The death penalty.

[Chippy_Tea]

Should it be brought back for cases where they are 100% sure they have the right person, i think its crazy this bloke is going to spend the next 43 years at the tax payers expense (assuming he lives that long) and from what i heard today if he is not dead by the end of his sentence he is unlikely to be released anyway so life means life in this case.

At 2016 estimates (£40,000 per year) it will cost us £1,720,000 over 43 years but as the price will rise each year its going to be much more.


BBC News -

Finsbury Park attacker Darren Osborne jailed for minimum of 43 years

A man who drove a van into a crowd of Muslims near a north London mosque has been sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of 43 years behind bars.

Darren Osborne, 48, was found guilty of murdering Makram Ali, 51, after deliberately ploughing into a crowd of people in Finsbury Park in June.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told Osborne, from Cardiff: "This was a terrorist attack. You intended to kill."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42920929

 

[simon12]

My thoughts are no, but i'm open to my mind being changed. Reasons:
You are saying this person can never be reformed in anyway ever, I suppose a judge has already made that decision on behalf of the outside world but I don't think you can say anyone is so completely evil that its OK to kill them.
The amount of politics & bureaucracy that would be involved in setting up a system for it and around every case that 1.7 million would sound like a bargain.
I don't think its fair on the judges and people involved in the deaths to have it on there conscience that they are involved in the death of anyone.

 

[Clint]

There lies the crux...are people ever/always reformed? Murder in cold blood is a great difference from say nicking stuff from tesco....
But then we live in a "civilised" society that denotes we abolish the death penalty. ...and therefore keep the offender at hml forever...perhaps the cost is irrelevant when the punishment is actually life imprisonment. ..
Maybe the crimes would be less if the punishment fitted the crime. ..even if it consisted of a lifetime of hard labour instead of being given a warm room with an xbox, food and be known as a gentleman rather than an inmate...

 

[druid]

If this person took other peoples lives because he felt it was a justified act and we feel it is/was wrong, how then can one justify taking another life just because we feel it would be a justified act? Does one act somehow find a higher ground than the other equally despicable act? There always be instances when the revulsion we feel would seem to justify the ultimate punishment, but in the end, we would end up no different than the perpetrator. A quick end to someones life does not punish them. They may feel fear for a short period, but once executed, its over. Life behind bars with nothing to look forward to..no rights...no joy...just fear and emptiness could be considered a much greater punishment. Not to mention that certain crimes...the ones the inmates themselves consider low...puts the life of that offender in a position that few would feel comfortable even thinking about......


just my tuppence

 

[Saisonator]

For the vast majority of terrorists, being made a martyr would actually be doing them a favour.
So I would rather they spend many miserable years of wasted life in prison.

 

[Linalmeemow]

State sanctioned murder is still murder. It's very rare I agree with the Bible but "Thou shalt not kill" is a pretty sound idea.

 

[Clint]

.....grain hops yeast and water thread....last post 6pm ish....
Just an observation. ..too ****** to type anymore. ....

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!
I think people who support the death penalty should be hanged.




Oh!
:unsure:

 

[Bigcol49]

State sanctioned murder is still murder. It's very rare I agree with the Bible but "Thou shalt not kill" is a pretty sound idea.

Hi!
Playing Devil's advocate, I suppose we'll ignore this verse from said Bible: Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed

 

[MrRook]

The death sentence can be a handy tool to get a criminal to plead to a lesser charge to avoid it, saving a lot of money on an expensive trial and numerous costly appeals.

 

[Ken L]

"Should it be brought back for cases where they are 100% sure they have the right person,"

A bad man walks into a bank with an Uzi and a full clip of 32 rounds waiting for the owner of a local business who he knows will be coming in with the weeks takings.
Something goes wrong and he ends up shooting and killing a would be have a go hero.
Meanwhile, someone was already suspicious of the strange man hanging around the bank and had called the police.
After a few chaotic minutes, he's holed up with 30 hostages and the police are outside.
If he hands himself in, the state will kill him.
His other option is to go out in a blaze of glory and maybe escape in the ensuing confusion.

How about a similar scenario in a school?

Once you introduce a death sentence, you take away al of your ability to bargain with them.

Of course, America does have a death penalty and not only does it cost more to go through al the appeals than it costs to keep them in prison but studies indicate that even after all the appeals, around 4% of executions are of innocent men.

 

[Dutto]

As a young man I was all for the Death Penalty but since then I've seen so many miscarriages of justice that I am now a very strong opponent,:wave:Imagine the horror of standing on that platform with a rope around your neck knowing that you didn't commit the crime for which you are to be hanged!

Then imagine how your family will feel if you are then granted a posthumous pardon because it has been discovered that you didn't commit the crime!

The road to madness indeed!

 

[Thumper]

Nope, for so many reasons.

Firstly, from a moral standpoint, if murder, i.e. killing in cold blood with malice aforethought, is wrong then it is wrong regardless of what a person has done. As much as it may be a cliche, it does make you as bad as them, regardless of how much self-righteousness we dress it up in.

Secondly, from a logical standpoint, when issuing the death penalty what we are really saying is "killing is wrong. You have killed someone. Therefore, we will kill you". It's an absolute nonsense. It's an illogical mess. There is no rational argument there.

Thirdly, as counterintuitive as it seems at first, numerous studies (such as one made in april 2017, focussed on first degree murder trials in Oklahoma, USA; link to summary with links to actual study below) have found that the death penalty is more expensive than incarceration.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty

Fourth, it is surely better to at least try and rehabilitate someone. In this case, the perpetrator was taught to be an islamophobic ******. If he learned that, he can unlearn it.

Fifth, it doesn't help anyone. It doesn't bring the victim back, and if it does make the family feel any better then it's nothing more than brute vengeance with a prettier name, and from a personal perspective I don't think that's something a civilised society ought to be encouraging.

 

[chewie]

Taken from "Billy Austin" Who are you to say for sure...

 

[Linalmeemow]

Hi!
Playing Devil's advocate, I suppose we'll ignore this verse from said Bible: Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed

As I said, I rarely agree with anything in the Bible, including that one!

 

[BeerCat]

If we had the death penalty only for politicians we might find they start acting on our behalves.

 

[Dutto]

We still had the Death Penalty in the UK until the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 became law.:wave:Until then it was still on the statute books for Treason and Piracy on the High Seas.:thumb:Oh, here's a mega-BTW. Shagging the wife of the Prince of Wales is classed as Treason. Think back and you may remember someone called Hewitt?

 

[simon12]

"State sanctioned murder is still murder. It's very rare I agree with the Bible but "Thou shalt not kill" is a pretty sound idea."
"Playing Devil's advocate, I suppose we'll ignore this verse from said Bible: Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed"
These verses do not contradict each other as 1 tells people not to kill and the other gives a punishment for killing. Also this is old testament law not followed by Christians today.

 

[Thumper]

The punishment for killing involves someone killing the person who did the killing, which is killing. It obviously contradicts itself.

I agree most Christians these days would say it's a silly rule.

 

[pvt_ak]

Hang the bastards I say.
An eye for an eye.
Thief and get your arm off !
GBH take an ear off !
Rape and take their knob off !