Capital Punisment

[fairyfly]

I have just been reading a Thesis on the subject which claimed 2 out of 3 people would like this form of punishment to be re-instated. Personally i don't believe that statistic so i wanted to ask if you would like to see it return as a way to handle our society?
Also i may have the year wrong (please correct me) but in 1965 it was abolished, i am interested to find out how often it was used in the 60's. Anyone have any facts?
Just fancied a chat about something that fascinates me, especially comparing statistic with
America the phillipines, china etc. also how 500
years ago you were put do death for trespassing, would love to know if the crime rates were low then.

I think it is a great deterrent to have no hope of release ever. I am just not entirely sure life imprisonment is a great idea for the people who have commited crimes... what do they ever learn, do they learn to act civilised? No, they learn to live with there situation, without any real understanding on the impact they have had... unless they get a great psychiatrist..
I don't even believe in release either and bringing them back to society unless we can firmly guarantee we have our mental health education up to scratch..
I honestly don't know any of the answers, this is why i am bouncing it about on the thread to see if i can form a fixed opinion, nothing is working now, i know that much.
We need a new foundation of respect for one another

I?m against it, mainly because of the miscarriage of justice issue. There are so many innocent people in prison. But I think that public support for it is high because sentencing for murder and manslaughter is just too lax. I?m appalled by the phenomenon of murderers who used to be East End gangsters now being chat show celebrities and perhaps having thirty or forty years of living the good life as media stars having served only thirty years in prison for taking others' lives. They should be in prison until they are very old men - their victims are still dead.

And I think automatic parole should be abolished. It leads to judges giving higher sentences based on the fact that they know the criminal will be out within a third of the time with good behaviour. However, this works against people who have been unjustly convicted, because one of the conditions of parole is that you admit the crime and take responsibility for it. You can?t do that if you?re innocent, so wrongly convicted people who are determined to prove their innocence, stay in prison three times longer than the judge actually meant them to. That cannot be right.

I believe it could get introduced because of time, atm as you know it is all about drunken violence and trying to find an answer to the current problem of binge drinking. Before that teenage mothers etc etc Everytime i read in the paper the government is trying to find answers and doing very strange things to help..Governments will constantly get scared until they find an answer, an answer one day will be the death penalty. I am not saying it will happen i just wouldn't be suprised, who is suprised about anything at the moment, everything seems to go. i have a completely different attitude about all of it, people need to start loving again. That should be promoted but that will never come from an institution.
I also believe that throughout history nothing is constant and nothing is safe, we have no security, you can't depend on that, anything can happen

I, also, don't believe in the death penalty. It's my general belief in "Thou shall not not kill". I'm not religious, but that sums it up for me.

Wrt the US, the stats might be skewed as it's a state issue. Ie, the states have the right to decide on capital punishment. The differences would be more obvious if you would look at those states with a higher incidence of capital punishment. I'm sure Texas isn't much safer than anywere else....

My point is, look at the states with the death penalty. You'll see that they aren't safer than any others.

Completely against capital punishment. How many miscarriages of justice have there been recently for "serious crimes"? Carrying out the death penalty is still murder in my mind and our society should have moved on from there by now.

I do agree that life should mean life though when it comes to prison sentences. In fact, in all cases, the sentence handed out should be the sentence served otherwise what's the point?

I think stronger prison dsentences that mean something shoule be used instead of teh 2-3 years which seems common to alot of offences I consider quite serious ones. A lot of teh people executed in the 1960's have had their convictions posthumously (sp) quashed and Ruth Ellis(last woman executed) would not have tried if today;'s standards had applied then . So when people had different ideas and knowledge it was probably right but nowadays I do not think it is underany circumstance with the possible exception of repeat sexual offenders wher their is no doubt they will re offend again and again or serial nmurderers with teh same proviso

another - very passionate - anti dp here. And I'm so relieved to see that most mners appear to be the same. My reasons are that I do not believe it's morally tenable to combat the worst crime - of murder - with murder; the risk of executing the innocent; the fact that efforts to cut that risk result in people being on death row for years and years; and that it has never been proved to be a better deterrant than other punishments. Lots of stuff here

web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-index-eng

Another anti, for may of the reasons listed below.

I think that the reason people actually do want Capital Punishment back is the conditions that murderers and other criminals are kept in - I don;t agree with Capital Punishment but think that maybe the chain gang - hard life in a bare cell type life would appease peoples need for retribution - at the moment families of victims don't really feel that the culprit is actually being punished at all.

I mean the gay prisoner who takes the governemnt to court because he cannot have access to gay porn - it apparently is taking away his rights and his liberty - FFS - that is what being banged up is supposed to be about - for me it would be nice to see peope who have commited financial crime and fraud etc banged up inthe prisons of today and people who have commited crimes which involve abuse, murder or violence banged up in ghastley conditions where they are actually made to feel bad about what they have done - take away the tellys the computers and all of the home comforts IMO!!

Have to agree with you there Twink It does seem as they have a much better lifestlye then soem people have on the outside.

One of the best books I have ever read is 'Violence: Reflections on our Deadliest Epidemic', by James Gilligan. Gilligan is a psychiatrist and was for many years the Director of a large institution for the Criminally Insane in Massachusetts (he is now at Harvard Medical School). It is a moving, passionate and closely argued book, outlining his theory on the reasons why people murder and examining the effects that the kind of punitive regimes some people on this thread advocate have on people subjected to them. In essence, he argues that many people who commit extreme violence have been deeply damaged at some critical point in their lives (he calls it 'shamed' and the violence they engage in is an attempt on their parts to erase that sense of shame. He argues that what they need is treatment to enable them to heal, rather than a degrading prison system that damages them even further. Not an argument likely to appeal to the 'hang 'em and flog 'em brigade', but fascinating to see it being made by someone who has been inside the system for most of his professional career.

The wink is not meant to be there.

Another one against it.
Not sure how I'd feel if someone seriously hurt one of my kids though. I'd certainly want to kill them myself.

As someone else has pointed out, life does mean life. It means a life under sentence but not necessarily in prison. Forever on probation though means that any violation of that probation, however small, has you back inside.
Judges do also have the power to impose minimum sentences to be served - so if the crime is very severe they can ensure that the culprint is not released after 1/3 of it. They can even recommend that they are never released (as was the case with Hindley and Brady).
The release of lifers is subject to home office review so it isn't down to individual prisons or judges.

Another line of debate though, just to play devil's advocate as much as anything - keeping people in prison is very expensive. If they have committed terrible crimes why should the tax payer then be expected to support them for the rest of their lives? Killing them may not be the best alternative but is there another way?

I'm against it too, under all circumstances. tinker was spot on.

Sorry oldie mum but saying that these people have a reason for doing these things and so we have to understand and treat them is not going to make the country a safe place.

These people make the choice to step over the line and commit these crimes and I'm sorry but if they don't understand where those lines are drawn society is better off locking them up.

Everyone of us on here deserve to be able to live our lives safely and I myself have no sympathy for the people who break the laws and don't think in most cases (and especially in terms of child abuse) that therapy is going to help them - and at the end of the day it is no deterrant - punishment is on the other hand!!

I am also opposed to DP.
There is a reason that prisoners are given 'hope' for release: it is to try to maintain standards of behaviour in prison which in turn protects prison staff. Imagine if you knew you were definitely spending the rest of your life in prison - there is nothing to stop you attacking all the prison staff. This said, I agree that many prisons are too cushy and sentences not long enough.

I think therapy is definetly the way forward, it should be more intense in prison instead of teaching
criminals new tricks.

Another one against capital punishment.

Just quickly skimmed through the post on here but couldn't see any mention of Corporal(sp) punishment. This is something that I have a slightly different view on . Are there any statistics to show if this acts as a deterrant?

BR

But, Fairyfly I think some people are beyond help ( multiple killers - the Wests for example, who raped, tortured and killed for decades).So what do we do with those people who have no hope of changing? I agree with your earlier point about people needing to learn a type of respect.I think most people are 'decent' law abiding citizens but there are such pernicious influences in our society that many people fall under their spell - so much adulation and celebration of the trashy, the meaningless as well as the downright dangerous - and in their minds they think it's ok to carry guns , to peddle drugs or treat women as sexual objects because their heroes do it all the time on tv or in 'pop' videos.If these influences were curtailed it would be of great benefit to society IMO.

bl**dy hell. Just used google for the first time to look up corporal punishment and didn't quite get what I bargained for

BR

I personally think if someone murdered a memeber of my family I would want justice done. I think killing them would be too easy. I think a long torturing process would be better. prison is too cushy. They need reall punishment. let them in with the victims family for an hour and let them rip shreds out of them

So then you are in favour of corporal punishment? To what extent/point?

1. To humiliate (stock etc)?
2. To mutilate?
3. To cause pain/suffering?

Personally I'm for 1 and 3

BR

sorry ff, I think I killed your thread

strawberry - thats' a very good point. If no hope of release then why be rehabilitated.

What part of 'Do not break the law' - do people need therapy to understand??

Sorry but to me the legal system should be about bringing justice and dolling out punishment - not an airy fairy approach to handing people who have CHOSEN to put themselves into a position where they must be punished!

I agree with therapy for people who have strayed from the straight and narrow but also9 think there should be 3 strikes and thats it automatic 10 years - wouldn;t be so many little shit roaming the street attacking and robbing people would there? And as for murder/rape and child abuse - you automatically get 30 years (+ 10 years for extenuating circumstances, extreme violence/mutilation etc.) in the shittiest place possible with no hope for release until you have served your alloted time.

I think the whole downfall fo society these days is the fact that lily livered people think people, including children/young adults should not be held accountable for their crimes - no wonder they laugh at the law and carry on behaving like little anarchists!!