should the punishment fit the crime

[Cod]

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Well done Cod,
I'm all burned out with it now though

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That's better!

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I don't know, are you my neighbour? . If you are, you are a really nice lady with 4 lovely children married to a doctor. Oh Dear! you could really be my neighbour!(shock) Are you?

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No, I agree too cod. It is an interesting discussion though. Someone want to get the ball rolling?

Good! as lovely as my neighbour is I wouldn't like her to know all the details of my life I post here

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Crikey, I'm not very good at this.

OK, well, I don't think the death penalty is justifiable under any circumstances, even child murder. I don't believe in an eye for an eye and I don't think any civilised society should run its justice system that way. However, I am at a loss to think what should be a suitable 'punishment' for hideous crimes against children in particular, given that our justice system appears not to know the meaning of the words 'life imprisonment'.

do topics like this not just give you brainpain??? makes my head want to burst, i cant keep my cool

My thread-killing talents are unsurpassed on MN recently...sorry cod.

I haven't read the sad story as I know I'd be haunted by it. But I did start a thread a while ago in response to a child rape story because I wanted to DO something about the light sentence that had allowed the man out of prison incredibly quickly so that he was able to do this (he also raped an OAP). Someone pointed me in the direction of Women Against Rape , and I think a number of us made donations.

Have a look if you need to channel your anger/upset ....

(I repeat: I don't know the details of the story and don't want to. )

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Yes, they do, but only by forming an opinion and later act on it you can tip the balace one way or another. For example, if lots of people complain about the general inadequacy of death penalty, chances are that some people in the US who supports death penalty end up questioning it, I supose. While if we all turn to the other side things may remain the same.

I'm against death penalty, specially as most people who get death penalty in the US belongs to the so called minorities, and unfortunately many have not received a fair trial. In this particular case I would bet the father (hispanic) would be sent to the row while the mother may not.

read in the paper yesterday about a man who had had so much downloaded of his pc about child abuse (including pictures) that the police stopped counting after 500,000

he only got 2 yrs suspended because a lot of it was so old

i had to stop reading when it said 'pictures of babies being tortured and raped'. i mean, whose babies are they FGS?

he walked free

That was the answer to nailpolish post about this topics given us pain, sorry.

I think he should not have been allowed out, many possible victims could wrongly assume he is not a menace just because of his age.

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that s how i feel secur. i would love to join in but it just is too much for me

Actually, np, that story did make me feel physically sick when I first heard about it, and it's the kind of thing that makes me think I might have an exception to my rule...I don't know.

I have just read that other thread and was almost sick - what a vile and dreadful thing.You do wonder what exactly motivates a person to be physically capable of commiting such actions. I definitely think the punishment should fit the crime , but it seems to me there is direct conflict between punishment and what appears to sonstitute ' human rights'. Recently, Dennis Nilsen, the mass killer who had severed heads in his drains etc, successfully took action against the prison service for not allowing him gay porn in prison as it ' breached his human rights' - he won!!!! there are so many other situations like this and worse and that, IMO, is what drives people to think that the death penalty is the only way to go.If penalties were stiffer and life meant life then I don't think people would be as interested in re-introducing the death penalty. I personally am against it as I think it reduces the society to the moral level of the criminal, (although reading that story about the Texas couple made me want to see them physically hurt - kneejerk reaction), but unless the whole system of sentencing is addressed things will continue to slide as far as I can see.I would hate a sharia system like Saudi where people are mutilated and dismembered for crimes ( quite petty ones too) but there does need to be some sense of deterrent.