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?

But you need to acknowledge the world you actually live in.

There's no "probably" about it, by the time they came to trial the death penalty was well and truly abolished. My original point in mentioning them was that the existence of the death penalty at the time they started killing did not deter them one iota. The concept of the deterrent value of killing criminals is a myth.

No, being attacked is absolutely not part of prison life. If you're an 18 stone murderer with a powerful gang behind you, you are not going to be attacked. If you are in specific danger of being attacked, you will be kept separate from those likely to attack you. For sure prisons are violent places, but that is not the reason people are sent there, and frankly the Home Office should be doing much more to address this issue. Fortunately we now have a Prisons Minister who has the will to do so, so I hope he is given adequate resources for that purpose. The punishment is simply being deprived of liberty.

Cost me about £200 to have DDog pts. Vet and veterinary nurse came to the house. So shouldn’t cost much more for an inhumane criminal. Though I doubt anyone would have talked as kindly to him as they did to DDog.

He was in Broadmoor and had ongoing treatment for a severe and enduring mental health disorder.
I think we as a country have a responsibility to keep the public safe but also to be humane to people who have committed awful crimes.

Well as it stands we DO treat prisoners like this humanely. And that's how it's going to stay......

It's only on mumsnet that people type away they would do this or that, they wouldn't! They wouldn't get past the prison gate! Too scared!

The death penalty just isn't the cheap option you'd think it would be, it can drag on for a very long time - cut and pasted:

Why is the death penalty so expensive?

• Legal costs: Almost all people who face the death penalty cannot afford their own attorney. The state must assign public defenders or court-appointed lawyers to represent them (the accepted practice is to assign two lawyers), and pay for the costs of the prosecution as well.
• Pre-trial costs: Capital cases are far more complicated than non-capital cases and take longer to go to trial. Experts will probably be needed on forensic evidence, mental health, and the background and life history of the defendant. County taxpayers pick up the costs of added security and longer pre-trial detention.
• Jury selection: Because of the need to question jurors thoroughly on their views about the death penalty, jury selection in capital cases is much more time consuming and expensive.
• Trial: Death-penalty trials can last more than four times longer than non-capital trials, requiring juror and attorney compensation, in addition to court personnel and other related costs.
• Incarceration: Most death rows involve solitary confinement in a special facility. These require more security and other accommodations as the prisoners are kept for 23 hours a day in their cells.
• Appeals: To minimize mistakes, every prisoner is entitled to a series of appeals. The costs are borne at taxpayers’ expense. These appeals are essential because some inmates have come within hours of execution before evidence was uncovered proving their innocence.

In 2021, the average time between sentencing and execution was 233 months, which is more than 19 years.

£200.

Hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!

😂😂😂😂😂

Well I promise you the prison service cannot afford that!!

The idea of a harsher penalty being a deterrent for these kinds of criminals doesn't really make sense if you think about it. These aren't your average blokes logically weighing up whether to switch energy providers. Serial killers are typically driven by a deep compulsion to kill, and fantasise about the specific way they want to do it for years. It consumes their thoughts. They don't have rational reasons for and against it that we would be able to understand, so it's not like they'd think, "Well, I was going to go out and commit a heinous crime, but they've brought in the death sentence so I'll stay in and watch TV." Also, lots of them have delusions that they are too special or clever to be caught, or that it's somehow their duty to commit these crimes regardless of the consequences.

One positive result of the missed opportunities during the Ripper investigations is the development of the HOLMES computer system which allows all police forces to input data and seeks for connections. Back in the '80s each police force had boxes and boxes of information and thus things were missed. It wasn't all down to poor methods, the technology didn't exist.

I agree. That last point particularly rings true with the likes of Ian Brady, mentioned a fair bit on this thread. ‘King Ian’ as Emlyn Hughes puts it in his book about the murders. No way would he have been deterred by the DP.

Where did you find these figures, can you forward a link?

Did he get it?

What a constructive response. How would have given a shit if it turned out he wasn't the murderer?

@PassingStranger

Yeah....and you'd be happy for your kids to see those images all over the media....showing them what the government ,their government they live under,is capable of??

I think juries will be replaced by AI before long. Maybe judges too. It will make justice swifter and more cost efficient.

Don't be ridiculous. That will never happen.

We "let the system release offenders" in the same way you do. Are you stopping it? No. Because whether or not we believe in the DP, neither of us has the power as individuals to change the system.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone on either side of the argument who thinks we should just release violent offenders and send them on their merry way to reoffend.

How about the cost of multiple appeals?

If ever anything made it clear you know nothing about the law, that does.

I think the argument about the cost of prison is a good one to have, as is what we see the point of prison to be (rehabilitation? Punishment? Security for the public? All/a combination of these?). I would argue that different crimes should have different types of prison- someone like Sutcliffe, or men who murder their partners and/or children, sadistic torturers, sex offenders- should absolutely be away for punishment and public safety because as far as I know, those people are almost impossible to rehabilitate. We should throw away the key for them.

OTOH, someone who’s had the rough end of the stick all their life and has sort of wandered into crime might well be able to turn things around with the right support and education. Those people often bounce in and out of prison and never manage to go straight or be productive in society, but they might if the system were better, and that would save a lot of money.

Does anyone else know what I mean? Some people are truly evil and some are not. Perhaps we should have different facilities for them because the aim of their prison time would be different.

I don’t agree with the death penalty at all, for reasons given upthread.

10 million divided by 32 divided by 12 divided by 365 works out to 71 pounds a day. Bed and three meals, heating, medical expenses and possibly councillors. Cheap at half the price to keep him locked up. No price on freedom.

Let me take a wild guess what the source is…