Labour isn't Working - Thread 38

[Nuthatch26]

A chat thread for those who don't like this Labour government. 💙

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

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It would be awful. As you say, imagine the bureaucracy involved.

And all the work for the human rights lawyers (and rightly so, in this instance).

Google tells me this about the US: 'Death row litigation in the U.S. costs significantly more than regular life-imprisonment cases, averaging 2.5 to 5 times more per case and totaling billions of dollars nationwide over the decades. Key cost drivers include lengthy pre-trial preparations, specialized two-phase trials, and mandatory multi-layered appeals.'

If people are using the cost of imprisoning killers as a reason for the death penalty, it's clearly not that straightforward, if the US is anything to go by.

Amanda Knox is doing stand up about it all now I read only the other day ! I gave up on the itv show after two episodes, I don’t think she was entirely innocent , but only my opinion there .

The hang ‘em high bridage would love a referendum on
this. I can honestly see why , but it would be costly and probably not solve much really. I do hate my taxes paying for a lot of these people , but the alternative is just as scary too. Not sure what to think

I think the campaigning for a referendum if it went ahead would be seriously distasteful. I don't think I could stomach it.

A potential referendum on this would be even worse than Brexit. It’s such an emotive subject and the brexit arguments have never gone away entirely.

@NoWordForFluffy yes I can imagine that the lawyers get a fortune.

Amanda Knox would never be a candidate for it though.

When people call for the death penalty to be brought back, I always think of James Hanratty, who was hanged for the so-called A6 murder, and whose conviction was overturned in 1997. The UK hanged an innocent man. One man too many. It makes me wonder how many more have suffered the same fate.

In 2015 Indonesia executed by firing squad several people who had been convicted of drug smuggling. One of the men had been born in London before emigrating to Australia with his family as a child. Because of that fact UK media followed the case from the early days of the arrests. There were detailed reports covering the appeals, the anguish of their families and finally the execution. No details were spared. It was horrible.

@NoWordForFluffy that must be really hard being so close to it.

Yes to costs and beurocracy ,I just wonder though what this man will be doing in jail he's attacking workers ,will he be heavily sedated ?

We have pretty solid evidence for some crimes now like Arthur lambino Jones ,star Hobson and so on there is no doubt like axel etc.
So I do wonder why keep them? And to add we have a prison crowding crisis with nasty people being let back into society after very lenient sentences .

Yes, I was a student member of Amnesty International and we had an amazing presentation from a former prison governor in a death penalty state who had changed his mind and become an abolitionist. He gave us lots of really compelling reasons why it was a bad idea, the cost being one of them.

And Timothy Evans.

And Derek Bentley.

BBC Bitesize gives a bit of potted history.

My late FIL knew Pierrepoint. He once said that he didn't believe in the death penalty any more. The Ruth Ellis one was in the news recently. The physical and emotional abuse she suffered from the victim wouldn't lead to her death today.

I agree, but not everyone would it appears - some commentators said she killed in cold blood and deserved to die.

Capital punishment is a sordid business that we should never bring back. Miscarriages of justice are one good reason to oppose it, but even if you framed the law to require multiple overwhelming physical evidence it would still be a grubby, horrible act.

I don’t think it would work anyway because I doubt any modern Home Secretary would ever refuse a request for clemency. I expect there would be a lot of victims’ families who would publicly oppose the penalty as well.

(Hanratty was guilty. DNA proved that a few years ago. He should not have been hanged, but he was definitely guilty.)

Capital punishment is a sordid business that we should never bring back.

Agreed. I find it shocking that the survey finds so many supporting. I suspect that many would get cold feet and vote against in a referendum - but let's not put that to the test! It's not something our society should ever consider.

I definitely think that some prisoners are beyond rehabilitation and that protecting others (in society, but also in the prison where they're being held - both guards and prisoners) should take absolute priority over any consideration for the criminal.

But that means genuine life sentences with no release, and not giving them access to other prisoners or to any activities within the prison which are hard to control.

I find it extraordinary that dangerous prisoners have been allowed to eg do a stint in the prison kitchen - which we only hear about when they've attacked someone, like Hashem Abedi injuring 3 prison staff with hot cooking oil and knives. I mean, WTF? Why was he ever allowed in a kitchen? Or to speak to anyone he could radicalise, for that matter? I have no problem with him being kept in a solitary cell for the rest of his natural life.

With severe crimes, they have forfeited their right to their wellbeing ever being prioritised ahead of risk to anyone else.

Any type of wellbeing. Any risk.

There should be no weighing up benefit to them and harm to others. The choice should automatically be to always minimise all risks they pose to others. That principle is where we should give the public a say, instead of letting the dishonest human rights machine hold sway in secret.

Pretty sure we'd get a pretty resounding yes vote on 'life means life' and on removing rehabilitation activities for those prisoners.

I agree. There is no role for rehabilitation in the sorts of offenders who would be death penalty candidates. Incarceration for natural life with no chance to harm staff. Not just murderers either. Some sex offenders - of children or adults - should be in until death too.

That does mean more spending on prisons. But actually not that much compared to what we need to spend to house the general prison population.

30% of offenders re-offend (and are caught again! Obviously not all are caught.) within 1 year, 53% within 7 years.

And the government stops tracking after that.

For serious crimes, the cost to society of additional offences is higher than the cost of keeping the criminal in jail.

But it's much easier politically to impose that cost on the innocent public than to stand up for their safety.

Given the chaos caused by serious offenders to society, I actually think the additional prison spend would be cheaper overall. Plus make the country a safer and happier place. Best investment of taxes I can think of really.

Incidentally - a bit of a derail, but I simply don't believe the official line that crime has reduced in London.

2 family members have been robbed in London in the last 6 months: one pick-pocketed, the other violently.

The police did nothing in either case except give a crime number (useless given high insurance excess).

In one of them, the item could be seen moving around on 'find my device' for hours, but the police wouldn't act on it.

DD asked whether the items would be recovered, and I was actually surprised she thought they might be - which made me realise how much I've given up on any sense of a society where the 'right' things happen.

There's always been crime in London, but now it just goes unchecked.

@strawberrybubblegum
Incidentally - a bit of a derail, but I simply don't believe the official line that crime has reduced in London

It’s Stalin’s record harvests
I’m on a London Nextdoor app and every single day people post that their car has been stolen or broken into, dcs’ phones stolen, house burgled, bag snatched……
The police do nothing so people give up reporting crimes.

Yes it's this. The police have for so long taken blatently no action on what used to be treated as quite serious crimes, that people have completely given up reporting - it's just a further timewaste after an already stressful experience.

A retired policeman said only armed robbery is taken seriously now. We don't like guns in this country