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The UK has signed up to many EU treaties which means the death penalty in the UK is impossible unless we leave the EU.
As far as my opinion goes, no I don't think it is right. We do not punish any other crime with crime (we don't burgle the homes of burglars or rape rapists).
Before anyone condones the death penalty, they should also remember the murder trial would be by jury, therefore any one of us would have to take responsibility for passing a death sentence on another person, should we be called to serve on a murder trial.
But prison should mean punishment and a life sentence should mean life.
Perhaps voluntary euthanasia for self-confessed murderers/lifers is an option....? It would save the taxpayer £2,500 a week....
I don't believe in the death penalty. We need to move further away from the 'eye for an eye' mantality if our society is to progress. It is a barbaric way of dealing with crime, and IMO is a worse deterrent than life in prison, as death would be an easy way out for the criminal.
It is commonly known that in the US, jurors have been reluctant to convict if it means putting someone to death, thereby preventing justice. It can also create sympathy for monsterous perpetrators of crimes, and its useless anyway as it doesn't bring victims back to life.
Above all else, the possibility exists for innocent people to be put to death.
I am 99% against the death penalty. Yes I know it probably sounds idiotic.
I do feel we become no better than the murderer if we apply the same kinds of standards as murderers and violent criminals do.
I would also not want to take the risk of executing anyone innocent and miscarriages of justice will always happen.
The system also seems to prove a very inequitable one as demonstrated in the US where ethnic /racial groups are proven to be discriminated against and where for example a black man convicted of an offence is far more likely to end on death row as a white man with exactly the same offence. That is not justice either.
The death penalty is obviously not a deterrent either as seen in the US and does not make criminal think and stop their violence.
That said my logical and finer feelings would be somewhat different I suspect if a loved one had been murdered or tortured/raped etc..
I do also feel that unless life actually means life (ie rotting in jail until you come out feet first), recidivists crime cannot be prevented from happening again ( rape, paedophiles, certain types of murders ). The death penalty in that respect is one way to ensure that that person can never offend again.
The death penalty is to me philosophically abhorrent and yet a part of me, accepts that for some victim's relatives it might be the only form of closure and of feeling that justice has been done.
And recidivism rates in sexual crimes and serial murderers do bother me.
So I would say no to the Death penalty but if I am truly intellectually honest as well, a teeny-tiny part of me would have no problem with it. Hence the 1%. Call it my savage nature.
Our justice system must reflect those concerns and ensure that justice is served, sentences are actually served and reflect the true nature of the crime.
Recently a judge in Oxford fined a man for abusing a 12 year old girl and ordered for the paedophile to buy her a new bicycle as a gesture.
Judges like that should be sacked.
I would like some mandatory sentences for certain sexual crimes, paedophilia and certain type of recidivist murders ( like serial killers for example) where there is no getting out. Ever. That would satisfy me.
That said my logical and finer feelings would be somewhat different I suspect if a loved one had been murdered or tortured/raped etc....
The death penalty is to me philosophically abhorrent and yet a part of me, accepts that for some victim's relatives it might be the only form of closure and of feeling that justice has been done...
So I would say no to the Death penalty but if I am truly intellectually honest as well, a teeny-tiny part of me would have no problem with it. Hence the 1%. Call it my savage nature...
I totally understand, and I feel the same - there is a part of us that desperately wants revenge. Revenge is a powerful and instinctive emotion, like you say 'savage'.
But revenge isn't justice, and acting it out lowers us to the criminal mind-set, so I think we need to feel justice is done and our need for revenge is satisfied by seeing murderers do life, full die-behind-bars life.
I don't believe in the death penalty. We need to move further away from the 'eye for an eye' mantality if our society is to progress. It is a barbaric way of dealing with crime, and IMO is a worse deterrent than life in prison, as death would be an easy way out for the criminal.
It is commonly known that in the US, jurors have been reluctant to convict if it means putting someone to death, thereby preventing justice. It can also create sympathy for monsterous perpetrators of crimes, and its useless anyway as it doesn't bring victims back to life.
Above all else, the possibility exists for innocent people to be put to death.
I hope you don't mind me jumping in on this thread......
I don't believe that it is common at all for people who are on trial for a capital murder case to be let go because jurors were put off by the prospect of imposing the death penalty. In fact, I don't know of a single case. That doesn't necesarily mean anything I know, but it would point out that such cases are not common.
Also, in my state there are currently ten people on death row, 6 white, 3 Latino, 1 black. Yes, there are a disproportionate number of minorities in the prison system, (I wonder if that holds true in England as well?) but not necessarily on death row.
Personally, I am against the death penalty. More and more Americans are. I don't doubt that the day will come when it is outlawed here.
Do you think the Birmingham Five, the Guildford Four and others who spend years in British prisons for crimes they did not commit would not have been hanged if the death penalty had been in force at the time they were convicted?
Or how about young Derek Bentley, can he ever be brought back to life?
Judicial murder is still murder, and even more horrifying when the victims are innocent.
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, but it would point out that such cases are not common.
