This is why we should bring back the death penalty

[bluewanda]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14918815/drug-addicted-cross-dresser-abused-lover-murder-son-hospital-ward.html

(One example of many.)

Maybe there is no meaningful justice for those terrible crimes. People seem to think that taking the life of the perpetrator is somehow soothing. And maybe for some it is, but for many it makes no difference at all. It doesn’t bring back the person or take away the pain, and it doesn’t stop it from happening again.

There are usually many warning signs and missed opportunities. Much better - in my view - to put energy and resources into preventing terrible crimes than executing perpetrators after the fact.

Are you saying the only “meaningful justice” is the death penalty?

But isn't what we call Justice/Retribution a form of 'revenge'? We expect people to pay in some way for the crimes they commit. What useful discussion can we have about the type of person who commits the crime cited in the OP?

In those cases yes, that's the conclusion I've come to.

Surely the justice system is multifaceted. Keeping the public safe, punishment, deterrent and hopefully, rehabilitation.

Instead of a knee jerk reaction about killing people, the case involved a domestic abuser with a history of violence and social services were involved. He was aggressively intimidating the nurses and no one stopped him. It doesn't seem as though the baby was given proper protection given the circumstances. Perhaps a discussion should centre VAWAG.

Useful discussion would involve looking at what led to this person getting to this point in their lives, what interventions failed, what interventions were needed but unavailable etc. Learning from people who do awful things is crucial to preventing others from doing the same. It also means holding to account statutory and in some cases voluntary services to account as well as our government who is underfunding both.

The punishment is loss of liberty but to me the role of the justice system is more than that - it's also about public safety and public order, but also in some cases where its appropriate-rehabilitation and working towards the prevention of reoffending.

It's not purely revenge which is why families don't set the sentencing of someone who's harmed a loved one nor do victims. It needs to be just in a wider societal context and that also means in the context of the possibility of miscarriages of justice. Or in the context where someone has been harmed and traumatised to such an extent they become harmful themselves.

Plus of course, the impact on others - for example impact on the safety and wellbeing of prison staff. The children and family of the offender who are perhaps all innocent. The impact on a would be executioner of actually carrying out that work. The context of racism etc within policing and the justice system.

It's also a slippery slope in my mind, if you introduce capital punishment for the worst crimes, there will still always be people who push for it to be used more frequently for other types of crimes.

But equally and oppositely when Capital Punishment was abandoned I assume (since presumably none of us was around at the time?) that the public expected those people who would have got the death penalty to then be sentenced to Life. That's not what's happening now, time after time I see horrific crimes being given far too lenient sentences which just makes people lose faith in the system.

Well there’s no room on our prisons for lengthy sentences and there’s definitely no money for much in the way of improvements

build new prisons? Hmm yes, but who will work in them. We are massively short staffed

The law-abiding public deserve to be safe and not to have to pay through the nose to keep prisoners alive and docile/entertained in relative luxury in prison. People talk about rehabilitation and the recidivism rate. Well criminals put to death have a recidivism rate of 0.0%. Crime has increased exponentially since the death sentence was abolished in this country. It's time we had a referendum about the death sentence. If the public wants it, the public should get it, we do live in a democracy after all.

You still fail to consider people who are actually innocent or the proven significant impact on prison officers or those who would end up involved in the execution process. In fact in multiple threads you've repeated ignored the input of anyone working directly with prisoners detailing how it would make things significantly worse/ increasingly unsafe for them doing their jobs.

The only part of the argument you seem in any way concerned with is removing violent criminals from our streets permanently, which I can understand the need for- but no other context.

The ‘law-abiding public’ might not want the death penalty. Just a few of you

waste of resources for a referendum which if it was successful would see majority of prison staff refuse to be involved. What you gonna do then OONA?

so so many prisoners have ADHD/autism/hidden disability/anxiety /mental health issues

the sons of mumsnetters maybe?

we still going down that route OONA??

Hire new staff?

Anyone old enough to remember 1964 is old enough to remember when we still
had it, including my parents who are in their early 70s.

The reason it was got rid of wasn’t because it was felt that it was inhumane or
that murderers didn’t deserve it, it was purely because there had been a number of
miscarriages of justice in the 50s and 60s where innocent people had been hanged.

It’s like abortion- it wasn’t permitted in 1967 because everyone believed that a woman had a right to choose- it was to stop desperate women killing themselves through backstreet abortions.

Nobody wants to work in prisons….read the thread! We are short staffed beyond belief

so where are you hiring from??

Whole life sentences were introduced in 2003, not after abolition. The system after abolition was that people went to prison and at a certain point the Home Secretary would say ‘oh you’re safe to be released now’. Very limited probation supervision, no tagging. The time served in prison on life sentences has doubled in the last 15 years.

I wonder what you think exponentially means.

61% of people who voted on the thread think bringing back the death penalty is unreasonable.

double posted due to rubbish signal!

Whole Life orders were introduced in 1983. Not after abolition, that's true, but then I didn't say they were - I said it was probably the expectation of the public that people who would previously have been executed would now be jailed for life-meaning-life.

If 39% of Mumsnetters want to bring it back, the percentage of the general population would be much, much higher.

That would be 39% of MNers who voted, not all the MNers that there are.

Hahah, why??

WLOs came in in 2003, Home Secretaries had the power from 1983 but in practice always did because the decision to release sat with them alone. How could that have been the expectation of the public when that wasn’t the law? You’re probably correct that some people thought that, just like some people now don’t understand how the law operates. But I’m not sure where that takes the debate.

Why do you keep repeating the same knee-jerk inflammatory statements without addressing the very valid points which have been put to you throughout this thread?

Do you seriously want to be at risk of being summarily put to death just because someone has erroneously accused you of shoplifting a can of beans? Because that is what you are advocating for.