Would you want capital punishment back?

[Mynameisnew]

There are people who do such vile things in this country and are jailed for a decade or two. Perhaps released for good behaviour a bit earlier.

Afaik CP was stopped amongst other reasons because there were a number of errors made and innocent people being convicted.

But these days with DNA proof or cases where it is on cctv /phone messages or has been admitted (thinking of Emma Tustin)

Would it not make a good deterrent? Even if one person is saved from being murdered...

I appreciate that in the USA people still commit murder, but they also have guns there which means a higher incidence of spur of the moment violence.

But a sustained campaign of abuse - would such an abuser as Tustin have been put off if CP was an option, even if very rarely used?

It's easy for me to say that I would be deterred, but I'm not a psychopathic and sadistic person so the issue is, it's hard to say if people like that would be put off such a crime. Perhaps it doesn't even enter their heads that it's wrong.

No because we are better than them. But we do need a long term facility for those not suitable for release into the public where they can live out their days, there's a community in Florida for ex offenders that seems to be a good idea though I don't know the details.

I don't think that prison is a deterrent for people like Arthur's killers.

I would prefer a medieval dungeon for them.

God no, never. Under no circumstances. Reasoning. Corruption. We might have DNA now but we will always have corruption too. The pressure that police forces are In to convince.....

Just a technical point, in British courts, whenever a verdict of "guilty" was given for a murder charge, the judge reached for the black cap. He had no choice but to sentence the prisoner to death. This relieved judges from any matters of conscience on that score. The question of whether someone actually did hang would depend on the family asking the Home Secretary to ask the Queen for clemency. At this stage, yes there is potential for unequal treatment.

That's very interesting (I mean that sincerely, not sarcastically!) but there are plenty of other opportunities for both inconsistencies and errors--in the investigation of crimes, who gets charged and with what, how effective their defense is (remember that some on death row in the USA were represented in court by solicitors who SLEPT through parts of the trial!), etc.

If not the death penalty then there should be hard labour for offences like this.

*convict

Civilised societies? Aztecs? Romans etc?

Seriously?
Human sacrifice, slavery, 'Damnatio ad bestias', crucifixion...

Sure as shit not my idea of civilised societies

@Mynameisnew

I also wonder what the instance of error would be now that we have DNA technology. And the Tustin and Hughes case is cut and dry - or is there a cause for doubt? He admitted it didn't he?

I think its very difficult for people to be clear sighted about this question when you are referencing a particular case that is current and has caused tremendous upset and outrage. A great many more people may feel comfortable about the people you are referencing being executed, on the wave of emotion that this case has aroused, and as you say, its cut and dried. But this is not the same as rationally supporting a return of the death penalty, when presented with all the arguments, and when it would be applied to other forms of murder as well as that of a child.

I have never been able to articulate my feelings and opinions on the subject. I just cannot make my mind up about it. I mean, on many levels.

Should they be punished by death, punished by being in prison for the rest of their lives? Which is worse, knowing you are going to die or knowing you are going to live your life out in misery? Then I think some of it is my fascination with what actually goes on during the act of being on death row and the time of death.

@Warmduscher you've wilfully misunderstood me, I said I didn't think it was right.

@Nat6999

If not the death penalty then there should be hard labour for offences like this.

How would you define hard labour? I have visions of chain gangs or Handmaid's tale colonies. I wouldn't want to go down that route?

[quote sqirrelfriends]@Warmduscher you've wilfully misunderstood me, I said I didn't think it was right.

[/quote]
But you did say you would “like” it:

I'd like for certain people to be tortured and murdered in the same way they tortured and murdered their victim.

@Warmduscher ... It's not right though, we can't reduce ourselves for murderers to feel a sense of revenge. The same for the death penalty, it might make people feel better but we're not a barbaric society.

Posting half a quote is an asshole thing to do

And I was talking about Arthur's murderers specifically. My point was- when feelings are running high and as much as it might seem like justice, it's still not right.

No never.

A society that sanctions murder, for whatever reason, is not a society I want to be part of.

The death penalty isn't a deterrent any more than prison is. I very much doubt that people who commit horrific crimes are weighing up the odds of what will happen when or if they're caught.

Life however, should mean life. There should be no come back from that.

Whether or not people feel that life in prison is not hard enough is irrelevant.

When you are dealing with the sort of evil people who killed that poor little boy you deprive them of their liberty and keep them in prison until they die. What purpose is served by killing them.

The death penalty is all about revenge and shouldn't be part of a civilised society.

@Nc123

Christ no, it’s barbaric. Let them suffer.

People saying that justice shouldn't be about revenge, and capital punishment is morally wrong... but then go on to hope that certain criminals suffer horrendously in prison?

@Mynameisnew

I also wonder what the instance of error would be now that we have DNA technology. And the Tustin and Hughes case is cut and dry - or is there a cause for doubt? He admitted it didn't he?

DNA evidence is certainly not infallible.

Absolutely not. The death penalty is not the mark of a civilised society at all. And now is not the time to have a reasoned debate about it.

People saying that justice shouldn't be about revenge, and capital punishment is morally wrong... but then go on to hope that certain criminals suffer horrendously in prison?

I somehow think they are two different groups of people!

No.
Killing people is wrong.

Taking @MorningStarling's argument in stages:

1. It doesn't matter that it's not much of a deterrent. The fact that murders still happen when capital punishment is available is not an argument against capital punishment. If it were, prisons should clearly be scrapped, community service got rid of and fines abolished, because those punishments don't seem to act as a deterrent either.

No, it probably doesn't: but many of its proponents put this forward as justification, so the facts need to be known.

2. It doesn't matter that it's useless for rehabilitation because by definition it removes any need for the criminal to be readied for reintroduction to society.

On that basis, let's just kill off all criminals, shall we, and remove the pesky rehab issue altogether?

What are you going to do about, say, mercy killers? Or the wrongfully convicted? Are they not worth of help and rehabilitation?

3. The criminal justice system isn't focused on revenge so it doesn't matter "it's not great" for it

I don't follow this one. Revenge shouldn't come into the sentencing system.

4. It's not always quick, depending on your definition of the term. Taking a few minutes to be strangled by hanging is quicker than being tortured over a prolonged period by the people who are supposed to care for you I suppose

And? How about being strangled as against living in confinement without being tortured? And have you ever thought about the mental torment of living through weeks or months of knowing that you are going to be taken out one morning and cold-bloodedly put to death and there is nothing you can do to prevent it?

5. You don't know that death is the end, there is plenty of unsubstantiated opinion that consciousness doesn't die when the body does.

This is utterly irrelevant.

6. Removing dangerous people from society is a good thing

And we can achieve that by locking them up.

@MurielSpriggs

People saying that justice shouldn't be about revenge, and capital punishment is morally wrong... but then go on to hope that certain criminals suffer horrendously in prison?

I somehow think they are two different groups of people!

I think that capital punishment is morally wrong and I also think that allowing prisoners to attack each other is also not right!

The punishment is loss of liberty, the effect is to keep dangerous people from doing further harm. Not to form a lawless violent vigilante mob attacking other criminals on our behalf.

It's amoral and doesn't work as a deterent, so no.

More of @MorningStarling's arguments:

7. Civilised societies have been killing their citizens since the first civilised society developed. The ancient Athenians and Romans were civilised societies, so were the Aztecs, so to a large degree is the USA today - but all kept the death penalty

Neither the Athenians nor the Romans could be described as civilised societies. The fact that a supposedly civilised society currently is resorting, in some states, to using the death penalty is a massive weakness in any claim to be civilised.

8. Capital punishment is significantly cheaper than keeping someone in prison for decades. It's about 44K per prisoner per year. An execution could be done for a fraction of that, I think I could do it for under 2K per criminal including disposal of the body, less if they have family who want to reclaim it.

On that basis, again, let's not bother with keeping alive people with long term illnesses, the seriously disabled, etc etc. Indeed, why keep any prisoners alive? It would be so much cheaper to kill them. Saving money can never be a justification for deliberate state killing.

9. "Collateral damage" - what do you mean? The fact that innocent people could be wrongly executed? Guess what, people are wrongly convicted already, sometimes having decades of their life taken away from them. Execution is just a natural extension of this miscarriage of justice.

We can release people from prison, we can pay damages as compensation for wrongful conviction. It's not ideal, but it's a hell of a lot better than killing them. Would you feel this relaxed about it if it was you or someone you loved who had been wrongfully convicted and was going to be hanged tomorrow morning?

10. Execution achieves all aims of punishment - the forfeiture of the offender's life. That is the ultimate punishment. Execution might not allow for rehabilitation but rehabilitation is not supposed to be "punishment" - it's supposed to help the offender.

So does life imprisonment achieve all aims of punishment for appropriate offences.

11. On moral, ethical and above all financial grounds, capital punishment is a step that is well worth taking

Deliberate, cold-blooded killing is never either moral or ethical, and finances are irrelevant.