h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The law is clear: any person who will deliberately kill another one will be guillotined:

http://ddata.over-blog.com/xxxyyy/0/56/25/34/rakotoarison/_blogFranquinIdeesNoiresPeineCapitale.jpg

I still ask would you be prepared to justify your stance to the parents and families of Robert Black's victims? Do I have to spell out the details of his offences for you, it'll probaly be modded However, a sanitised version:
One of his victims was put in a weighted sack and thrown in the canal when he'd finished with her. The post mortem showed that child was alive when she went in the water.

I ask 'why?' are we keeping the truely evil such as that in a life of comfort and safety at tax payers expense. Perhaps you'd like to work with him and ensure his human rights aren't violated, the poor dear, that'll be a real comfort to the less charitable of us and the victims families.

I've given a lot of consideration to my stance on capital punishment (firmly against) since I had children. And it's something I reconsider periodically, most recently a week or two a go when a child went missing (there is still no trace of him) close to here.

And it bears repeating, because I tell everyone I know to remind me where I stand on this should the worst happen to someone I love. Capital punishment is not a deterrent to most murderers. In cases like domestic violence where the actual murder is premeditated, the murderer is usually so provoked that they are not capable of rational thought.

Same where the murder is a result of an attack when murder wasn't the aim. People who plan murder (kidnapping someone, abusing them and then killing them) don't think they'll get caught and aren't deterred by the idea that in the unlikely event they are caught, they may be sentenced to death.

The only people it seems to deter are people who would never murder anyone anyway.

Capital punishment is just that - it punishes someone severely. But really, does it do anything except provde a brief moment of closure for the victim's loved ones? I may feel like that if someone were hanged for killing one of my children but in the end - it wouldn't bring her back, and by agreeing to it I would have gone against something that I very very firmly and deeply believe in.

Life in prison without parole is my preferred punishment (and I absolutely don't really care that much about their human rights - if they get to eat, sleep, use the ablutions and the loo that's alright by me) which is why I do have more than a small problem with, say, the freeing of RAF terrorists who have not apologised or repented.

>>In this time of budgetry restraint, untold millions could be saved in the maintenance of the truely evil - Robert Black, Geoffrey Dahmar etc. Do you seriously think these recidivist have any redeeming features to save them from the gallows?



How do you square that cost insentive with the American experience, in which, depending on the state, a death penalty has additional costs of between tens of thousands of dollars to tens of millions of dollars?



>> not the swift coup de grace I support.

Meaning to keep cost down you'd abolish the appeals process, perhaps even a right to a defence?
What do you support? Not justice, based upon your offering thus far.


>>I look forward to your thoughts of why they should be allowed to burden the tax payer in relative comfort and safety for the rest of their lives.

Read postings 28 and/or 32.

>>Do I have to spell out the details of their offences for you?


No, they are irrelevant.

>> Perhaps you would like to put the same question to the parents and families of Robert Black's victims

Yes, please do.
They aren't relevant to whether the system is cost effective, useful as deterrent or ethical.
But, they might have something to say about your arrogance in using them for your mindless argument, and you may even get lecture them on how wrong they are if they tell you they don't support a death penalty.

Aaaaaaaaaaah! Isolated paraphrasing out of context They come on in the same old way.............. finally resulting in personal attacks because I have the temerity to voice a different point of view.

YES, I support capital punishment for irredeemable recidivists, if you do not understand that I can rephrase it in simpler terms for you to comprehend JW.

I fully support the rule of law and the criminal justice system, it does pay my wages I would not, and never, obstruct a persons right to defence.

I may be a little techy having spent the best part of last night to a irredeemable and arrogant pedophile at the hospital, you should try having to listen to prisoners like that JW, then you would understand true arrogance.

Support of capital punishmrent for the truely evil is, in my personal opinion, justified.

None-the-less, we do concur in your post 32. Some crimes are so heinous they do warrant the ultimate punishment.

For those I do propose the swift coup de grace of a short rope and a long drop, as opposed to the Taliban's methods of hacking away at the convicted's neck with a knife until the head is detached - That is in in context

I'm sorry my miltiristic institutionalism doesn't sit easy with all Vive la difference - it is what democracy is about

>>Aaaaaaaaaaah! Isolated paraphrasing out of context yawn They come on in the same old way.............. finally resulting in personal attacks because I have the temerity to voice a different point of view.

I have made no personal attack.
Your point of view and the arguments you used in support of it have been subject to criticism.

If you wish whine, limit that which you are whining about to that which I have said, not fictions you might wish invent to valid any sense of victim-hood having the factual, logical and ethical flaws of your views and arguments highlighted may invoke.

Nor have I paraphrased any of you words, they were taken directly from postings. Again, please limit your complaints to reality.


You stated "The Talban execute their prisoners and captives in a particularly grotesque manner, not the swift coup de grace I support."

I asked: "What do you support?"



>>YES, I support capital punishment for irredeemable recidivists, if you do not understand that I can rephrase it in simpler terms for you to comprehend JW.

How would the statutes define "irredeemable"?
How many convictions for shoplifting merit death?



>>I fully support the rule of law and the criminal justice system, it does pay my wages winkeye I would not, and never, obstruct a persons right to defence.


So, how would structure the system make capital punishment less expensive than life imprisonment?
How would the system be "swift"?
At present recidivism is recorded as nearing 40%. That suggests alot of trials, appeals and executions to be carried out, the costs in terms of lives, pressure on courts and the taxpayers money would be enourmous.
More executions than carried out in China, with a population more than order of magnitude greater than ours.

Also the cost to the economy f leaving the EU, the first requirement before we could within the rule of law instate any kind of capital punishment, or limit access to courts of appeal would again be crippling.

>>Support of capital punishmrent for the truely evil is, in my personal opinion, justified.

As I already said in post 32, support of capital punishment for "truly evil" and support capital punishment in our system of justice are not the same thing.

The men that beat a retarded man to death with a cricket bat, deserve the death penalty, the lads that beat a goth girl to death for being a goth deserve death.
As a nation and society we deserve better than to have something as wasteful of innocent lives and public money as capital punishment was in our past and is now in the US and elsewhere.

There is no reliable means of assessing who is actually "truly evil".
Innocent people have, are and would die, either through incompetence or corruption somewhere in the system. Be it the expert witnesses, such as in Scotland, when they had bogus fingerprint expert, or the jury not understanding the weakness of the DNA evidence or assuming that the News Of The World knows who is guilty, or the police fitting someone up... etc, Or anywhere else in the system.

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must disagree with you there old boy, hanging is such a waste

harvesting is the answer

the subject is put under by an anesthetist, thats the last he knows, very humane, all his usable parts are harvested for transplant into needy people, enhancing or saving their lives, when there is an empty husk on a life support machine an official comes along "i now carry out the will of the court" and flicks the switch, BEEEEEeeeeeeeeee! the end

if by any chance an innocent is given the death penalty, their sacrefice has enhanced the lives of dozens, and not been the total waste of a long drop with a short rope

How about cannibalism, too? Serious question. Is it any different from that scenario?

As someone who worked on the side of the law that sent offenders to the institutions that norti and taff work in, I'm against the death penalty as I am against the routine arming of the police (UK).
I also appreciate the difficulties prison officers have in guarding societies criminal element especially the hardened crims who use every trick in the book to carry on their nefarious ways inside. There is, without doubt, some serious scum behind bars who deserve to be there and don't deserve to be treated the same as others hence my main point below.
I think what we should be doing is making sure that a life sentence means life first and foremost. The prison regime needs changing. Life prisoners should be in a regime that is austere. Not wearing their own clothes, but a formal prison uniform, no tv's etc in cells. They shouldn't be sitting around or worse, getting access to higher education, use of fully fitted gyms etc. I'd prefer to see them in chain gangs clearing ditches, breaking rocks. Prison should be punishment first, rehabilitation for non-lifers second. There should be 2 distinct prison regimes for the above to happen.
We have to also bear in mind that though there have been some massive advances in forensic science to aid prosecutions the reverse also applies, forensics such as DNA can prove innocence as well, years after an event.
I tend to avoid threads like this usually, as sadly, they have a tendency to dissolve into mud-slinging and name calling and the topic of debate is lost. Its a shame, as some of the more controversial topics for discussion are indeed worthy of debate but not when folk can't keep it on the matter in hand rather than personalising it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and so long as they're not being racist, homophobic or inciting others to break the law then all opinions count.

Although I agree with almost all of Jack's post, I must take issue with "Also the cost to the economy f leaving the EU,"

So, if we leave the EU they won't let us buy their BMWs or their wine then? And they'll turn their noses up at our oil and Hi-Tech exports will they?

How on earth does the rest of the world survive not being in the EU?

The oft-repeated phrase "our economy is reliant upon the EU" should actually read "our economy is reliant upon trade with our neighbours" and that trade would continue whatever.

swl, shall we save EU arguments for another thread on another day, you and I agree that there are alot of problems with the EU we just don't agree on what they are or what might best be done about them...?

As that point is there to emphasise not the benefits of full participation in the EU, but the socio-economic and political upheaval that even starting to move toward reinstatement of capital punishment would cause before we even set about making several thousand peoples heads pop off as they get to the end their rope.

http://www.fullbooks.com/A-Modest-Proposal.html

FB

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cannibalism carries too many hazards to the population, just for the sake of some extra protein, though the chemical recovery of trace element from a cadaver, for the purpose of recycleing resourses in a clased system might be worth looking into, why pump a corpse full of toxic preservatives and then try to recycle it by burying or burning, when we could do so much with the acid bath and refinery??

life ater death, society has given to you, now it's your turn to give to society!!!

I refer you to The Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess.

Several thousand heads pop off as they get to the end of their rope - swift if nothing else

If post 44 with its allegations of mindless arrogance wasn't a personal attack JW, then I would like you to explain how?

I may remind you, yet again You were delibertaly paraphrasing a comments out of context, about the use of a short rope and a long drop as ooposed top the truely grotesque methods employed by the Taliban, to imply I was advocating execution without trial or defence.

WRONG

I doubt there willever be a return to capital punishment in this country, as there will ever be a return to genuine punishment for societies transgressors. From my pespective the pendulm has swung to far toward the liberal elites policy of appeasement of wrong doers. A policy it appears you whole heartedly support JW, I may be wrong

norti - as has already been pointed out, we simply cannot reinstate the death penalty. It breaches numerous treaty obligations and would require us throwing away the HRA. We have bound ourselves in a thousand silken threads on that one and cutting them all would have consequences that none of us here have even begun to contemplate.

Far better to have a life sentence that means a life spent under lock and key (not fifteen and supervision in the community). As has been pointed out, fear of consequences is not a deterrent otherwise no-one would smuggle drugs in the Far East. People commit serious crime either without thought, without caring about the consequences or because they have calculated that the chances of being caught and convicted are pretty slim. Basically, you could paint them purple and pin them to bus tyres and it would have sod-all effect on crime stats.

>>Also the cost to the economy f leaving the EU, the first requirement before we could within the rule of law instate any kind of capital punishment, or limit access to courts of appeal would again be crippling.
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I support capital punishment if only so we can leave the EU

I fully concur, I doubt there will ever be a retuen to capital punishment in this country, not only for the reasons you have stated SWL. It's good to have a rant and left off having spend the latter part of the previous night listening to a whinging paedophile attempt to justify himself.

I do seriously beleive the likes of Robert Black are beyond redemption, a friend of mine interviewed him on many occassions, and we waste resources keeping him and his ilk in relative comfort and safety from a vengeful public. Not that I would condone vigilantism either The rule of law must be followed to ensure a fair trial.

I'm not so sure about the activities and use of armed police on our streets with the inevitable consequences of innocents being shot to death on tube trains and drunken lawyers executed by police firing squads. On the other hand, if you point a weapon at armed police, then you must be willing to accept the consequences of your actions regardless of whether the weapon was loaded or not. All very easy to be wise in hindsight, I with the coroner on that one. Others may disagree.

BTW I almost forgot to give BMT Couldn't agree more, though I remain in favour of capital punishment (extremely unlikely to return) I do support a more robust corporeal punishment as a compromise.