Death penalty. Yes or No?

[Salop Matt]

So dogs who dont know right from wrong no fault of there own but are destroyed and then humans who do know right from wrong and they dont get destroyed !

 

As I said before a life is a life hense the taking of should be a respectfull humane happening which is what all shooters aim for. Its just were each indiviadual draws the line on whats acceptable and not.

 

Persoanlly I voted yes. I would also like to see harder tougher sentances and criminal housing for convicts of the lower crimes to !

 

If you read the DM today there is a story of a scumbag who stole a car and was invovled in a chase and ramming that left 2 officers injored and a police dog with a broken back and having to be destroyed ! He walked free from court. Now I always thought a police dog was classed as a police officer and as such this scum should of served the equivilent of a manslaughter charger or as a minimum a 5 year strech for the injory of 3 police officers.

[Nial]

If I could show you a very simple way of stopping 2,600 people dying unecessarily next year would you agree that that is something we should act upon and do?

 

Also, are you willing to sacrifice your guns and sport right here, right now in the name of saving lives? Because I guarantee, if we all stopped shooting and keeping guns at home, lives would be saved each year

 

 

You are mixing two completely different arguments.

 

It's incredibly easy to sit back and pass jugement when it doesn't affect you peronally, after all, you don't know the poor bloke who's just been hanged for something he didn't do, his death will have no affect on your life whatsoever and you will have forgotten all about the article in the paper by tomorrow where you read that someone had been executed. Now.... what if that bloke was your son, or your brother or your father or even you.... would you then be so quick to say that it's ok to hang that person even though they may well be innocent?

 

Logically yes. You should read this... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Thoughts-Guide...3750&sr=8-1

 

What about the relatives of the 100 extra people who are going to me murdered in

the next year who might not if the death penalty was introduced.

 

Can you look them all in the eye and say sorry?

 

 

BTW, I'm not saying that I believe 100% thedeath penalty should be introduced, just if it

can be shown to be a sufficient deterrant.

 

 

Nial.

[Nial]

USA jails are full of people waiting the death penalty. Obviously the dp is not a deterrent.

 

 

There is no 'control' sample to compare the USA against so how can you conclude this?

 

Things might be much _worse_ without the death penalty.

 

 

If it's revenge you want then life in prison means life. Hard labour from day one. No play stations,

teles and drugs no-no. Hard labour paying back society till the day you die.

 

 

That too might be sufficient deterrant to reduce the number of murders, but you'd

probably find it contravenes their 'human rights'.

 

 

Nial

[Vipa]

You are mixing two completely different arguments.

 

 

No I'm not, what you are saying is that it's ok to wrongly punish (ultimately) the minority to POSSIBLY save a few more.

 

Ban handguns because it MAY save lives in the future, withdraw public ownership of vehicles because it WOULD DEFINATELY save 2,600 people from dying in car accidents next year (we could, as a society, still function based on public transport if we needed to before anyone jumps on me saying that that is impossible or inconceivable.... it will happen one day when the oil either runs out or becomes too expensive for the ordinary man in the street!)

 

This is exactly the same as saying it's ok if a few innocent people are put to death if it means that e few MIGHT be saved because of the deterrent.

[poontang]

"It is i who have faced them at the last, young lads and girls, working men, grandmothers. I have been amazed to see the courage with which they take that walk into the unknown.

It did not deter them then, and it had not deterred them when they committed what they were convicted for.

All the men and women whom i have faced at that final moment convince me that in what i have done i have not prevented a single murder"

 

Albert Pierrepoint.

 

From his autobiography - Executioner:Pierrepoint (1974)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silly old sod......................Bring it back, if only for revenge!!

[MC]

For those who think they could pull, inject, hit with a hammer or whatever to lay the "guilty to rest" yeah pudding rice and top comes top mind try some education rather than rhetoric start with getting down to wh smiths and buying a book other than one that gets coloured in,ask for a book titled THE DEATH OF INNOCENTS by sister Helen Prejean, then read not opinionate,in a perfect world the death penalty could and should be an option for top end vile acts of inhumanity, but as I said before, would you trust our judicial and system ably abetted by an oft corrupt plod?

 

KW

 

 

Oh I don't know,

 

The residents of Hartlepool managed to do it to a MONKEY :lol:

[MC]

No I'm not, what you are saying is that it's ok to wrongly punish (ultimately) the minority to POSSIBLY save a few more.

 

Ban handguns because it MAY save lives in the future, withdraw public ownership of vehicles because it WOULD DEFINATELY save 2,600 people from dying in car accidents next year (we could, as a society, still function based on public transport if we needed to before anyone jumps on me saying that that is impossible or inconceivable.... it will happen one day when the oil either runs out or becomes too expensive for the ordinary man in the street!)

 

This is exactly the same as saying it's ok if a few innocent people are put to death if it means that e few MIGHT be saved because of the deterrent.

 

 

Are you saying that people don't get killed by trains, planes or buses then?

 

I definetly remember Alan Bradley getting run over by a Blackpool Tram on Coronation Street once.

[Vipa]

There is no 'control' sample to compare the USA against so how can you conclude this?

 

Things might be much _worse_ without the death penalty.

 

You do have a valid point there Nial.

 

I found this on the web which makes quite interesting reading:

 

Deterrence.

Does the death penalty deter? It is hard to prove one way or the other because in most retentionist countries the number of people actually executed per year (as compared to those sentenced to death) is usually a very small proportion. It would, however, seem that in those countries (e.g. Singapore) which almost always carry out death sentences, there is far less serious crime. This tends to indicate that the death penalty is a deterrent, but only where execution is a virtual certainty. The death penalty is much more likely to be a deterrent where the crime requires planning and the potential criminal has time to think about the possible consequences. Where the crime is committed in the heat of the moment there is no likelihood that any punishment will act as a deterrent. There is a strong argument here for making murder committed in these circumstances not punishable by death or for having degrees of murder as in the USA.

 

Anti-death penalty campaigners always argue that death is not a deterrent and usually site studies based upon American states to prove their point. This is, in my view, flawed and probably chosen to be deliberately misleading. Let us examine the situation in three countries.

 

Britain.

The rates for unlawful killings in Britain have more than doubled since abolition of capital punishment in 1964 from 0.68 per 100,000 of the population to 1 .42 per 100,000. Home Office figures show around unlawful killings 300 in 1964, which rose to 565 in 1994 and 833 in 2004. The figure for homicides in 2007 was 734. The principal causes of homicide are fights involving fists and feet, stabbing and cutting by glass or a broken bottle, shooting and strangling. 72% of the victims were male with younger men being most at risk. Convictions for the actual crime of murder (as against manslaughter and other unlawful killings) have also been rising inexorably. Between 1900 and 1965 they ran at an average of 29 per year. There were 57 in 1965 – the first year of abolition. Ten years later the total for the year was 107 which rose to 173 by 1985 and 214 in 1995. There have been 71 murders committed by people who have been released after serving "life sentences" in the period between 1965 and 1998 according to Home Office statistics. Some 6,300 people are currently serving sentences of “life in prison” for murder. Figures released in 2009 show that since 1997, 65 prisoners who were released after serving life were convicted of a further crime. These included two murders, one suspected murder, one attempted murder, three rapes and two instances of grievous bodily harm. The same document also noted that 304 people given life sentences since January 1997 served less than 10 years of them, actually in prison.

 

 

Statistics were kept for the 5 years that capital punishment was suspended in Britain (1965-1969) and these showed a 125% rise in murders that would have attracted a death sentence. Whilst statistically all this is true, it does not tell one how society has changed over nearly 40 years. It may well be that the murder rate would be the same today if we had retained and continued to use the death penalty. It is impossible to say that only this one factor affects the murder rate. Easier divorce has greatly reduced the number of domestic murders, unavailability of poisons has seen poisoning become almost extinct whilst tight gun control had begun to reduce the number of shootings, however, drug related gun crime is on the increase and there have been a spate of child murders recently. Stabbings have increased dramatically as have the kicking and beating to death of people who have done something as minor as arguing with someone or jostling them in a crowd, i.e. vicious and virtually motiveless killings. As in most Western countries, greatly improved medical techniques have saved many victims who would have previously died from their injuries. Careful analysis of the situation in Britain between 1900 and the outbreak of the second World War in 1939 seems to point to the death penalty being a strong deterrent to what one might call criminal murders, i.e. those committed in the furtherance of theft, but a very poor deterrent to domestic murders, i.e. those committed in the heat of the moment. A very large proportion of the victims of those hanged during this period were wives and girlfriends, with a small number of husbands and boyfriends. So where a crime was thought about in advance the criminal had time to consider the consequences of their action and plan differently. For instance they may decide to rob a bank at the weekend to avoid coming into contact with the staff and to do so without carrying firearms.

 

America.

In most states, other than Texas, the number of executions as compared to death sentences and murders is infinitesimally small. Of the 1099 executions carried out in the whole of the USA from 1977 to the end of 2007, Texas accounts for 406 or 37%.

Interestingly, the murder rate in the U.S. dropped from 24,562 in 1993 to 18,209 in 1997, the lowest for years (a 26% reduction) - during a period of increased use of the death penalty. 311 (62%) of the 500 executions have been carried out in this period. The number of murders in 2003 was about 15,600.

America still had five times as many murders per head of population as did Britain in 1997 whilst Singapore had 15 times fewer murders per head of population than Britain. How can one account for this? There are obvious cultural differences between the three countries although all are modern and prosperous.

It is dangerously simplistic to say that the rise in executions is the only factor in the reduction of homicides in the US. There has been a general trend to a more punitive society, (e.g. the "three strikes and your out" law) over this period and cities such as New York claim great success in reducing crime rates through the use of "zero tolerance" policing policies. But otherwise, there has been political and economic stability over the period and no obvious social changes. Improvements in medical techniques have also saved many potential deaths. Various recent academic studies in the USA have shown that capital punishment is a deterrent there. For details of these go to http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPDeterrence.htm

 

Texas.

As stated above, Texas carries out far more executions than any other American state (between 1982 and 2007 it executed 404 men and 2 women) and there is now clear evidence of a deterrent effect. My friend Rob Gallagher (author of Before the Needles website) has done an analysis of the situation using official FBI homicide figures. Between 1980 and 2000, there were 41,783 murders in Texas

In 1980 alone, 2,392 people died by homicide, giving it a murder rate of 16.88 for every 100,000 of the population. (The U.S. average murder rate in 1980 was 10.22, falling to 5.51 per 100,000 by the year 2000. Over the same period, Texas had a population increase of 32%, up 6,681,991 from 14,169,829 to 20,851,820. There were only 1,238 murders in 2000 giving it a rate of 5.94, just slightly higher than the national rate which had dropped to 5.51/100,000. In the base year (1980), there was one murder for every 5,924 Texans. By the year 2000, this had fallen to one murder for every 16,843 people or 35.2% of the 1980 value. If the 1980 murder rate had been allowed to maintain, there would have been, by interpolation, a total of 61,751 murders. On this basis, 19,968 people are not dead today who would have potentially been homicide victims, representing 78 lives saved for each one of the 256 executions. The overall U.S. murder rate declined by 54% during the period. Therefore, to achieve a reasonable estimate of actual lives saved, we must multiply 19,968 by 0.54 giving a more realistic figure of 10,783 lives saved or 42 lives per execution. Even if this estimate was off by a factor of 10 (which is highly unlikely), there would still be over 1,000 innocent lives saved or 4 lives per execution. One can see a drop in the number of murders in 1983, the year after Charlie Brooks became the first person to be executed by lethal injection in America.

In 2000, Texas had 1,238 murders (an average of 23.8 murders per week), but in 2001 only 31 people were given the death sentence and 17 prisoners executed (down from 40 the previous year). This equates to a capital sentencing rate of 2.5% or one death sentence for every 40 murders.

 

Singapore.

Singapore always carries out death sentences where the appeal has been turned down, so its population knows precisely what will happen to them if they are convicted of murder or drug trafficking - is this concept deeply embedded into the sub-consciousness of most of its people, acting as an effective deterrent?

In 1995, Singapore hanged an unusually large number of 7 murderers with 4 in 1996, 3 in 1997 and only one in 1998 rising to 6 in 1999 (3 for the same murder). Singapore takes an equally hard line on all other forms of crime with stiff on the spot fines for trivial offences such as dropping litter and chewing gum in the street, caning for males between 18 and 50 for a wide variety of offences, and rigorous imprisonment for all serious crimes.

 

Arguments against the death penalty.

There are a number of incontrovertible arguments against the death penalty.

 

The most important one is the virtual certainty that genuinely innocent people will be executed and that there is no possible way of compensating them for this miscarriage of justice. There is also another significant but much less realised danger here. The person convicted of the murder may have actually killed the victim and may even admit having done so but does not agree that the killing was murder. Often the only people who know what really happened are the accused and the deceased. It then comes down to the skill of the prosecution and defence lawyers as to whether there will be a conviction for murder or for manslaughter. It is thus highly probable that people are convicted of murder when they should really have only been convicted of manslaughter. Have a look at the cases of James McNicol and Edith Thompson and see what you think.

 

 

 

Courtesy of capitalpunishmentuk.org

Edited March 5, 2010 by Vipa

[Pigeon_snIPer]

I think peoples view on this would change if the accused had actually targeted someone they knew.

 

why set them free and have them be a risk to someone we know or us.

Repeat offenders just keep on going - if they were stopped earlier on so many people would have had a chance to live on.

/s/

[Vipa]

Are you saying that people don't get killed by trains, planes or buses then?

 

I definetly remember Alan Bradley getting run over by a Blackpool Tram on Coronation Street once.

 

please take the time to read posts before responding. I stated CAR accidents, I did not include air traffic, rail, public transport deaths.

[Pigeon_snIPer]

Kill em all - let god sort em out

[Nial]

No I'm not, what you are saying is that it's ok to wrongly punish (ultimately) the minority to POSSIBLY save a few more.

 

If it's the lesser of two evils, then logically yes.

 

Ban handguns because it MAY save lives in the future, withdraw public ownership of vehicles because it WOULD DEFINATELY save 2,600 people from dying in car accidents next year (we could, as a society, still function based on public transport if we needed to before anyone jumps on me saying that that is impossible or inconceivable.... it will happen one day when the oil either runs out or becomes too expensive for the ordinary man in the street!)

 

No, you're talking about banning risky activities because or the number of lives that could be saved. (And banning handguns

hasn't reduced the rate of gun crime). These are activities that normal people undertake as part of their daily lives.

 

 

This is exactly the same as saying it's ok if a few innocent people are put to death if it means that e few MIGHT be saved because of the deterrent.

 

No it isn't.

 

I'm saying that if the threat of the death penalty is shown to reduce innocent deaths by 100 per year then the

risk of killing one innocent person is worth it.

 

What do you say to her parents?

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2584819.ece

 

[edit]

 

More..

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2007574/Gr...kas-murder.html

 

The two 17-year-olds met in John Williams Close on October 2 last year, both armed with 9mm handguns, to settle a row over a debt thought less than £100.

 

Would they have been running about trying to shoot someone over £100 if they thought they'd 'hang'.

 

?

 

[/edit]

 

 

 

 

 

Nial.

Edited March 5, 2010 by Nial

[Pushkin]

Too often we hear the point made that prison life is easy. Is it? My idea of what a prison should be like is that the prisoners serve a sentence that reflects the crime they have committed. The greater the crime the greater the degree of discomfort they have to suffer/endure. In addition of course to them losing their liberty. I do not know enough about prison life to say if that happens or not. Popular myth has it that prison is far too lenient and easy for prisoners. Can anyone on here say different?

 

I think the biggest stumbling point involved is the Human Rights factor. If the criminal has taken away someone elses rights by theft, deception,battery and assault, murder or manslaghter to name the most common ones, then they should accordingly have their rights stripped away from them. The minimum right for each and every one of them should be food, shelter and warmth. Anything else they get should be worked damn hard for and earned over a longer term and taken away for the smallest indiscretion and pretty damn quick at that too.

 

Hard labour is another myth often bandied around. Does it in fact happen in our prisons? I think it should - but when I say hard labour - I mean that exaclty. These guys should be out working damn hard to earn their additional rights such as the right to have a book or watch a TV programme and so on.

 

In order to do so though. We need to employ far more prison officers (creates employment) funding has to be supplied by the Government (Ha Fknnn Ha) who would rather follow the human rights agenda because it stops them having to use so much money. They need to have enough officers to quell any possible riots that prisoners who have been stripped of their rights/priveledges may start. The hard graft the priosoners would have to do would be paid for by whomever the client is i.e. road building Government or Local authority. This would provide additional funding to pay for officers.

 

And so it could go on

 

Do I beleive in the death penalty being reintroduced NO!

 

Why not? Because I do not have enough faith in the system to get it right. Try googling a site called MOJO and do soem reading . It is about miscarriages of justice.

 

To all those of you who say you would happily pull the trigger, push the button, throw the switch etc; I say this,

You may well think you could or would but, come the day of having to do so - I think you would find that you had great dificulty in even going near the required instrument of death. Why - because you are all human beings with a conscience.

[poontang]

Are you saying that people don't get killed by trains, planes or buses then?

 

I definetly remember Alan Bradley getting run over by a Blackpool Tram on Coronation Street once.

 

 

 

please take the time to read posts before responding. I stated CAR accidents, I did not include air traffic, rail, public transport deaths.

 

WOOOOOOOOSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHH

[MPT1]

If the death penalty was to be re-introduced:-

 

Juries would be more reluctant to convict.

 

The CPS would need more evidence so would be less likely to prosecute.

 

Mentally deranged people wouldn't give it a thought.

 

Killing whilest in a temper would continue. Crimes of passion would still happen.

 

It will never be, nor ever was a deterent.

 

People stole sheep in the knowledge that they would be hanged if caught.

 

People deal drugs in countries that execute drug dealers.

 

Incarceration is the answer, not hard labour, but isolation with nothing to take your mind off the slow passing of time.

[MC]

please take the time to read posts before responding. I stated CAR accidents, I did not include air traffic, rail, public transport deaths.

 

 

Touchy little soul aren't we?

 

Yes you are quite right you did say CAR accidents. but in the same light banning handguns would stop people being shot by HANDGUNS however they could still be shot by shotguns.

 

If you banned ownershp of cars then all those people would be out using public transport which would be more crowded and probably the same amount of people would still die by other means like being run over by a tram (RIP Alan Bradley)

 

Quite what banning the public ownership of cars has to do with the death penalty I do not know. Maybe you are some green ecomentalist with an axe to grind.

[MM]

Are you saying that people don't get killed by trains, planes or buses then?

 

I definetly remember Alan Bradley getting run over by a Blackpool Tram on Coronation Street once.

 

:lol: :o :o im supposed to be taking it easy got a sore wound now.

[Welsh Andy]

If the death penalty was to be re-introduced:-

 

Juries would be more reluctant to convict.

good point.

 

I think it should be re introduced, except for crimes of passion etc.

[gunsure]

I'll say this. If the scumbag driver, who killed my 14 year old son, and his 14 year old friend, while drunk and banned 4 times, hadn't died at the scene, I could pull the switch, press the needle or whatever myself!

now i agree with you on that even although i voted no

[henry d]

I say NO, but that is just my belief.

 

I have posted a link at the end of this and I insist that you DO NOT LOOK at it if you may be offended/upset by photos of an execution of a human who was found guilty of adultery and stoned to death............. {link removed}

 

If the death penalty was returned to the UK, the same as this, would it still be a right and just punishment ? ...and lets not go down the "They`re a bunch of...." road.

Edited March 5, 2010 by Axe
To remove link.

[Vipa]

If it's the lesser of two evils, then logically yes.

 

 

 

No, you're talking about banning risky activities because or the number of lives that could be saved. (And banning handguns

hasn't reduced the rate of gun crime). These are activities that normal people undertake as part of their daily lives.

 

 

 

 

No it isn't.

 

I'm saying that if the threat of the death penalty is shown to reduce innocent deaths by 100 per year then the

risk of killing one innocent person is worth it.

 

What do you say to her parents?

 

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2584819.ece

 

 

Nial.

 

Link not working Nial but irrespective of what is at the other end of the link, my feelings are thus. I am a father of 4 and my heart tells me that if anyone hurt my children, I would want to see them swing. Thankfully my head has slightly more control over my persona than my heart (not much, but enough) and the fact that no conviction is 100% safe concerns me enough that I would rather they spent the rest of their life behind bars than be put to death. I would be absolutely devastated to find out that the person who had been executed was innocent, that possibly children, just like mine, had lost their father for no reason at the hands of the state. I could not live with that burden and this is why my views are my views, no one elses, but mine. I would hope that the arguments I have put forward to support my views are based on logical and rational thought and are backed up by real life experience and data. What I haven't done is let my emotions take over and just blurt out 'hang em' or 'no we could never take a life.'

 

As I have already stated, I am all for capital punishment so long as there a ) are no mitigating circumstances and it was pre-meditated b ) there is NO doubt whatsoever of guilt. the latter is very very difficult as it is impossible to have NO doubt.

 

To me the only acceptable number of innocent lives taken to create a deterrent is zero. And thankfully this is the view shared by the great minds of our nation and our government (whichever one we end up with!) As a civilisation I would like to think we are way beyond barbarism.

 

Oh and with regards to dogs and other animals. The one main trait that sets humans apart from any other species on the planet is our ability to show compassion.

Edited March 5, 2010 by Vipa

[digger]

I cant find the excact figures but I think its near 100% of those convicted and then sentenced to death do not re offend ?

[Pushkin]

Sorry folks here is the link I was referring to in my earlier post.

 

http://www.mojuk.org.uk/

 

Pushkin

[markbjones01]

There have been lots of comments on this thread that prison is far to soft for the perpetrators of these horrific crimes. The official stance is that the loss of liberty is thier punishment and the conditions inside are geared up to helping them address their offending behaviour, Ive spent nearly 20 years working in prisons and feel that this country has got it wrong we seam to be appeasing wrong doers at the expense of the law abiding, we have a society that has over 70 charities for offenders and just 2 for the victims of crime, I feel that we need to toughen up our laws and our punishments but more than anything we need consitency free from political pursuation as all this political correctness etc is ruining our society.

[MM]

regardless of the reasons behind it all, in the end it tells us two things:

 

1. to kill another person is WRONG, whatever the guise.

2: you cant change your mind once they are dead.

 

 

How people can live with themsleves after they kill someone accidentaly, i dont know. Its a tough thing to live with. Does it make it right that the Govonor of the State told you to do it as its your job? What about when you are in the middle of a war and your CO tells you to kill the enemy? Its your job. Does this make it right? What is the difference between a soldier and a drunk driver? Your local Swami has told you to bury a lady up to her neck, and stone her to death for holding another mans hand? regardless of the reasons, they still have killed another person. Modern society is based on religion, and the biggest one of these tells us that its wrong. The building blocks of civilisation are saying its bad. Im sure we all say "thank God" without realising it, yet we cannot stick to the other areas of religion that are more appropriate to real life. Killing is bad, it does not matter how you dress it up.