Does anyone else think the death penalty is being subtly made more thinkable?

[WhizzBangCaligula]

Or perhaps unsubtly?

There have been a few cases recently of horrific murders, some involving the torture of victims beforehand. When you read the news reports on sentencing, they always say the murderer will be eligible for parole in 17 years, or 25 years or whatever.

Most people think life should mean life or at least as much of life as possible, like till 80. When MP's in the 60's voted for the abolition of the death penalty (against the will of the majority of voters) it was on the understanding that dangerous sadistic murderers would stay in prison until they were either very old men (usually men) or they died there. It was not on the understanding that a 29 year old would be sent to prison for torture and murder, and know that they would be let out at the age of 54, when they could still have a chance of a relatively normal life in the community, or indeed still be young enough to commit the same sort of horrible crime.

If someone asks me "what would you prefer? A life sentence or the death penalty for those people who killed that 15 year old/ that poor teenage girl who was raped, tortured, burned and murdered/ all those other victims who suffered horrifically and who will never have birthdays again?" I'd say life because I don't believe in the death penalty. (Sally Clarke and Angela Cannings could be dead now if we had it.) But if they asked if I'd prefer 25 years or the death penalty, then I'd say the death penalty frankly, because 25 years for having taken someone's life and hope and future and made them face death in agony and terror and put their friends and relatives through the anguish of that kind of loss seems shockingly frivolous to me - immoral in fact. And it seems to me that the authorities are deliberately making the death penalty more attractive by having these laughable sentences.

Am I just getting old and fearful or have I spotted a plot to butter us all up so that we'll find the re-introduction of the death penalty acceptable? Is this happening in other European countries (at the moment you can't be a member of the EU if you have the death penalty, but that could change)? Or is it just that it costs too much to keep brutal murderers in prison? Why doesn't life mean life? Why is the need for justice not being met, leading people to conclude that the death penalty needs to be re-introduced? I've met loads of people recently who have been life-long opponents of the death penalty but have changed their minds as a result of a few of these cases and the knowledge that the murderers will be out in their 40's and 50's (in some cases, even in their 30's)

Oh and I know the prison service is awful and prison needs reform, but this is about sentencing.

am I the one being referred to as a 'nob'ess?

I know she's dead but she served a life sentence and he's still serving.

Good. My query is why not others?

I think others are too. Their crimes were very rare (thank god) so there aren't lots of them to compare to.

Do you think Rose West will be getting out any time soon? Dennis Nilsson (sp?) was in the papers recently after admitting to another crime. He's not going anywhere. Also Robert Black, another child killer who will never be released.

Is he still alive? I don't know why, I had him down as dead.

I half think the parole system should be abolished tbh. I read somewhere that it distorts the sentencing, because a judge will sentence bearing the parole eligibility in mind. And so for innocent prisoners (and I'm sure there are a fair few of them, I don't really have much faith in the police and CJ system) who refuse to admit guilt, they serve much longer than they would have done if the judge hadn't been taking parole possibility into account. Apparantly htough, they couldn't run the prison system without it.

Parole = incentive

Also at the moment with the crisis in prison numbers, it wouldn't be possible not to have parole.

really interesting, and enlightening article from BBC

the public may not be so naffed off if Judges didn't give 'life' sentences but merely a tariff iykwim?

But the sentence IS for life. It just doesn't mean life imprisonment. But they do remain on license (part of the sentence) for life.

it seems if you kill one child horrifically you get a lesser sentence than killing more than one child. Why? Is one life worth less than a few? Is a child killer less dangerous having only killed one child? Life sentences for certain murders should mean life.

No, I don't believe in the death penalty but believe in longer sentences like the rest of us.

Anyone watching that programme about parole? Now I know there will be careful editing etc but, in the 1st programme, the parole board seemed to come to opposite conclusions than the viewer would. The parole board often don't even meet the offender. If anoyone saw the programme - would you have let the arsonist out?

Bradey is still in because he is in Broadmoor, and classed as mentally ill. This is the thing that people don't get when they worry about some one getting away with something because they have been deemed insane. Actually if you are sectioned under mental health act, after committing such crimes,you are much less likely to get out than some one who has gone down the criminal justice route. A little aside there.
I don't think we are being "buttered up", as usual media is selling papers on the basis of this is what is going to sell papers, outrage and shock and horror
Thats not to say that I don't get angry at some people being let out after what seem to be too short sentences.
This never makes me feel like we should bring the death penalty back though.

sorry you are right, been out of the game too long Thought as I posted that it might not be quite right, but I think my point stands.

Like paedophile Craig Sweeney that abducted and sexually assaulted a 3 year old girl several times. He can be out in 5 years. No doubt doing the same again. He got 12 years but can apply for parole after 5.I know he won't get it after his previous conviction but it's still annoying and frustrating that he can even apply for parole.

i watched the Parole programme this week, about two people who had drug dealing offences. The man when asked on camera said he would definitely go back to drugs.
The present govt got rid of interviews for parole candidates and it is now done by paper application only.

What has depressed me is that as someone said, the usual hang'em and flog'em brigade would always be in favour of coming out of Europe and hanging as many prisoners as possible anyway (and a few hoodies just on the offchance), but recently I've met erstwhile liberal, thoughtful people who say they'd prefer the death penalty to this business of parole and they put forward the moral case for it (25 years not enough, these people have forfeited any right whatsoever to participate in society, it doesn't matter if they can be rehabilitated, they have no right to be, etc.) and when you point out that the Birmingham six, Sally Clarke etc. would be dead, they say oh well, of course if we had the death penalty trials would be done more carefully and of course they wouldn't have been executed. Which I think is the height of naievety tbh, but I find it quite alarming that people whom I know are quite thoughtful and sensible, are willing to suspend their critical faculties about this. I wonder whether it's just a bunch of people I've met or if it's a sort of generalised feeling.

If the death penalty was introduced and I don't believe it ever will, the following spring to mind in an instant:

Ian Hinkley

The one (of the two) who stabbed Mr Monkton in Chelsea

The gang who kidnapped 2 teenage girls, stabbed them all over (then poured alcohol on their wounds) and repeatedly raped them in Nottingham or was it Reading. Horrific.

The three men who stabbed, poured petrol and set alight the 13 year old school boy in Glasgow as he was in the wrong place at the wrong time

The 2 men who stabbed a solicitor in the summer as he walked home in NW10 just for his wallet. They mugged somebody else 17 minutes later at the tube and that's how they were caught.

Harold Shipman

Fred West

The list is endless but I cannot imagine the pain and heartbreak and anger for the families who lose a beloved member due to somebody else's depraived, psychopathic and senseless nature. I have been robbed at knife point in my own home with dh and the gang were caught and imprisoned. They are due for parole in December and I still have nightmares and fear for my family's safety and that was just an aggrivated robbery. I can't imagine experiencing the loss of a loved one and I think where there is the evidence against one of these psychos, ie DNA, the death penalty is right. I know I am going to be shot down for this but that is how I feel.

Ian huntley?
It is worth pointing out the last two on the list killed themselves.

"I can't imagine experiencing the loss of a loved one"

Don't criminals alos have familes?

Think it's probably easier to speculate and wish for a death penalty when it is theoretical. If it were to evr be reintroduced, can you imagine the media coverage?

Watched Monster last night (AIleen Wournos thing). Now, despite vile background = mitigating circumstances, she certianly committed pre-meditated murders. Still horrific to execute her though.

Yes my error, Ian Huntley.
I know Fred West and Harold Shipman killed themselves but had they not they would still be alive today.

righto, I havent time to peruse this whole thread, as life is short and there is a dinner to get cooked, ergo this will be snappy...

1. Jails are full to the brim
2. jails/rehab often fails, hence repeat offences and community releases resulting in more murders/rapes et al.
3. science has developed big time aka CSI Miami to ensure through DNA the right person is caught for the crime wot they done
4. the average lifer costs more to keep than a child in care per week, and double what the government spend on the elderly in care homes.
5. death penalty for life imprisonments seems to be a logical conclusion, for me anyway

I appreciate this is a hugely complex and emotive issue, but I am of the mind that paedophiles CANNOT be cured, rapists and murderers deserve 'justice'; and in the right situation the death penalty is a valuable tool to remove the scum from the earth, and to dissuade others headed down the path.

DNA isn't foolproof either.

It can be misread, or planted. Just like any other evidence. It's not 100% accurate and if you're that twelfty-thousand million to one exception, you're really buggered.

true true true;
but it takes more than one piece of dna to hang the cat, as it were, ask mr OJ

I'm afraid however many times I hear the arguments in favour of the death penalty (and they are the same old arguments, there aren't any new ones) I still keep coming back to the fact that it is a renegade step - it is giving in to the violent tendency in a big way. My concern isn't a personal concern for the criminals who would actually cop for the death penalty, I'm not a bleeding-heart and I don't believe in favouring criminals at the expense of victims.

The tragedy IMO would be for society as a whole. I don't want to live in a society in which violence/killing/torture are part of an accepted legal justice system. I don't want my children to grow up in such a society either. I am someone who believes that hitting a child is tantamount to losing the moral highrgound when it comes to teaching children that violence is wrong. I know many people disagree with that, but to me it's a logical no-brainer. I think the same basic logical rule applies to criminal justice. The foundation of any civilised penal system must be that violence and killing are wrong.

I believe that societies progress in a linear fashion from savagery to enlightenment. Physical and capital punishment are barbaric and socially crude practices which afford society nothing and which have been quite rightly left behind. It is madness to suggest resurrecting stylised forms of legally sanctioned violence/murder in order to combat criminal violence/murder. Madness.

Fred West deserved to be hung by his testicles, to be honest.