To suggest a campaign for a referendum on the death penalty for child abusers?

[TheVoiceOfReasonableness]

I’m a professional (I’m not going to reveal my capacity as it could be too outing) but let’s just say it is within the criminal justice system.

I have been involved with many cases of historic child abuse and child abuse images.

Although I could never voice this opinion publicly, because of my job, I really do think that we ought to consider the death penalty for child abusers.

The problem is, they can’t be cured.

The courses and “treatment” programmes that exist both inside and out of prison are geared towards “minimising risk” of committing further offences and are designed to give paedophiles “strategies” for avoiding “risky situations”. These only work if the paedophile is actually motivated not to hurt children.

The problem is paedophiles are extremely manipulative and are often quite intelligent.

They know what the offender manager (the modern term for a Probation Officer) wants to hear and may be saying all the right things while secretly still believing that there is nothing wrong with what they do.

The death penalty for child rape can easily be justified in my opinion. Arguably it is a worse crime than murder as the victim has to
live with the trauma of what has been done to them and it really does ruin lives permanently.

Now that we have left the EU (I voted remain, but every cloud has a silver lining...) bringing back the death penalty would be just as easy as having another referendum then passing legislation if the majority of the public want it.

We need not go down the American route of spending decades on death row- before we abolished it in the UK in the 1960s you got two appeals and that was it.

As for method- we had the quickest method with hanging and it would be all over in less than 15 seconds. There was no ceremony or last words, your cell was next door to the gallows you would be taken straight through- rope round neck, trapdoor opens, instant death from a broken neck.

Zero reoffending rate.

As for it being in humane and the right to life- innocent people including children die horribly from diseases like cancer all the time. 40,000 have died horribly from Coronavirus. I don’t think snapping the neck of a murderer or rapist who has abused a child to kill them instantly is that horrific TBH

Knocking off a few child rapists, psychopaths etc who are likely to continue to hurt people if they ever get out (which with our ridiculous sentencing is not impossible, esp the child rapists) is not a bad thing

We disagree. Nor are capital punishment and abortion remotely comparable.

It is a punishment that existed from the dawn of time
TheVoiceOfReasonableness, trying to understand your argument here, are you saying that the desire for the death penalty is an expression of a deep human need and we should honour that?

The death penalty is never justifiable, for any crime. Life in prison is a worse punishment.

We disagree. Nor are capital punishment and abortion remotely comparable.

They're both ending a life, which you said you think we should never ever do (even to people guilty of heinous crimes), and that you'd leave the country if capital punishment were ever to be reintroduced. So I find it a bit ironic you feel no such compunction to leave when other lives are being ended in their thousands (of potential people not guilty of heinous crimes).

I'm not anti-abortion btw and not trying to derail .. I just find your principles ironic in the sane way I find the poster who said his could we be ok with executioners walking among us, while members of our armed forces, who end lives under state sanction way, walk among us, contradictory and ironic.

*how could we be ok

They're both ending a life, which you said you think we should never ever do

I didn’t say that. I said state sponsored killing is wrong.

I suggest you change your username. It’s a total misnomer. Might I suggest TheVoiceOfBarbarity instead? Or TheVoiceOfTheDarkAges?

No. I said how are we happy with people who can kill without compunction walking among us. You said such people exist. If you think soldiers etc are such people you are wrong and the conditions under which they kill are entirely different.

Abortion and the death penalty are not directly comparable because we are talking about ending conscious lives and as a state we have decided that conscious life begins somewhere around week 24 of pregnancy.

Referenda work as a way of asking a binary, simple question with no nuance and where the people voting have adequate, accurate information about each option and its potential consequences. So basically they never work. Parliamentary democracy is flawed too but it deals better with nuance.

No. I said how are we happy with people who can kill without compunction walking among us. You said such people exist.

You first asked on what I based my opinion that some people exist who are suited to being executioners and I gave you an example of a well known one.

If you think soldiers etc are such people you are wrong and the conditions under which they kill are entirely different.

If you think the conditions under which members of the armed forces, particularly the special forces kill people - are always diametrically different from those of executioners, you're being naive. They kill people under a wife variety of conditions, some not incomparable to executioners.

because we are talking about ending conscious lives

Was that at the top of the thread or what?

You've decided to differentiate between conscious and "unconscious" lives .. that's up to you.

Why is it worse to end a conscious life (of a person who's committed a heinous crime) than the unconscious life of a potential person who's committed no crime?

A person after 24 weeks gestation is considered conscious. That's why the abortion laws have a dates aspect.

I don't know why you think I should take your expertise in the characters of either well known executioners or members of the armed forces. If you are indeed right and there are people who can kill and remain unaffected by having to do so then yes, I am unhappy about staying space with them actually.

Why is it worse to end a conscious life (of a person who's committed a heinous crime) than the unconscious life of a potential person who's committed no crime?

I'm not saying it is. I'm saying that's not the conversation we're having.

I said state sponsored killing is wrong.

What the armed forces do (when "necessary") is state sponsored killing - why haven't you left the country over that?

@GilbertMarkham

I said state sponsored killing is wrong.

What the armed forces do (when "necessary") is state sponsored killing - why haven't you left the country over that?

I'm sure there are many situations in which I would find state sponsored killing by the armed forces unacceptable but the State Secrets Act forbids me from hearing about them. Killing in war has a whole different set of laws attached to it and arguably a different set of morals - a much more pragmatic set than can or should be applied in civilian life.

I don't know why you think I should take your expertise in the characters of either well known executioners

I don't!

You asked what I based my opinion on re. thinking there are individuals who appear suited to being executioners abdbu have you an example of such an individual. That doesn't require "expertise", just some basic reading around whether they appear to have been affected adversely by their work ; which the one I've mentioned off the top of my head, did not seem to be. He certainly could have stopped and taken another job but he didn't , he continued well into double figures.

If you want to look into his case or any other executioners and come back argue, feel free. You're not doing that, you're just saying "why would I believe you?" after saying you doubted such people exist.

or members of the armed forces

I base that on knowing people in the armed forces, and also on reading re. The special forces (biographies etc).

But again : you're just saying "why should I believe you?", You're not anything that backs up a case to the contrary. So it's "I'll doubt you about and argue with you about a,b and c but I won't actually look into or present any info. as to why I think you're wrong".

You said I'm naive to think that armed forces killings and state executions are much different. In my reading on the subject and among the army officers I know I have not come across anything to suggest I am naive on that point. It was your superior tone I was objecting to.

To be fair I have not read much about the character of executioners so I suppose you have a point. But I don't think we should base our criminal justice system on the assumption that there are enough people who can kill and be mentally unaffected by it to do the job.

Killing in war has a whole different set of laws attached to it and arguably a different set of morals

Our involvement in the invasion of Iraq is widely considered not to have been necessary "war" yet our armed forces killed there under state sponsored mandate, if that's the right word.. did you feel like leaving the country then - if you feel so strongly about "murder" and what made you not leave?

But I don't think we should base our criminal justice system on the assumption that there are enough people who can kill and be mentally unaffected by it to do the job.

Noone said we should - that's extremely cart-horse. The issue of the availability and effect on executioners was raised as a by product of the debate around the rights and wrongs of executing those convicted of child sex offencrs etc.

I never said the thing about leaving the country actually. But for what it's worth I thought it was pretty disgusting.

I'm not a fan of state sponsored killing in wars either in fact, but I'm not stupid enough to think that's a pragmatic approach to law making.

I am also a senior professional in the CJS. Anyone that really works in this field would know that this is unethical and unworkable.
They also be aware of the number of miscarriages of justice, and the unlikelihood of any referendum ever getting off the ground.

I haven’t RTFT but I don’t agree with the death penalty for any reason.

That being said I think anyone who sexually abuses a child should be imprisoned for life and I feel the same way about sexual predators who target adults. I just don’t think they are safe to be in society. Sexual offenders have woefully inadequate sentences, if they get a sentence at all. I’ve seen rapists and paedophiles get community service! 3 years for routinely raping a child from the age of six! Very few offenders have to sign the register for life. Some barbaric offenders have their slate wiped clean within five years. They are free to date women with children with no repercussions. I’ve had to watch a paedophile who got teenagers pregnant repeatedly, abused his own children and isn’t allowed contact with them, play Daddy Warbucks in an Am-dram production of Annie. I only knew about his history because of my line of work. He moved to this town and people ADORE him and have no idea of his past. When I approached the powers that be over him being in the show I was told I could be charged with harassment and that he has the human right to privacy and a life. WTAF? A man who was abusing girls when he was in his 50s? Who abused 12 of his own kids and their mothers? I wasn’t allowed to inform the parents of the children in the production or the director.

Who thinks these sentences up? I don’t mind paying tax to keep them behind bars for life. Their poor victims have to live with the consequences for life. It would be money well spent imo.

I think that the act of killing people is pretty corrupting and if there are people who don't mind doing it they should be the last to do so, because it demeans the seriousness of the act.

But then I don't and probably will never agree with the death penalty. It is morally wrong to kill. Doing so as retribution makes the state that does it wrong and as bad as the act they punish. That doesn't mean I think child abuse is not a heinous crime - it's not the abuser I care about in this equation, it's the society doing the punishing.

I'm saying that's not the conversation we're having

Who's we?

You've decided the debate should include "conscious" lives (of convicted criminals of child sex crimes etc) and "not conscious" lives, not me. Some may see it as; they're all lives and it's all ending a life.