Death penalty

[birthdayboo]

I don't quite understand the logic of people who want to murder people who have committed awful crimes.

I do understand saying you wish you could, verbalising the anger felt and not literally meaning you would actually carry out a killing yourself.

I don't understand when people swear they would actually kill

One horrific crime doesn't go away because you commit another horrific crime such as murder on the guilty?

I don't understand the death penalty either - I totally agree that life seems too good for some people, however it's still legalising murdering a human being to have the state kill them - so I just can't get my head around murdering someone because they murdered someone. Perhaps some form of voluntary self administered euthanasia being available by prescription to individuals who will never leave prison in their lifetime would be a solution to how much money it costs to house prisoners however it's not even like people get death penalty and it happens soon, they spend ages and have money spent on holding them prior to execution

I can understand the hurt and the anger but I cannot believe one killing justifies another.
Countries maintaining the death penalty are those with a very right wing ethos and poor human rights in other ways. It is not the way a civilised society does things.
However aggrieved, the families cannot be the people who determines the sentence or w descend into mob rule.
There have been too many very worrying miscarriages of justice to consider determination of guilt as accurate.
It is not the answer. It was abandoned for very good reasons and any suggestion of return would be a hugely retrograde step.

If it was me who lost a family member I know I would want the most severe justice and punishment for the offender.

Of course you would - which is why in this country we have trial by jury and victims aren't allowed to decide the punishment.

The death penalty is something I've always been against. Never agreed with it, would much rather see people kept in prison for the rest of their lives.

Some people do not deserve to live, that doesn't mean I or anyone else has a right to kill them.

A death sentence punishes the family of the murderer/criminal. The criminal is dead. They feel no pain, can show no remorse whether they have any or not.

Under joint enterprise you can be found guilty of murder just by being in the same place as the murderer. In the US, their version of joint enterprise has, in some cases, given life to the person who pulled the trigger and the death penalty to the person saying, 'don't shoot'.

If you think that wouldn't happen here then you are wrong, it has, it was one of the reasons the death penalty was abolished.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Bentley_case

You don't understand it? I'm sorry to tell you that when you're as old as I am you probably will.

Because why waste the money keeping them alive when they are a dangerous, evil bastard?

@Ansumpasty

It costs much more to execute someone than it does to keep them imprisoned.

I assume you voted to leave the EU.

It costs much more to execute someone than it does to keep them imprisoned.

Depends on the regulatory regime. Fairly sure people arguing on the basis of cost alone would also disapprove of holding them for years in maximum security while allowing them multiple appeals, they probably want them taken straight from the court room to the hanging tree.

There have been too many very worrying miscarriages of justice to consider determination of guilt as accurate

Absolutely.

The Derek Bentley case.

See also Timothy Evans (of the Rillington Place murders) a completely innocent man executed.

Ruth Ellis did kill, but had been horrifically treated, and the man she'd killed had punched her in the stomach whilst she was pregnant, causing her to miscarry. She was executed.

I've seen several Netflix programmes recently where confessions have been obtained from innocent people. Sounds impossible, but months of solitary confinement coupled with mental and physical torture can do this.
It's horrendous to think of this happening in a country or state where there is the death penalty.

I don’t understand why it’s apparently so difficult/inhumane to kill someone by lethal injection as I’ve read.

Surely surgeons can put someone to sleep as they would for an operation and then stop their heart while they’re unconscious?

Why is death seen as punishment? The people who suffer are those who have to carry on living, they suffer because that person is killed too. Even the victims families- yes, the certainty of that individual being gone I appreciate but it doesn't bring back the victim or bring happiness back into their lives that was taken away by the crime and then another family will also be suffering.

*@missusZee

“It costs much more to execute someone than it does to keep them imprisoned.

I assume you voted to leave the EU”*

An absolutely hilarious presumption.

You are incorrect- if an offender raped and murdered a child (or multiple children) at age 20 and lived until 90, probably reoffending, it would be a lot cheaper to kill him at 20.

But if they'd caught him at 20, Andum, they'd have locked him up!

Not forgetting Barry George, and the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four and many others.

@Hp Probably would be let out by the time he was 40, though.

In my work I came across a man imprisoned in the UK for 5 years for the rape and murder of a child. Then the real perpetrator was caught. This man who had spent time in prison was proved innocent 100%. For that reason alone I can never support the death penalty. Mistakes do still happen.

Sorry, should clarify he spent 5 years in prison before the perpetrator got caught. The actual sentence he received was much longer.

@Storm4star I agree- it should be reserved for extreme cases where there is no doubt and multiple offenses.

Ansum for the rape and murder of multiple children? I bloody hope not!

Stranger things have happened, though.

If I were to think that people who committed murder, or other similarly heinous crimes, were irredeemably evil then I think that I would be in favour of executing them to be rid of that evil.

Since I retain some belief that people are capable of change - however unlikely - then I don't. But I can understand why others do.

@Storm4star honestly the stigma that comes from having been convicted (§even wrongly) of such a crime probably makes death a better option.

I don't agree with the death penalty and never have.
It doesn't act as a deterrent in the USA. The countries that use capital punishment are not ones that we should wish to emulate eg Saudi, China, Iran.
There are criminals who have done horrendous things but I still don't agree that their lives should be taken.
It's just wrong.
I'm very sorry for those who have lost family members

In my work I came across a man imprisoned in the UK for 5 years for the rape and murder of a child. Then the real perpetrator was caught.

One of my neighbors did 20 years for rape & murder of a woman, even though the whole town knew it wasn't him. Problem was, the guy who did do it was white, and this guy was First Nations Canadian, and it was the 70's.

I think the death penalty is abhorrent. It's 'playing God', so to speak, and no-one has the right to take another persons life. No-one. Also, as someone has said, they may have been wrongly accused and you can't take killing someone back. It's so wrong.

@DieAntword
Well yes, I can't even begin to imagine how this man will ever have a normal life again. I don't know the full details, and obviously couldn't share if I did! But he was convicted this decade so it certainly wasn't an old case where people could say "oh but it wouldn't happen now".

On another note, I also see death as an "escape". I'm not sure I would feel satisfaction to see someone get the death penalty, had they hurt one of my loved ones. Maybe in that very moment you would but long term I'm not so sure. I'd rather know they were in prison having to deal with all that, spending their days locked up with no freedom, day after day, year after year!

I always imagined the death penalty as a way to permanently remove the convict from society more than as a punishment. Maybe also as a deterrent (I know people claim deterrents don’t work but I haven’t seen much convincing argument only studies that compare across incomparable cultures). Like I said, it’s not a big deal to me, I’m not itching to see convicts killed. I just don’t buy the argument that prison is more ethical on a purely philosophical level.

Well I say that but I do believe flytipping should carry the death penalty.