To reconsider my feelings re. Death penalty.

[FoxgloveFairy]

Just read a story about a young guy in the US who broke into a house and, not finding anything to steal, decided to rape the female occupant. A 101 year old woman. Not a string-em-up advocate, but just looking at the arrogant grin on this young man's face in court, I feel right now I could be persuaded.

You may indeed have a point. I'm not sure what the duration of an asylum stay would have been. Of course, we don't have any shortage of murders committed for lack of medication. Refusing to execute people isn't a solution all by itself.

Sooner or later we're going to have to put some serious thought into preventing the police from fitting people up. I don't think providing never-ending board and lodging for bad people is the answer.

I don't think providing never-ending board and lodging for bad people is the answer.

is the answer to what question? crime prevention? public safety? public finances? The only thing the DP addresses in a positive way is public safety, but it comes with so much baggage that it's not worth it.

People who object to financing the list of murderers above, and many others not listed, would say that it most certainly is worth it.

It is ludicrous to put this issue in terms of what people do or do not want to finance. Where does that stop? Do we execute everyone convicted of any crime, however, minor, because others don't fancy financing them? How about people with mental health problems? How about people who don't want to finance health care, social services support, the police force, the fire service, education etc etc? As has been pointed out, the death penalty doesn't actually save money anyway.

And frankly, if someone wants to put forward the argument that it is worth killing innocent people to save the cost of imprisoning the guilty, they've already lost the argument.

It is ludicrous to put this issue in terms of what people do or do not want to finance.

it doesn't even end there. some people object to paying for abortions, contraception, roads in Aberdeen etc. I object to paying to a lot of things. we can't just opt out.

Furthermore, the fundamental problem that most of these forced labourers won't come anywhere close to financing their incarceration hasn't been addressed.

elephantspoo

Precisely as the system already works in fact, where we say we'll convict X for manslaughter and give him 10 years because we only have evidence this strong, but we'll convict Y of committing the same crime of murder because we his amount of evidence. That is how the system is already operating.

Hellloooooo! Me again.

That isn't the difference between manslaughter and murder. At all.

Manslaughter is a partial defence [technical term] to a charge of murder. It has nothing to do with a lack of evidence that the defendant actually killed the victim!

York Notes Version

It goes like this.
Abby is charged with murder, for killing John.
Her barrister says that yes, Abby did kill John, but,
a) she wasn't responsible for her actions (Abby was suffering a medical condition at the time, for example). This is called "diminished responsibility".
b) Abby totally lost control, because John was such a bastard and anyone else in the same situation as Abby would have done. This is called "loss of control".
c) John asked Abby to kill him! It was a suicide pact. AFAIK, this is called the "suicide pact" defence.

The court hears evidence from the defence about a, b or c, and then at the end of the case, the jurors go and sit in their little room and discuss whether they believe the evidence. The jury then choose at the end of the case whether to find the defendant guilty of murder or manslaughter.

Note that a conviction for manslaughter requires that the defence convince the jury that Abby couldn't help it and should only be convicted of manslaughter. That means more evidence, not less.

And this is the Crown Prosecution Services' explanation.

Well, by that rationale, we should pay for everything and screw everyone. Just hike everyone's taxes to cover the costs of providing anything anyone believes should be paid for, and let everyone who wishes for a free ride through life live off the backs of the idiots stupid enough to work and pay for the system.

You see the whole problem with socialism is that the it is based on stealing money from those who are productive, to pay for the lives of those who are not, and in any such system, over time, you get more and more taxation of the productive, more and more 'welfare' for all those not producing, and a steady migration of wealth from the middle classes, upwards to those who run the system, and downwards to those who will not be productive.

The ribbons of fat is society are never removed at all, and society becomes more and more obese and unable to function until it collapses.

You cannot run a society based on taking from those who produce to run, feed, incarcerate, care for and maintain the masses who do not function as productive individuals. The maths does not add up. It never has, and never will. All such societies are financially collapsing all over the world under the burden of over population and excessive welfare. All our recorded historic references show that such societies fail through paying for those who do nothing.

That was a response to Icimoi, btw.

It's funny how the socialist response to all issues is to throw more and more money at is. I have not seen any response on this thread that hasn't been, 'well just pay more money' when it comes down to it.

It's so easy to spend money that doesn't belong to you, when you have no accountability or responsibility for finding that money.

elephantspoo as you may have missed the evidence previously provided, I'll post it again.

executing someone costs more than incarcerating them for life

I take your point that this refers to the US rather than the UK but in the absence of the death penalty currently being applied in the UK, how else are we going to judge?

For me, the figures are compelling enough not to be able to dismiss them simply as idealist, socialist nonsense.

Ps I find your notions about "stealing" from "productive" members of society to subsidise "unproductive" people rather repellent. What measure of productivity are you using there? Economic, presumably? If so, I think that's disastrously narrow and short-sighted.

Not at all. A SAHM is a most laudable and productive use of ones time, however, sitting on ones backside watching daytime TV quite clearly is not.

The point is, the answer to everything always seems to be to throw more money at it, and to take that money from those who are willing to work. We have a problem with the NHS, I know, let's throw more money at it. People on welfare don't know how to avoid spending their money on booze, and so they need to use food banks. I know, let's throw more money at it. There is a problem with reoffending, light sentencing, and lack of interest in any form of education among the criminally minded. I know, let's throw more money at it.

The solution to everything is not, let's throw more money at it.

We living in a low skilled society with virtually no product output when compared to 50 years ago. The country produces practically nothing anyone wants to buy. Our society is disparate and fractured, our economy is crumbling, and all the talking heads ever say is, "we need to put more money into this, that and the next thing."

You are absolutely right on one thing. You cannot compare the most bloated and fiscally corrupt judicial system in the world, with that in the UK.

If the best the forum can come up with is, you can't force prisoners to work because that's slavery, what you need to do is throw more money at the problem. The problem with a socialist utopia is that it is far easier to borrow money to spend on your ideals, when you don't give a fuck about your children having to pay it back. That's right folks, you are working to pay back your parents debts. They spent the money and you are now working to pay it off. Every time you decide that the government should spend more money on this, or that, at least decide to give a fuck that you are burdening your children with higher taxation and higher debt because you couldn't say, no, and couldn't stop spending their money for them. He'll, some of us are spending our kids money, and they're not ever crawiling yet.

People on welfare don't know how to avoid spending their money on booze, and so they need to use food banks. I know, let's throw more money at it.

You seriously think that's why people use food banks?

And you haven't answered my point about execution costing more than lifetime incarceration, you just seem to be using it as a jumping-off point for your pet rant about throwing money at things.

So you are elephantspoo are of the opinon, that the national debt is because of generous welfare payments and keeping prisoners in prison without making them work and you obviously have very radical ideas about how to solve that. So what about the bankers and Britain's war machine? No, nothing to do with that, is it? The entire economic crisis that is driving people like you to want to cut back on the remaining bit of civilisation Britain has was caused by a banking crisis that was bailed out by the government. That was only about six years ago, but you have already forgotten about it.

puntasticusername - Your first point. There is no evidence that we in Britain would allow our legal aid system to milk the fuck out of the court process for personal gain, even given the lucrative inventive of a capital punishment system, but it is an absolute fact that US prisons earn money from the labour of their inmates (or slaves as the socialists like to call them), and so we do not. So given that both systems are driven by different legal structures, with different financial incentives, and the alternative incarceration also has it's financial balance sheet structured differently, I can't see how you can plausibly draw the conclusion that you have. I also note that the website you elect to point to, rather than being empirical data itself, is a pro-life lobbying interest group. That is akin to us discussing vivisection and you posting links to an animal rights campaigners website and saying, 'see'.

Your second point, I know enough about my own local poverty, to know that in almost every instance, those who receive food packages or attend, do so because they cannot budget their own money. It is not that they do not have enough money, it is that they have to feed their Stafford bull terriers, and do so at the expense of their children's food, or that they choose to buy substances, cigarettes, or alcohol instead. They do not tend to go without Playstation and Xbox, most have plasma screen TVs, and they have smartphones, and yet they claim they cannot afford food because they have bills to pay.

We don't have a TV or a smartphone, nor do we have a Staffordshire bull terrier out back. Neither of us drink, smoke or do drugs, and neither of us has ever committed a criminal act (al least as far as I can talk to DPs past).

I guess the real difference is that both of DP and I were given something free from the government which we use to get us by. It's called an education.

Here's an idea... How about not buying all the shit you can't afford in the first place and feed your kids instead?

Coyoacan - On the contrary. I am very awake to the system we have chosen to live within, and it's economic structure. I did not wish to explain the history of state dependency, and it's uses and powers here, nor go into the mechanics of how the economies of central banking actually works. I have touched on it in other threads, but I have found that few people are interested in looking behind the curtain.

but it is an absolute fact that US prisons earn money from the labour of their inmates

no it's not. not in the least. You can't separate the fact that some US prisons do make some money, and the prison system as a whole in the US is a massive drain on the US economy. Supporting draconian sentences, famously, is what led California to spend more on prisons than education.

Any system that spends anything over and above the basics to sustain life (if that is the desired goal) is by definition a drain of resources. These people have chosen to be there, and given that the US education system above high school is just one big Ponzi scheme, that doesn't surprise me. I bet you can't say the same for Thailand. If you insist in locking them up for life, what is wrong with just building a big wall, posting guards, and leaving them to manage their own affairs? Some will Man up, some will become Bubba's bitches, and you can feed them cabbages and water (metaphorically speaking).

There is no need to spend astronomical amounts of money on these people. There certainly isn't any need to value them more than you value children. Feed them and provide for them more than you are willing to provide for your children, but that effectively is UK society's value system.

These people chose to be animals. To revert to animal behaviour. To turn their backs on society and to feed off off their neighbours. If they desire to live that way, then let's assist them.

My husband has a novel solution. Near the Antarctic is an island called Kurgerland. As you can imagine, it is a completely God forsaken place, home to some confused penguins and some seabirds. He thinks that murderers, rapists, and suchlike should be dumped there with a few basic supplies to have a nice time with like minded individuals.

elephantspoo, you are yet again demonstrating a total inability to apply logic to this discussion. Opposition to capital punishment as a way of keeping down prison costs cannot possibly, by any stretch of the imagination, amount to a statement that "we should pay for everything and screw everyone."

Your arguments aren't even consistent. How can you possibly reconcile the suggestion that prisoners should be made to work to pay for their keep with the suggestion that we should simply lock them up, leave them to manage their own affairs, and feed them cabbages and water? By the way, where do you place Sally Clark and Angela Canning in your depiction of people who "choose to be animals"?

And why do you still refuse to acknowledge that prisoners in the UK do in fact work?

Foxglove, your husband seems to have discovered an entirely new island, as there doesn't seem to be any such place in any list of Antarctic and subantarctic islands. Tell him to stake his claim immediately!

Sheesh. Ok, I'm out, elephantspoo is making so little sense I can't even be bothered any more.

Icimoi - It is hardly inconsistent to offer more than one solution. The problem is some people choose to be so horrific and offensive to the human condition that they need removing from society to keep the weak in society safe. You can lock them up, you can kill them, you can send them away to live on an island in the sun, or you can shower them with lovebombs and hope to guilt trip them back to not wanting to rape kiddies.

But we have to do something with them. The consensus from yourself and others is that the whole problem gets better if we spend more money administering love and understanding, and trying to mend these broken people. That in some way, by taking more money from those who are upstanding citizens and giving it over to proper compassion and rehabilitation, they will not be naughty anymore.

My contention is that I really care not what you do with them so long as it is carried out at minimal cost to me and my family and that the threat is removed. If they were to dropped down a well or shipped off to Australia, I care not. If they were to be shot at the back of the court after they were found guilty of feeding a child into a wood chipper, I couldn't care less, and yes, I'll take my chances that me or mine may one day face false prosecution.

As regards work, I am not ignoring the fact that some prisoners put things in plastic bags for the retain industry, or feed data into computers for the insurance industry, but it isn't exactly 'work' in any meaningful sense. But then I guess if they understood the meaning of a good days work, they wouldn't be in prison in the first place.

Regarding Foxglove's point on cost, cost is only as high as the country is willing to allow it to go. It is a choice. People can choose to spend billion, or not. If no money were put into the legal system, it would cost nothing. People would work pro bono, charities for the defence of Jimmy would form, etc. But 'we the people' decided as a collective that Abu Hamza was worth in £1M a year. That his cause was just and more deserving that other causes. I argue that a child's education, and a mothers right to raise her children without undue worry or strain is of greater value, and more worthy of our money, than the wonts of our rapists, murderers, child abusers and their kin.

Not very loving of me, I know, but loving thy neighbour and turning the other cheek, at the expense of our own children is the height of ignorance to my mind.

elephantspoo, please could you stop making up what you claim others have said. Your post at 21.44 is in that respect almost total fiction. It is utterly pointless discussing this any further with someone who is so utterly incapable of basic logic and consistency.