Surely ALL murder is bad???

[pfer]

Heard on radio 2 a short while ago some bloke saying that race crime/murder should carry harsher sentencing than other murders. Why? What about that poor gay bloke who was beaten to death the other month because he was gay, is he any less important a human being than anyone else? Surely all premeditated / cold blooded murder should be treated the same?

I heard on the news earlier that thay had had extra years added because it was a racist murder.

Ok, extra years added to a life sentence. LIFE sentence, how do you add years on if they meant to be in prison for life???

I thought life was meant to mean life nowadays.

It an effin' joke!

A life sentence does not necessarily mean that a person is in prison for life. the life aspect refers to their license after release. They are on liense for life, which means if they step out of line or breach any of their license conditions they can be arrested again and brought back to prison on "breach of license" or "license recall".

I know, hula. Dh used to be a prison officer but it's still a joke IMO

I know, hula. Dh used to be a prison officer but it's still a joke IMO

I agree.

17 yrs and 23 yrs
they are young men they'll be out before they are 40 will still be able to have children
Makes me ill....
feel this way about many killers tbh, the racial element makes it seem so much more unfathomable

Someone once told me it's the same for unfair dismissal, if a company is found to have dismissed someone unfairly based on race then the amount is unlimited, but if it's found guilty of unfair dismissal for any other reason there is a cap on the amount.....

In the press, I think two issues get mixed up. Of course a life is a life and senseless murder is senseless murder. But it is also important to know how prevalent racism still is, and what a serious social probelm it is - for everybody. So, perhaps in a racist murder, two strong sets of facts get intertwangled.
I didn't know that it made a difference within the justice system.

to take a human life whether what color, age height etc is wrong
human life is no longer treated with much respect in courts only the high profile media cases seem to have higher sentencing.

blu is right - that a lot of this entangles two things racism and murder. But there is a logic to paying heed to motives. Discriminatory hatred(whether on the basis of gender, sexuality or race) provides a logic, some sort of cohesion an ill-judged one - but, to some minds, it is still a kind of logic. It is therefore a lot more frightening - and dangerous - to society than entirely random acts of hatred. It's difficult to recruit people to an entirely random form of hatred. It is not, unfortunately quite so difficult to recruit people to a hatred that has some form of basis(again, if ill-judged. Think about history. I am not sure if this means we need to treat it differently in teh criminal justice system, but we do, at least, need to think about it differently - simply because it is different. Which in no way means that any life is worth any more or less than any anotehr

Message withdrawn

Interesting Hatstand, and the only possible justification I can see for having different sentences for the same crime with different motives.

I still think that the law should not police thought though, only action. And if they are going to police motives when it comes to a systemised logic like racism, then it can't be right not to police other systemised motives, like sexism, homophobia, anti-semitism, age-ism, etc.

what about the man who is currently on trial for murdering his son?

Depends on the verdict Twig!

And that's where there's this grey area where mercy killing (if that's what it was) isn't recognised in law, because it's still defined as murder, not manslaughter or something else.

twiglett premeditation is a key factor

but in 'mercy killing' there is premeditation surely?

Hatstand - yes, I think your point is a v important one.