don't, especially countries with the death sentence so yes it is conducive to good law and order

There's also the unintended effect of more murderers being acquitted because a jury is not confident enough in the evidence to convict if it means the death penalty

Never support it. It makes an innocent person a murderer and I don't think that should be asked of anyone.

Interesting. Is it causation or correlation? The countries I’m thinking of are more equal economically and rather more democratic, and that causes fewer social issues and greater cohesion which results in the reduced crime anyway.

does anyone genuinely feel that there should be a death option for certain crimes?

No, there have been some good points made against the death penalty on the thread, and I haven't seen anything to make me change my mind and support it.

I get that people are upset about some crimes and want to let off steam. But you can't make laws based on a knee jerk response, and it isn't justice. It wouldn't surprise me if better run, fairer societies have lower rates of violent crimes or recidivism. Whats the opposite of a vicious circle?

(I googled and apparently its a 'virtuous circle')

I don't believe child sex offenders or most murderers can be rehabilitated and in a lot of cases I wouldn't bother trying.

Do you mean the law given to moses? When Jesus died the law ended.

Maybe, you might be right?

All I know is that in Norway, where they focus on rehabilitation, only 20% of offenders who have been to prison will reoffend. In the US (who people are suggesting we copy) that's 44-66%, and in El Salvador (also a country people have suggested copying) its 60%

So we could copy the US and El Salvador and pat ourselves on the back for being rouch on criminals, but we would be subjecting our population to up to 40% higher redictivism rates. Seems a bit dumb to me.

Oh and there are community sexual offender rehabilition schemes (running in the US interestingly so maybe there is something we can learn from there) that have reduced sexual offenders reoffending by over 80% which sounds better than not trying at all

@Oldbutwiser Also they were only allowed to kill the offenders back then with Gods permission. They weren't allowed to go rogue and make the decisions themselves as one of the Ten Commandments was not to murder.

I don't believe child sex offenders or most murderers can be rehabilitated and in a lot of cases I wouldn't bother trying.

This is why I get a bit annoyed on these threads. There are statistics and data. Murder actually has quite a low recidivism rate in most cases. Not least because the young man (almost always) is not a young man once he's served a few years. Most of the murderers I worked with fell into three types:

Stupid, young idiot, drunk or high, killed another man.
Gang-related
Domestic violence

If someone serves time in the first case, I never saw any recidivism. Second case it needed work; society, release planning, lots of work. Third, lots of work on release not to have the men get into risky relationships again. Very difficult and although I didn't see recidivism in terms of murder, I wouldn't have dated any of them and don't trust they won't again.

Child sex offenders, I don't really think they can be 'cured' per se. It's very compulsive behaviour and hard to control. However, it's also almost impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt so the fans of the death penalty would suffer from low conviction rates if they think that's the answer. Essentially segregation is really the way to ensure safety. Making sure the men who perpetrate this crime aren't ever near children. And that means a very well funded system.

Yes.

@Oldbutwiser Wonder if we are the same religion? 😂

This

We aren't usually popular 🤣

@Oldbutwiser Is 4th april a significant event this year? I think we might be 😂

Yes 🤗

@Bepis @Oldbutwiser

Curious which religion this is?

Ah I see, my error

I was thinking Kelly's heroes, but then realised I had the wrong movie

Oldbutwiser · Yesterday 13:27

Do you mean the law given to moses? When Jesus died the law ended.

Isn't that the same bloke who was supposed to have said that he brought not peace, but a sword? And advised throwing child molesters into the sea, with a millstone round their neck?

We aren't usually popular

@Bepis and @Oldbutwiser you're popular with me. {grin]

I've always said that instead of the death penalty, murderers should just be placed in a small room, big enough for a bed but other than that, literally nothing. They get passed their food through the hatch, no interaction from the guard, no pen, no paper, no reading material, no cigarettes, no treats, just them a bed, four walls and a toilet. That's how prison should be. Would drive them insane eventually.