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 ?

thats down to the system not me, i only hope theres min errors made

Rather tone deaf given the pardon of Ruth Ellis in the last week.

firstly my apologiesi didnt know

So what's an acceptable level of innocent people being killed then? 1 in 10? 1 in 100? Or do you just not care? Given there is absolutely no way to make sure every single jury in every single case comes to the correct decision around guilt & innocent.

then thats down to the juries to study the case and come to the correct decisions and analysis ?

That's a big prison!

I sympathise with the desire to 'get rid of' especially harmful individuals. However, we're actually talking about murdering them. I don't feel I want to be part of a society that ritually murders people it doesn't like - and that's without the extremely persuasive factor of incorrect convictions.

People are sometimes sentenced with 'no reprieve', which seems good enough to me. I'd like us to spend more on prisons and prison services, taking into account all the recommendations HMP keeps making despite knowing they'll be shelved.

Even one error is too many. And if someone has been executed then what?

For many people, and I'm one, the "mistake" aspect is irrelevant. I'm morally opposed to killing people. Killing people is murder and we have laws against murder therefore we shouldn't do it. It's just wrong.

We don't live in the medieval period. We are, in this country anyway, civilised.

No. Never.

1. Miscarriages of justice do happen and the death penalty is irreversible once an innocent life has been taken.

2. The state should never have the right to murder its own citizens. I certainly wouldn't trust them with that.

I can't imagine anything you could say or do that would change my mind on that.

But no jury is infallible because people are not infallible. What if they get it wrong and an innocent person is executed?

then thats a risk of their decisions

Ah so you're just trolling then, no worries.

Well if I was on a jury I would not find anyone guilty if the death penalty was on the table because I am morally opposed to it.

its a logical response to a question being asked how is that trolling ? or did you want me to lie and not be logical ?

No, because of miscarriages of justice and its simply not fair on the staff who have to carry out the execution. It traumatised them . However, I also think that if a parent happens to catch a perp in the act of raping their underage child or kills the person who committed a heinous act against their child it should be tried as unlawful killing with mitigation and they should never have to serve jail time.

No, you're just posting to make people angry. I think you should go away and do a bit more research on the death penalty rather than make uninformed arguments on a forum that basically amount to "I'm right and I don't care to learn any different because reasons."

No.

It's State sanctioned murder.

Just no.

i original posted the question as part of democracy, and based on my previous thread, where i got mixed up.

besides how is it my fault if the public get angry ? what happened to reason and wisdom and knowledge and debating ? i thought humaity was better than that oh cannot discuss x topics people get angry

I strongly disagree with the death penalty. Yes there are certain crimes that make me wish death upon the perpetrator, but that’s why there needs to be sense and logic rather than emotion when it comes to punishment. The fact that I’m angry about a particular crime is the very reason my opinion on a suitable punishment should be disregarded. Aside from the much mentioned possibility of killing an innocent person, there is also the fact that it’s hypocritical. You took a life, therefore I will take yours. Making me just as bad as you.

And probably partially the reason we have so many terrorists. I'd imagine your family getting droned by a Western country as "collateral damage" in your country whilst minding your business probably makes a fair few folk want to join the cause of whichever group is offering a go at that country.

Instead of the death penalty we should build super max prisons for any prisoner who is serving a whole life order & is a danger to either inmates or officers, one attack or any violence & off they go, where prison officers while managing the inmates do not come into direct contact so they can't be attacked or injured, there must always be at least a gate between the inmate & officer & if a prisoner has to be moved they must be shackled or cuffed by means of a hatch in the locked cell door where the prisoner puts their hands through to be cuffed before the door is unlocked. At the moment there is no deterrent for someone serving a whole life order, they have nothing to lose. Don't let the prisoners have contact with each other, put meals through the hatch, no contact with the outside wall, no letters, phone calls or visits & a basic regime, no televisions, radios etc, make the rest of their life a living hell.

You mean all of that, which still results in an estimated 4-6% of the entire US prison population being innocent?

It is not cheaper to run a proper actual system that has at least some chance of stopping miscarriages, and it will still have them so cost is not a factor.

As for deterrent, some quotes from one of last executioners in Britain, who knew a bit about it;

"I do not now believe that any one of the hundreds of executions I carried out has in any way acted as a deterrent against future murder. Capital punishment, in my view, achieved nothing except revenge."

"If death were a deterrent, I might be expected to know. It is I who have faced them last, young men and girls, working men, grandmothers. I have been amazed to see the courage with which they take that walk into the unknown. It did not deter them then, and it had not deterred them when they committed what they were convicted for. All the men and women whom I have faced at that final moment convince me that in what I have done I have not prevented a single murder. And if death does not work to deter one person, it should not be held to deter any."

I do wonder if people who say yes, would be happy to put their "money where their mouth is", and accept that all of them are put into a lottery to be chosen to be executed if any innocent person ever gets killed because they wanted the death penalty and supported it.

We've debated this ad nauseam over the years op. If you want to be properly informed go to law school and do the miscarriage of justice module. Lots of universities do them. It was abolished for a variety of reasons not least because it doesn't work. Anyone saying miscarriages of justice don't happen are ignorant of our criminal law system. Witnesses are not always accurate and DNA is not always present. Democracy in this country already decided we don't want executions anymore as they're costly and don't work. Feelings should not come into what would inevitably become a massive cost drain on our country for no purpose.

See I genuinely find this really interesting because like many people there are crimes for which I desire the perpetrators to suffer a punishment - and a punishment which they feel.

But. The US has supermax prisons AND the death penalty - it doesn't deter anything.

When you actually read into it, what does reduce offending and recidivism is prevention in the community (a strong welfare & education system, hope & aspiration) and a progressive rehabilitive approach like in Scandinavia. But can you imagine the uproar if a political party tried to introduce it in the UK?

We need to be less like the US and other highly punitive States and more like Norway...Even though I do believe some murderers and all rapists & pedophiles ought to be locked up for life.

The death penalty:

• costs innocent people's lives;
• is financially more costly than keeping prisoners alive.

There's just no good argument for it.