There should be the death penalty for Karl Clifford and those like him

[HermioneWeasley]

There is no doubt he did it. No case of mistaken identity. He’s taken 3 lives. He should be executed.

They won't let violent criminals out early. There are loads of people locked up who shouldn't be and should have more creative punishments.

As for the death penalty, I'd like to impose it on a few people like Kyle Clifford, the Moors Murderers and Robert Black, but a civilised country does not take its citizens' lives.

And miscarriages of justice happen. You can release someone from jail, you can't give them their life back.

I think this is key. What would the rationale be for the death penalty?

It can be proved it isn’t a deterrent. And that’s not surprising. I don’t think most people inclined to be serial killers would stop based on the risk of the death penalty when the threat of life imprisonment wouldn’t stop them. For some the death penalty might be preferable.

The death penalty can make juries less likely to convict as well as some jurors will not want to be partially responsible for someone’s death. In which case a killer is more likely to walk free entirely.

It makes prisons less safe because those on death row have nothing to lose.

To me the criminal justice system should be primarily aimed at making society safer. And the death penalty doesn’t do that.

It would be there just to satisfy a public desire for retribution which to me isn’t a good basis for law.

There is an interesting ethical question as to whether it’s worse to kill someone than to keep them alive in prison against their will though, particularly if the prison is violent and they will never get out.

Death penalty is not a deterrent? Certainly deters that one from doing it again - and how many cons can we try to rehabilitate with the £2 million we've saved on not locking him up for 40 years

The prison service is already on its knees! There's no money

How would this country finance a DP?

People need to think before flippantly telling us to create a complete new prison system

To be fair, how much input have the civilised members of society had on the criminal justice system?
Why are sentences ever concurrent? Why are you let out early with good behaviour - surely society would be safer if a 7 year sentence meant 7 years and if you behaved badly, time could be added on?
If the average salary is £35,000, if you steal £350,000, why a sentence of less than 10 years?
I'm aware that criminals are predators who seek out weaker and more vulnerable people, but prison should be designed to prevent manipulation of officers and other prisoners.
Bukele in El Salvador has made his country safer than anywhere else in North or South America following his draconian crackdown on gang crime, for some reason he has the highest approval rating of any national leader.

I've never met a prisoner let out early for good behaviour? And they can and do get time added

Plenty of us are able to go about our day without being manipulated in anyway. It's not hard.

The rest has got nothing to do with the prison service....that's down to the courts

You can't blame parents for something their fully grown kids have done. There may be dodgy genes of course, but if you say people shouldn't have kids because of that you are going down a very dark path.

I didn't mention genes, I talked about how they have raised their children. I don't believe anyone is born bad but I do believe you can blame parents for things their fully grown children have done. The parenting of these two men obviously caused major issues and twisted values.

Yikes, I’ve only just now heard about his brother being a murderer too. They really do need to look into his upbringing.

It will be interesting what comes to light in the court trial. There are always exceptions but I’d be shocked if something sinister hasn’t gone on in his childhood.

But it didn't stop it in the first place. No evidence of deterrent effect of the death penalty. In fact historically the death penalty made convictions less likely because juries did not want to condemn someone to death.

Oh just heard this. Genes, environment? Probably a mixture of both.

OP can you ask MN to change the name in your thread title? It’s KYLE, not Karl.

And I bet the poor woman who was in a relationship with him had no clue about his family, he'd have been an expert gaslighter.

I hope not.

It would make a bit of a nonsense of the earlier sections of the thread where the mistake was thoroughly discussed

The reason prisons are full is because we've had 14 years of austerity and rising poverty levels. Prisons are dominated by people with low educational attainment who didn't see many opportunities outside of crime.

There are plenty of mid to high achievers in prison! Plenty

It's not all the uneducated of society

Thank you to others who have articulated why the death penalty should not return.

Even for a man who indirectly killed 20,000 people by his neglect, Boris Johnson.

The prison population stands at around 80,000. Some prisoners are well educated but a disproportionate number have low levels of literacy (62%] which is four times higher than in the general population and there are even lower levels of numeracy. Around 47% of people entering prison have no prior qualifications. Nearly two-thirds (59%) of prisoners have truanted from school, and 42% were expelled or permanently excluded from school. Many prisoners have experienced little or no success in school.

From this https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/9597/html

@Prawncow

Prison I work at seems to have some rather well educated prisoners. Found it quite surprising at times tbh

Yes because of the cost of keeping all these people alive. Then there are all the decisions that have to be made about when and if to let them out and whether they will offend again.

Spend the money on better things. The country is always short of money.
They don't deserve to live. Let them feel the terror while waiting to be Hung.

Well educated prisoners? Not bright enough to know crime doesn't pay.

I don't agree with the death penalty for several reasons but one of them being the amount of appeals and re-appeals that happen - all that uncertainty for the victims loved ones for decades must be awful and add to the pain. But I do think life should mean life in prison.

No. The death penalty does not prevent murder; just take a look at the US. And it would also be dragging us down to the level of the killer. Two wrongs don't make a right. If he is convicted, he can rot in prison for the remainder of his life.

Surely it is Kyle not Karl Clifford?

I don't believe in the death penalty. But I believe the 'whole life tariff' should be applied as standard for murder cases. None of this 'rehabilitation' or 'early release' stuff. A life for a life. Let them rot in jail. I know we will need more capacity in the prison system to accommodate this.