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

Well, British law doesn't see it like that. That's the 'we' I suppose.

*and not "non conscious" lives

I agree that peadophiles do not stop committing their sick behaviour unless they are made to. If they are convicted they should be chemically castrated.

The abortion issue is a different law from the one that this thread discusses changing. Yes, you might well argue that consciousness begins earlier than 24weeks but currently British law behaves as if it doesn't. Therefore abortion is not ending a life in British law. So it isn't the same thing as what 'we' on this thread are discussing.

I agree that paedophiles are manipulative and that their paedophilia is likely to be largely incurable. I think sentencing should reflect that.
But I don’t agree with the death penalty for anyone. It’s barbaric and uncivilised.

@Krieger

No need to reintroduce the death penalty. Just lock them up along with the general prison population and let it be known what they are in there for. The natural order of the place will soon assert itself and we can enjoy the best of both worlds. No paedophiles, and the moral superiority of not having the death penalty on the statute books.

Really? So we covertly give the prison population the green light to murder anyone they choose to disapprove of? What happens then? Do we go all moralistic and charge and convict them for the murder we have sanctioned? Or do we turn a blind eye?

What if it turns out the person they killed is innocent? What if they don't restrict their ire to paedophiles and take it on themselves to murder any prisoner they decide they don't like? And what if that prisoner is you?

Child rape or murder should carry a whole life sentence with no parole. The offenders should have to be labelled in prison, no protection of a separate wing, chemical or surgical castration doesn't stop their sick minds, so locking them up permanently is the only answer.

So someone who is sick, should be publicly labelled as such and put in an environment where they are going to be allowed to be beaten or killed? Yes that's definitely a society I want to be a part of

Aren't most child abusers (not the porn industry) in this country family members. So, assuming that is correct, it would be harder to glean evidence against the family member if they would be executed as a result.

No. They might not be civilised people, but we are.

@Bluemoooon

Aren't most child abusers (not the porn industry) in this country family members. So, assuming that is correct, it would be harder to glean evidence against the family member if they would be executed as a result.

Very good point.

I was assaulted as a kid and teen by individuals related to my family, I stayed silent for many years (some still don't know) because of their link to me, there is absolutely NO WAY I would have spoken up if I knew they would be automatically found guilty and hanged.

The assault already brings me enough trauma and misplaced guilt without having to deal with the mental load of being behind the murder/hanging of a relative.

A lot of parents abuse their children, how do you expect kids to speak up if it means that they will sign their parent's death certificate. Condemning your own parents/relative to death (directly or indirectly) is something no one should have to do, let alone a child who has just been raped and/or assaulted.

The fact that you (OP) work for the system and cannot seem to see how problematic it would be and how detrimental it would be to the victims, and actually dared bringing abortion as a comparison point makes me thoroughly worry for the people you are responsible for (in fact I am thoroughly hoping, you aren't responsible for anyone).

You are making pedophilia about YOU, OP. It's not about YOU. It's not about how YOU feel about pedophilia nor what YOU think should happen to the author of those crimes. It's about the Victims, whose struggles and unnecessary mental load your ''solution'' would bring and add to, you seem to conveniently ignore in your quest to promote what you believe is the right way to deal with sexual abusers.

I don't know who should pick what's right, maybe the victims? Maybe not.

But as a victim, I wouldn't want the people who did this to me to be hanged. They hurt me and I hate them, and sometimes I did wish them dead and/or horrible things, but now I am an adult, I don't think I would be able to live with myself if they had been hanged. I have learned to forgive and while I don't necessarily think they should roam free (as they are), I would be happy with castration and a custodial sentence.

No matter the sentencing, death or not, it won't heal me, it won't give me back what they did to me, and what I lost at their hand and in recovering, the death penalty would make YOU feel better OP, not me (and visibly not a lot of other victims either).

I understand that you feel a certain type of way because you are confronted to the perpetrators rather than the victims, and I agree most won't change, but people who have been victims, understand that it is more complex than that, by wanting to do what's right on our behalf, you would be adding our names to something we do not necessarily stand for.

Also, if you really want to use things that have been historically acceptable as a way to justify the death penalty, then acknowledging that having sex with and marrying kids and young teenagers was the norm during most of human history until fairly recently is probably worth noting and could be served for them as a defense that pedophilia might be more innate than we believe and used to reduce their sentencing (not agreeing with this necessarily at all, just pointing out why, nit-picking history to make an argument while ignoring other relevant part is a flawed way of making a point).

@Nat6999

Child rape or murder should carry a whole life sentence with no parole. The offenders should have to be labelled in prison, no protection of a separate wing, chemical or surgical castration doesn't stop their sick minds, so locking them up permanently is the only answer.

Why no protection? Prisons have a legal duty to keep prisoners safe: the punishment is loss of liberty, not being in daily danger of attack from other inmates. If you think it's fine for prisoners to be given carte blanche to attack prisoners they disapprove of, where do you draw the limits?

No, I believe there would be a floodgates issue. Also the Stefan Kiszko case as pp said, and other miscarriages of justice should be enough reason why we cannot put people out to death. Fact is that the standard of proof is "beyond all reasonable doubt" it isn't 100%. Getting that wrong even once leads to tragic consequences.

No matter the sentencing, death or not, it won't heal me, it won't give me back what they did to me, and what I lost at their hand and in recovering, the death penalty would make YOU feel better OP, not me (and visibly not a lot of other victims either).

This is very true. My F is still in my head 22 years after his death, and I have PTSD. It really doesn't end the pain of the victims.

Someone already had this radio sitcom idea: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/capital/id1261760422

Sorry, that’s a flippant response to a serious issue. What I mean is that this idea is simplistic and stupid - the risk of killing one personal wrongly is a risk too high.