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.

Does anyone else feel all of the political threads here recently are collapsing under the sheer weight of Elephant shit?

It's not all about you, read more and post less.

Writtenguarantee - There is remuneration. The prisoner gets food, board, entertainment, gym facilities, and bodyguards 24/7 to protect them for being assaulted by men who don't take too kindly to their preferences in sexual pleasure. So they are more than adequately remunerated for what labour they are able to provide.

And, as was quite definitively and ardently pointed out to me, it is not unreasonable to expect an 11 year old to 'contribute' to the running of a household, by filling a washing machine, picking up litter and doing other light household duties. That is not slavery, but learning to contribute to the family unit.

So why is it wrong to expect a criminal to contribute to society (thinking that no doubt led to his crimes in the first place), but not wrong to expect the victim to contribute to the criminals board and lodgings, and not wrong to expect a child to learn to contribute to society by being forced taught to do dishes and clean floors?

We are all 'forced' to work in order to feed ourselves. Even if we live on benefits we are forced to do things we don't want to do in exchange for our benefits. None of us have a choice not to work if we wish to live, move, eat and bring up families in this country. We are all slaves in one sense or another.

But teaching a rapist to sit on his arse and fantasize about his crimes, instead of teaching him to obey the law and dig holes in the road or shovel aggregate from a nine, is probably one of the reasons they choose to leave prison and rape other women in the first place.

But then we live in a country where the majority of people don't understand the meaning of a good days' work, and we wonder why the delinquent classes sit on their arses while others are willing to walk half way across the planet for the opportunities our country offers.

Dora - I do think death reduces the number of criminals in the system, and the likelihood that they will reoffend. It may not have deter him in the first instance of committing the crime, but it is far more effective at preventing him from reoffending, than any amount of sewing finger puppets and learning to cry will.

Now some muppet is going to ask again for proof that dead people don't reoffend.

I meant reduces because that's what it appears you and elephantspoo think. Has it been shown it either reduces or deters crime? I don't think so.

I have never once said capital punishment deters crime. Reducing the number of people who commit crimes is different from deterring the number of people who want to commit crimes from beginning. If you kill them they no longer exists, therefor they are no longer a murder, they are a dead murderer. If you kill 100 murderers, you have reduced the number of murderers by 100. You have reduced the number of murderers who would have the opportunity to reoffend by 100.

There is remuneration. The prisoner gets food, board, entertainment, gym facilities, and bodyguards 24/7 to protect them for being assaulted by men who don't take too kindly to their preferences in sexual pleasure. So they are more than adequately remunerated for what labour they are able to provide.

That is not proper remuneration, i.e. it is at a substantially reduced wage. Of course, that happened with slaves as well. Slave owners fed and housed their slaves too. There is no difference.

We are all 'forced' to work in order to feed ourselves.

your quotes tell all. We are "forced". They are forced. Big difference.

If you kill 100 murderers, you have reduced the number of murderers by 100. You have reduced the number of murderers who would have the opportunity to reoffend by 100.

so does life incarceration.

so does life incarceration. That is exactly Dora's point.

That is exactly Dora's point.

well then she he/she has a non-point. people can't commit crimes (against non-prisoners) if they are in prison. it's pretty clear.

But, part of the current problem is that lots of silly buggers are opening the gates and letting them back out onto the street, whereupon a proportion of the murderers proceed to hacking up some other innocent bystander. One such killer of five people, Harry Street, was released to trot off home and make bombs and collect an arsenal of weapons. But, even if they were kept in, I wouldn't want to pay for Harry's board and lodging, thanks.

One of the problems with the hypothesis that killing those found guilty of murders stops them killing again is that, whilst it would eliminate those who might kill again on release, it will also eliminate people who won't. And in fact the majority of murderers who are released from life sentences do not go on to kill again. I am reminded of the barrister - I think it was either John Mortimer or his father - who said that in general murderers were the pleasantest clients to deal with, because they had got rid of the one person who was really bugging them and were content to take what was coming to them; and after they had served their sentences they would go home and get on with their lives and never contemplate killing again.

I do note also that in that jolly chat just upthread between DoraGora and elephantspoo, both continue to ignore the most serious problem with their hypothesis: how would you justify a policy which would have resulted in Stefan Kiszko and Sally Clark being killed by the state?

I'd do it by balancing the deaths of the innocents killed by released murderers, John Stuart Mill, greatest happiness, greatest number, and all that.

elephantspoo

If you weren't saying capital punishment deters rapists, etc, then what were you implying?

Oh, great, DoraGora. So, to stop maybe two murderers killing again, you would kill 98 other murderers who are perfectly capable of leading a productive, crime-free life outside prison, and another two or three people who are actually innocent of committing any crime whatsoever. And, in the course of operating this policy, you would be prepared to take the risk of more murders (particularly murders of policemen and prison officers) because if a murderer knows he is looking at capital punishment anyway then he knows he has absolutely nothing to lose.

Does that really offer the greatest happiness of the greatest number?

One equitable solution would be to allow the welfare of prisoners to be paid for by those should charitable and kind enough to do so, and allow them also to offer said education and listening ear. I am sure there are a whole swage of the population who wouldn't mind paying for the care and attention these pour fellows need, and I am sure those who currently provide a listening ear don't need to be paid for their generosity of spirit.

But then I'm sure such 'generous and compassionate' individuals believe fervently in forcing everyone including the victim herself, under threat of police action (with the possibility of violence), to pay the entire costs of all this care they extend.

You see, for some it is wrong to force a rapist to work and contribute to society, but not wrong to force an rape victim to contribute to her rapist's food and lodgings. And as long as society believes the rapist has more rights than the raped, then you will continue to see a degradation in society.

Posters here seem to avoid the question of providing justice to the victim. Indeed, most people posting seem to want to talk about the murderer or rapist, but don't seem to give a F about the victim.

Eve's posts were very enlightening.

QueenTilly - That killing murderers reduces their chance of reoffending to nil, because dead people do not go on to kill again. Any person killed by a released murderer would be alive if capital punishment or permanent detention existed. It is the act of releasing a murderer that creates the possibility that they reoffend.

Icimoi - No. Dora's position has always been that permanent detention without release is the more equitable solution. It is I who advocate the use of capital punishment. And to be clear, I see merit is Dora's proposal that we lock murderers up and never release them.

But how much justice is there in allowing them to live and not contribute in any way to their costs, while forcing the murdered persons family to contribute to his care?

The very act of never believing they should have to contribute to society is the root of the problem. Teaching them that they should continue in the same vein because to do otherwise would be exploitation and slavery, is the very pat of the head that a lot of people find most unjust in the system.

So, you think particular crimes are "unknown" in some countries, and you attribute this to the perpetrators being executed after the first offence?

I haven't ignored the issue of providing justice to the victim at all, elephantspoo. I have specifically pointed out that society provides that justice by offering a police force whose function it is to find and arrest criminals, a court system whose function it is to try those criminals and, if appropriate, convict and sentence them, and a prison system whose function it is both to punish them and if possibly rehabilitate them. I wonder why you ignore all that?

As for your suggestion that the system should only be paid for by those who are charitable and kind, how far are you going to take that? Should I be able to decree that I am so uncharitable and unkind that I don't choose to pay for the punishment of people who are convicted of speeding offences so they should be killed also? And don't come out with that nonsense about making them work to pay for it, manifestly the sort of work that prisoners can do is never going to cover the costs of imprisonment.

Manifestly every civilised society works on the basis that the government covers the costs of the the police, court and prison system primarily through taxation. If you can point to any alternative system that actually works, do provide details.

Elephantspoo, precisely where do you get the idea that prisoners don't work?

So, elephantspoo, since it is you who advocates capital punishment on the footing that dead murderers don't reoffend, where do you stand on the issue of killing those who are in fact innocent?

Icomoi - As you specifically asked, regarding capital punishment being enacted on those not guilty, firstly, any system would need a threshold of proof, not a preponderance of probability. Secondly, we kill innocents all the time. Mistakes happen, it's tragic, but it saves lives. We shot an unarmed innocent Argentinian electrician on a train, and proceeded to fabricate the evidence we fed to the public in order to manage public opinion about the incident. But it is not a crime to kill innocent people when asked to do so by the state. We're happy to bomb women and children to Kingdom come, but we're nervousness about killing convicted killers, just in case they turned out to be innocent.

I'd suggest what is needed is a greater degree of certainty, and not a greater degree of rehabilitation.

And the excuse that we give a rapist 5 years because giving him more would make him more likely to commit other crimes is just preposterous.

Now, I'm glad you've challenged me to look at my opinion of the problem of innocent convictions. Will you answer the question of whether or not a raped woman should be expected to contribute to her rapist's room and board? You see, I see that as being something forcing rapists to work could avoid.

There have been times when I have thought the death penalty would be justified. In the case of serial killers and child murderers especially,

In your world where rapists were executed, why would a rapist not kill his victim afterwards?

It would vastly reduce the odds of him being caught.

Possibly, although the detection rate for murders is somewhere in the 90th percentile, whereas that for rape is barely in double figures. So, I think, if I wasn't an idiot, I wouldn't plan that way.

Handsoff - By that rationale, we should reduce the sentences for pedophiles, because the length of incarceration is the reason some pedophiles have murdered and disposing of the body, and you could argue the same for reducing practically all sentences.

I see no evidence of a case where a rapist has specifically chosen to escalate to murder on the grounds that he is going to face the death penalty anyway. If you can site a case where that was used as the explanation given to the police or given in evidence as the reason a woman was murdered, I'd like to read it.

As far as I can see, in most cases it is fear of getting caught that is used as the explanation for escalating to murder, not fear of any specific punishment, or the escalation is a natural progression in a serial rapist's development. So the, don't kill them because then they'll run around killing women argument is unsubstantiated by anything other than academic theorising and ambiguous collections of data that are tenuous at best.

Icimoi and writtenguarantee's contention that killing murderers does not reduce instances of first offending is much more substantially proven, and one that I agree with, but it does not change my view that capital punishment still eliminates both the reoffending rate, and the cost of housing and feeding them.

The problem is academics tend to thing that everyone thinks as they do. They over think everything. Most rapists act on impulse, and I suspect most know the likelihood of being reported, let along actually being charged with a crime, or convicted, are remarkably small. There is no empirical evidence that capital punishment results in rapists killing women. That is just a knee jerk reaction by the pro-life lobby. Propaganda at best.

elephantspoo, I did answer your question about victims contributing to the cost of punishing the perpetrators. Try reading properly.

How on earth can the fact that we kill some innocent people conceivably justify killing more innocent people? It's not a question of whether it's legally wrong, it's a question of whether it's morally wrong. You seem to think that convictions are based on probability: as a matter of law, that is incorrect. No-one can be found guilty unless they plead guilty or unless a jury or a district judge decides that their guilt is proved beyond reasonable doubt. Yet still mistakes happen.

As for the idea that we should have more certainty: how? Even DNA evidence is not infallible.