AIBU to ask whether the death penalty should apply for certain crimes in the UK?

[PenelopeJoanSterling]

Because the topics got mixed up on my previous thread i thought id ask here, for certain types of crime in the uk, would you be either for or against the death penalty for certain crimes and why ?

Death row prisoners in Japan are executed with hours notice. They don't get told anything, and their family are only informed after they have been killed.
Not a place to be looking up to.

No it's a terrible idea, our justice system isn't good enough, some people still get wrongfully convicted and only exonerated years later, so the death penalty would risk murdering innocent people, which is exactly why we got rid of it in the first place.

no not ever. capital punishment is barbaric and has no place in a civilised society.
Mistakes can happen where people are put to death for things they didn’t do. no justice system is perfect.
Someone has to be the person to kill that other human being and that isn’t a job anyone should have to have.
It doesn’t work as a deterrent and in some cases it makes offenders commit worse crimes.

nope. never. and i will die on that hill.

People are convicted and then it’s quashed all the time. Look at Andrew Malkinson. Some of you on here would’ve happily seen him killed despite him being innocent

That lady whose sentence was reversed due to coercive control after she killed her husband. She'd have been hanged.

So two levels of guilty?

100% absolutely guilty - death
Probably guilty - locked away

Who determines that?

People are accepting a certain number of avoidable deaths CAUSED BY ACCIDENT. It's a very important distinction. There is no malice or intention in death caused by say, a car accident. If there is, or if there is negligence, the driver is punished. In your dog example, we mitigate against it by banning the most dangerous breeds, requiring muzzles on others, etc. And if someone breaks these laws, they are punished. But executing an innocent person wouldn't be an accident, it would be a deliberate act, carrying a terrified individual to a gallows or injecting them with poison. And how would you punish the government, or a jury, for killing an innocent man or woman afterwards?

So where can Lamy magic up the space from?

That's ok then as long as you are minimising killing people.

That's the point the errors have always been minimal, but under no circumstances should innocent people be getting killed when there is an alternative

Who decides guilt now? Although personally, I think the entire justice system could do with an overhaul.

Juries. Did you not know that?

If it can be foreseen (as it statistically can) that dog ownership will result in a non-zero number of infants and children (and adults) dying of dog attacks each year, is it really an accident? Or is it a deliberate choice made by the government, in the full knowledge that such a choice will result in deaths?

What, really, is the actual, material difference? In both cases, government action (or inaction) leads to the foreseeable, preventable deaths of innocent people. I don't see a material difference there? So why is one acceptable in your eyes, and the other isn't?

Right. You've answered your own question then.

Although personally I question the ability of an uneducated and easily swayed assortment of random people deciding someone's guilt, hence what I said about the justice system needing an overhaul.

A judge could decide whether or not the evidence and crime reaches a certain threshold to merit the death penalty, or the jury could, or even a separate panel after conviction. There are many options, which would all have to be looked at carefully if it ever became a possibility.

Resources should never be the reason someone lives or dies. If you believe in the death penalty for moral/ punishment/ revenge reasons then I can understand ( but disagree). But It can never come down to cost !

Very simply put, because there are benefits to dog ownership, but there are no benefits to the death penalty!

Of course there are benefits to it.

The executed criminal cannot commit any more crimes.

We do not have to pay to house and feed the executed criminal for many years, potentially their whole life.

Other criminals and potential criminals see or here about the criminal being executed and are dissuaded from committing crimes.

The main benefit of the death penalty is that you are removing violent and dangerous people from society permanently, so that not even prison guards have to deal with them anymore. It also saves money that could be better spent on supporting victims, and frees up prison space, and treats crimes with the gravity they deserve. I'm still not in favour of it practically speaking, but in principle, it has benefits.

I think it's strange that you think the merits of dog ownership are worth the deaths of as many as 20 innocent people in 2023 alone, when one could still own cats, rabbits, chinchillas, guinea pigs, or any other pet that isn't prone to killing people. A cat or other cuddly pet is surely just as good for people's mental and emotional health, without the risk of death.

So the government is deliberately allowing the preventable deaths of people, particularly the more vulnerable children and babies...because people like dogs. What a flimsy reason, really.

So the government is deliberately allowing the preventable deaths of people, particularly the more vulnerable children and babies...because people like dogs. What a flimsy reason, really.

So the government is murdering innocent men and women because some of the population think, "Well, mistakes happen". What a flimsy reason, really.

The executed criminal cannot commit any more crimes

Just like being incarcerated then.

We do not have to pay to house and feed the executed criminal for many years, potentially their whole life

No, instead, we'd have the ultimately far more costly legal process associated with Capital Punishment.

Other criminals and potential criminals see or here about the criminal being executed and are dissuaded from committing crimes

The problem here being that all the evidence shows Capital Punishment carries no deterrent factor whatsoever, and indeed, there is a suggestion it contributes to the severity of the crimes committed rather than pre-empting crime in the first place.

So tell me again about the "benefits"?

The main benefit of the death penalty is that you are removing violent and dangerous people from society permanently, so that not even prison guards have to deal with them anymore. It also saves money that could be better spent on supporting victims, and frees up prison space, and treats crimes with the gravity they deserve. I'm still not in favour of it practically speaking, but in principle, it has benefits

IT. DOES. NOT. SAVE. MONEY.

"and indeed, there is a suggestion it contributes to the severity of the crimes committed rather than pre-empting crime in the first place."

Indeed, it can foster the attitude of may as well get hanged for a sheep as well as a lamb ...

"t also saves money that could be better spent on supporting victims, and frees up prison space, and treats crimes with the gravity they deserve. "

why do you think it saves money? do you think execution is free?

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.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/policy/costs

Given that line of thinking, I assume you now think that dog ownership should be banned? It's the only logical conclusion, given what you've said.

And frankly, I think the occasional wrongful killing of an innocent adult in the pursuit of justice, and eliminating a sadistic murderer (for instance), is more justifiable than a baby getting brutally killed by a dog because some people think dogs are cute.

Yes, the death penalty as it currently stands is more expensive in the USA. It doesn't have to be, however.

All caps and random full stops aren't a persuasive argument. Or indeed, an argument at all.

Yes, it is currently more expensive in the USA. There's no inherent reason it has to be, however.