The Yorkshire Ripper question?

[PassingStranger]

Just read that it cost the taxpayer 11 billion to keep him alive including his funeral?
Do you still feel the same way about him being hung for his murders?

is it acceptable to the taxpayer to pay that much, when there are so many other things that the money could have been spent on, or dosent the money matter?

Don't keep on them death row for years. Find them guilty, they get walked out back directly to a guillotine and it's over and done with. No messing about and no endless "appeals".

£1000 a month on luxuries is ridiculous. Most law-abiding, working people don't have anything near that amount to spend on luxuries.

Since 1992, the Innocence Project have secured the freedom of over 200 wrongfully convicted people in the US, many of whom were on Death Row.

One study has suggested that at least 4% of those sentenced to death in the US are innocent.

OK, so who defines "evil people" and how do we make sure we're correct that someone is evil and not innocent? And what makes it evil for someone to kill people, but not evil for others to kill them? Seems a slippery slope to me to have people in charge determining who gets to live and who gets to die..

I think you are being deliberately goady

I work in a prison and would not be part of this, neither would any officer I work with

You do realise they aren't just given that amount to spend, right? It's transferred to them by family/friends on the outside, or earned through working.

Who would volunteer for the job as hangman or to chop heads off using the guillotine? Basically the sort of sick people you wouldn't want anywhere near the job.

The death penalty is barbaric and has no place in a civilised society.

Capital punishment had all but finished by then, it was suspended in 1965 then abolished in 1969, the last hanging was in 1964.

For me it's really clear cut. I'd pay anything not to have the death penalty. And I want to have a society that values human life enough that we even treat the worst of us in a fair and dignified way because I think the alternative is much worse for everyone.

The death sentence isn't free. They don't just take them from the dock to the gallows and Jack Ketch does the business in return for the dead man's boots. A person sentenced to death spends years in prison while every possible appeal channel is exhausted at tremendous cost to the public purse. I don't have a figure, though I suppose a look at US costs for death row prisoners would give a guide.

He should not have cost that much - what is the break down of the 10 million?

Society is also what the rest of us have to live in, and I want to live in a civilised society. One where the state doesn't execute people. Even if you don't care about the rights of prisoners, don't you value your own humanity?

And, as most criminals are eventually released from prison. I'd rather they were rehabilitated if at all possible. Which involves treating them like the human beings they are.

If you spend years treating someone like they're a monster, that's what they'll become.

Would you be happy about killing innocent people? Because that is what would inevitably happen.

But there was doubt in this case. He admitted to the killings but there was a major issue as to his sanity. When we had the death penalty, we didn't apply it to the insane, and the same would have to apply if we brought it back.

If you think life prisoners are housed in luxury, you have a very odd idea of what constitutes luxury.

Do you want to be employed to guard violent people who are left bored out of their minds?

They don't have endless free access to Legal Aid. HTH.

I've spent quite a lot of time on prison wings. I've yet to see any luxury.

You think that is what should have happened to Stefan Kiszko, Stephen Downing, Angela Canning, Sally Clark? Why do you want the state to kill innocent people?

They started killing in 1963. So the existence of the death penalty didn't stop them.

The proposed topic doesn't even make sense. If you mean "a part of" then what are you advocating? Should we be killing or locking up everyone convicted of a criminal offence, no matter how minor?

It's an article about the desperately flawed and sexist police investigation into the crimes. Their ineptitude and stone age attitudes to women left a murderer free to attack further victims, leaving little children without their mothers. Do you take issue with it?

11 billion? don't be ridiculous, that's the GDP os a small country

Point is, if you sentence someone to death, they can spend 20-30 years waiting for execution while appeals, etc, are undertaken. During that time, you would spend as much as you would if you were merely keeping them in a cell for a life sentence. And the state pays for the funeral either way
So, the economic argument for the death penalty doesn't stack up, not matter how badly you would like it to