The death Penalty.

[Dskize]

Hmmm, here we go, and I am gonna be answering cross posts here; first off, criminals do have human rights, I agree but....some criminals give up the right to be treated humanely if their crime was inhuman ... I hope you understand where I am coming from here.

I readily acknowledge the consequential problem of who gets to draw the line and where but that is a problem that falls fairly and squarely into the lap of the lesser of evils as far as I am concerned.

I'll now come to the notion of there being no active deterrent to the cases I am referring to, the child killers.
The type of animal who systematically tortures and eventually murder children such as in the recent case of Baby P will not be deterred by a death sentence, leastwise I don't think their pathology allows them to be deterred anyway.

The problem with evaluating deterrence values is, you are trying to prove a negative and as you know Jay, it is allegedly impossible.
With that in mind, I find it difficult to lend any weight to any argument that categorically states the death penalty doesn't deter.

When analyzing this problem, it's a skewed demographic here because you presumably end up interviewing murderers, who self-evidently weren't deterred but how many deterred potential killers are out there?

It's not as if they would be queuing up to register the fact they were deterred from killing a kid with the local authorities.

At this point, it is quite natural of me to refer back to the post I made before this in the thread where I detailed the scenario whereby we have the death penalty and ponder the two options of whether it works or not.

The important aspect of that is, the only way you can undermine it is by assigning more rights to the murderer.

I wasn't gonna respond to Dskize because I thought his answer was too glib and he hadn't thought it through enough, especially when considering the veracity of the statement, 'the death penalty doesn't deter'.

Am I missing something here Jay coz for me, it's a no-brainer, I have tried to approach this problem as a logician would and maybe that's where I am going wrong?

This is the point though surely , We have to use what we do know as basis for a legal stance ,and we do know that we have a fallible legal system ,we do know that countries with the death penalty make mistakes ,we can look at the physcologly of the type of individual that would receive this punishment and I don't think (opinion not fact) that there would be any deterrent properties in the threat of death (refer to my glib post) ..so to me, logically (even just using exactly what you have said above never mind any of the previous posts) ,re-instating the death penalty is a no go.

 

[Ion_Paintball]

There are a few problems unlying this thread, which is mainly down to the point that a lot of people's evidence, and basis for there reasonings are pub facts and do not reflect the real situtation...

For example,
1) A lot of people's definition of murder is tottally wrong, i.e nitro balls example above would not be murder, and thus the death penualty would not apply (but also its not really self defence)

2) People complain our legal system is too lenient, yet we are sending more people to prison and for longer than ever before, hense the overcrowding...

3) Is prison the right solutions? People sit and complain that being locked up with limited resrouces, i.e a tv etc is easy life, so instead we should lock them away with nothing, is this really the right approach to deal with offenders? because for most offences they will be realsed one day and from ur chosen harsh treatment will not be able to re adapt, and turn back to crime (55% of all those released from prison return in 2 years). yet when the goverment or whoever try to apply measures that will work better and be able to rehabillitate people everyone cries they have got off lightly...

4) Should people not have the chance to change?

5) it is not judges who pass lenient sentences, it is the goverment sentencing body which dictates how a prisoners sentence is reduced...

 

[JNR-XV]

Have no idea if you have a family or young kids bud, but lets just say you have just to make an example of what your saying here...

You went shopping with Mrs. and young kids, a harmless family day out. A bunch of Chavs approached your family, slapped your kids and and threw abuse at you and your Mrs.

What do you do ?

I would be certain 100%, as a father and husband protecting your family, you would retaliate in some way, or would you just ring the cops, wait an hour whilst the offenders walk away ?

For me, i would give'em hell. Lets say you did the same like any father would in such situation.
You smacked one of those idiots so hard, he fell over the bannister dropping down onto the lower floor and dies..

A life for a life ???

Self defence protecting your family, definately not murder..

Yes mate i do have a family. Been married for 4 years and have a 9 month old daughter.

With regards to your comment. You better be sure that i would do anything in my power to protect my family, and with that being said, in that situation, i wouldnt be only trying to clear them away with a bit of bravado. I would be trying to kill them. Hence purposefully causing permenant damage.

If that happened yes i would deserve the punishment (ok in my eyes only so far it seems). I have taken a life for whatever reason.

Knowing the punishment (in this scenario) would be the death penalty i would have a ****ing good time tearing them apart. Then probably go on the run for a very long time

In all serious though, thats only how i feel. It seems like its hard for people to get their head round, and im probably only a very small minority that feel this way. Sorry lol.. i cant change that.

 

[NitroBall]

Yes mate i do have a family. Been married for 4 years and have a 9 month old daughter.

With regards to your comment. You better be sure that i would do anything in my power to protect my family, and with that being said, in that situation, i wouldnt be only trying to clear them away with a bit of bravado. I would be trying to kill them. Hence purposefully causing permenant damage.

If that happened yes i would deserve the punishment (ok in my eyes only so far it seems). I have taken a life for whatever reason.

Knowing the punishment (in this scenario) would be the death penalty i would have a ****ing good time tearing them apart. Then probably go on the run for a very long time

In all serious though, thats only how i feel. It seems like its hard for people to get their head round, and im probably only a very small minority that feel this way. Sorry lol.. i cant change that.

What of the aftermath ?
Who suffers ?
Answer is easy.... it would be your family.
The flaw is there within itself.
You would then have people think twice before retaliating, for the sake of there family future. Those idiots out to cause trouble would have more confidence in creating more havoc, situations would climb.

 

[Buddha 3]

I believe (as I am looking into more depth because it looks like this power has been removed form the HS) that the trial judge makes the reccommendation for a life imprisonment sentence, and from there it gets passed onto the Home Secutary, who confirms, declines, extends the sentence.

But I believe this power has now been overturned.

Any judicial system where politicians can directly alter somebody's sentence is flawed. We all know politicians will do almost anything for votes, so it's pretty much guaranteed that sooner or later somebody will get shafted that way.
Not saying that happened in the case you linked to (still haven't read it), but politicians interfering with sentencing? Yikes!

 

[Buddha 3]

Hmmm, here we go, and I am gonna be answering cross posts here; first off, criminals do have human rights, I agree but....some criminals give up the right to be treated humanely if their crime was inhuman ... I hope you understand where I am coming from here.

I readily acknowledge the consequential problem of who gets to draw the line and where but that is a problem that falls fairly and squarely into the lap of the lesser of evils as far as I am concerned.

I'll now come to the notion of there being no active deterrent to the cases I am referring to, the child killers.
The type of animal who systematically tortures and eventually murder children such as in the recent case of Baby P will not be deterred by a death sentence, leastwise I don't think their pathology allows them to be deterred anyway.

The problem with evaluating deterrence values is, you are trying to prove a negative and as you know Jay, it is allegedly impossible.
With that in mind, I find it difficult to lend any weight to any argument that categorically states the death penalty doesn't deter.

When analyzing this problem, it's a skewed demographic here because you presumably end up interviewing murderers, who self-evidently weren't deterred but how many deterred potential killers are out there?

It's not as if they would be queuing up to register the fact they were deterred from killing a kid with the local authorities.

At this point, it is quite natural of me to refer back to the post I made before this in the thread where I detailed the scenario whereby we have the death penalty and ponder the two options of whether it works or not.

The important aspect of that is, the only way you can undermine it is by assigning more rights to the murderer.

I wasn't gonna respond to Dskize because I thought his answer was too glib and he hadn't thought it through enough, especially when considering the veracity of the statement, 'the death penalty doesn't deter'.

Am I missing something here Jay coz for me, it's a no-brainer, I have tried to approach this problem as a logician would and maybe that's where I am going wrong?

Well, there have been states in the US where the death penalty got canned. Over the years, life got rougher and crime went up, so the hardliners got their way and the death penalty was reinstated. Result: None. Crime still went up, including murders...

I think it's natural for people to ask for or even demand harsher regimes when crime is or seems to be on the rise. It's really a knee jerk reaction though and one I can fully understand, but don't agree with.

One thing that has to be kept in mind though is the moral high ground. Who are we to say that nobody has the right to take a life (something we all agree with I presume), when we collectively do the same thing? Don't forget, if a parliament gets elected that manages to get the death penalty reinstated in the UK, you personally will also be responsible for every person hung. Including the innocent ones. (Now I'm fully aware that some people will claim to be glad to be responsible for the death of a killer, but I'm willing to bet that most of these people would not be able to carry the burden of actively pulling the lever. That's hypocritical. For the record, not pointing at anyone in particular in this thread, just speaking in generalisations.)

The system is already far to open to abuse. Anyone remember the Guildford Four? Imagine they were sentenced to death...

 

[Buddha 3]

I believe in Holland, an offender serving prison sentence gets holidays out of prison every now and then. This was from a documentary i watched years back, but for the serious offenders, this was not an option.

It's a little more nuanced than that.
They don't get holidays where they are told to go off and have fun or whatever.

Our prison system is known as a correctional system. And we actively strive to correct people (hence the TBS I explained earlier). This also means that when a person has been actively taking part in a correctional programme and has shown good progress, he will be moved to an institution with a less harsh regime and will be given more privileges. After that, if he continues to show development and once he gets towards the end of his term, he will be allowed to leave the prison during the day. He has to report back at night. Many people work jobs during those hours so their transition back into society will be far smoother come release time. Eventually some people are allowed a weekend out once every month or so, so they can get used to family life again.

People that have comitted a crime of a certain severity will have to where one of those tracking ankle bands, so they can be found if they go AWOL. Besides that, since most of the time has already been served before this programme kicks in, the urge to try to escape is already next to none.

The system works well.

On a side note, this system is also applied to murderers (shock, horror) as long as they show good progress during the programme. About two decades ago, the top criminal in this country was killed by Martin Hoogland, a former policeman who had started working for the wrong side.
Martin Hoogland was sentenced to 20 years and in 2004 he had served enough of his time to be given extre privileges. Eventually he was allowed to leave the prison during daytime.
His usual daily routine was going on a bikeride to visit some friends and enjoying the views around the marina of the town in whih he was jailed.
One day in March 2004 he did the same thing, but about 100 yards from the gates of the institution, a full clip of an AK47 was emptied into him...
This was less than 200 yards from my front door at that time.

Sorry, that has nothing to do with the discussion, just thought I'd share.

 

[philfull]

jnr if your view is so black and white then what is your stance on a life for a life in a war?

should people brave enough to defend the civil liberties of an entire country be killed for killing another human being that is attempting to kill him?

the whole an eye for an eye argument is far to single minded to be applied in any situation as circumstance dictates reaction.

if a life for a life was instated then what happens to the exicutioner? not much job security.

 

[JNR-XV]

Could you imagine the job ad in the local paper though

 

[Golddust]

If you're mad enough to kill someone, you're mad enough not to care about the consequences.

We have all been there, just not on the same level

I do agree with the idea of bringing it back if they would rather be sentenced to death instead of a life sentence allthough i do think that they would have to serve a few months in prison so they can think it over or have some system in place so they dont choose in the spur of the moment