The Death Penalty

[birchesgreen]

No, we shouldn't give the state the right to kill it's own people no matter what they may have done. Plus many convictions may seem safe at the time and later have been found to have been incorrect. You can release someone wrongly convicted from gaol, you can't bring them back to life.

 

[hexagon789]

In a G.B. context, the Death Penalty was suspended in 1965 and abolished in 1969

To be pedantic it was not abolished in 1969, but 1997. It was abolished for convictions of murder in 1969, but remained theoretically available for three other offences until entirely abolished in 1997.

 

[AlterEgo]

It is not justice for someone to lose their life at the hands of the state when twenty years down the line new evidence is found that blows the original prosecution out of the water. Not only has the wrong person carried the can for a crime that they did not commit, but the person who actually did the deed gets away with it.

Sure, and it’s not justice to lock someone up for that length of time either for a time they didn’t commit, is it? Why punish anyone at all, in that case?

 

[edwin_m]

The job of the justice system is not only to punish offenders but exact justice. The most egregious murders do deserve death as justice.

Doesn't that just encourage terrorists to think that if the state can put people to death based on its view of justice, then they can do so as well?

 

[alex397]

If the conviction is unequivocal then I have no problem with it. As said above, Wayne Couzens would be a good contender as would the perpetrators of the various London and Manchester terrorist attacks had they survived. Also the Ian Huntleys and Steve Wrights of this world.

Who is to decide it is unequivocal though? Some would say the evidence against some who were later found innocent was unequivocal at the time.

There is also the issue of martyrdom if terrorists were given the death penalty.

Another thing is a life in prison, to me, sounds worse than given the death penalty. For many criminals who have been caught, being given the death penalty would be a relief. Look at the amount of prisoners who try to kill themselves.

I think the best arguement I’ve seen about the death penalty is the widely shared video of Ian Hislop on Question Time arguing with the lovely Priti Patel. Not only does it show in the best terms why the death penalty would be dangerous, counter-productive and foolish, but also that Patel has no idea what she’s talking about. The laughter from the audience is priceless.

 

[AlterEgo]

Doesn't that just encourage terrorists to think that if the state can put people to death based on its view of justice, then they can do so as well?

No, why on earth would it? I seem to recall we had rather a large terrorism problem without us having the death penalty in use.

What next? An argument that becuase the state routinely imprisons people who have broken the law, it encourages the crime of false imprisonment?

 

[nw1]

Sure, and it’s not justice to lock someone up for that length of time either for a time they didn’t commit, is it? Why punish anyone at all, in that case?

Because as has already been said, if someone goes to prison, they can be released. If the State executes an innocent person due to poor evidence, they cannot be brought back to life.

 

[Busaholic]

I am not a supporter of the revenge attitude, but I am also cynical about redemption. I see prison as having two purposes: dissuasion (‘Do something contrary to the common good and your life will not be much fun’) and protection (If you do something contrary to accepted behaviour and may do it again, you should be put somewhere where you can’t). A life sentence should, where necessary in extreme cases, mean being imprisoned until you are so aged or infirm that you are no longer a danger to others.

I see prison sentences (of over six months i.e. beyond Magistrate Court level) as having three objectives, in this order -
Protection of the public
Punishment for the crime
To act as a deterrent to others

The 'lock 'em up and throw away the key' brigade put punishment first, the 'do-gooders' last. They are all important considerations imo, but there's a danger that the last may wither if publicity is not given by the media to court reports of all the important cases that don't feature horrific or salacious details. There is also the willingness of certain police forces to announce they have no intention of investigating certain categories of offence, which is not acceptable imo.

 

[mikeg]

I used to be for the death penalty but now am strongly opposed. I was for it one the grounds that even if the occasional innocent was executed, more would be saved by deterrence.
However I believe the prevailing consensus is that the death penalty does not offer any more deterrent than the current arrangement (life with the possibility of release on licence after a long time for most murders, no parole for the very worst cases).
Therefore it can be proven by simple arithmetic that the death penalty results in the death of more innocent people, something I'm not sure there's any rational argument for.
And that's before we get into economic arguments (it's actually cheaper to lock someone up than to kill them with any measure of due process, at least in the USA this is the case).

 

[yorksrob]

It is also worth recalling that even where a whole life tariff has not been made life still means life. Firstly they have to serve their minimum sentence before their eligible for parole (and it does not follow that just because they're eligible means they will get paroled!). Then even if they are granted parole for the rest of their life they will be liable to be recalled to prison if they breach (or are likely to breach) their licence conditions. Those conditions being potentially pretty onerous!

Licence Conditions and how the Parole Board use them

A guide to what Licence Conditions are, which conditions Parole Board members can use in their decisions, and how conditions can be varied

www.gov.uk

So yes it's possible for someone with a life sentence to be released from prison but for the rest of their life they will be under the scrutiny and control of the State to a significantly greater degree than your average person. That fact always seems to get lost whenever someone (or one of the right wing papers) starts chirping up about how life doesn't mean life anymore.

Yes, this is true, and IMO sufficient for the majority of 'life' cases

 

[ainsworth74]

Sure, and it’s not justice to lock someone up for that length of time either for a time they didn’t commit, is it? Why punish anyone at all, in that case?

Because if the State has made a mistake or has wilfully ignored evidence/obfuscated the evidence (which the CPS have been known to do) then that person who has been wrongly convicted can be released and steps taken to make the harm good be that with an apology setting the record straight and financial restitution for the damage done to their life.

If they're dead then there isn't anything that can be done. They're dead and that's that. As far as I'm concerned as long as there's even the slightest chance that a mistake can be made then the death penalty (even if I might think the likes of Harold Shipman, Ian Huntly, Myra Hindley, etc do deserve the death penalty) is unconscionable.

I see prison sentences (of over six months i.e. beyond Magistrate Court level) as having three objectives, in this order -
Protection of the public
Punishment for the crime
To act as a deterrent to others

The 'lock 'em up and throw away the key' brigade put punishment first, the 'do-gooders' last. They are all important considerations imo, but there's a danger that the last may wither if publicity is not given by the media to court reports of all the important cases that don't feature horrific or salacious details. There is also the willingness of certain police forces to announce they have no intention of investigating certain categories of offence, which is not acceptable imo.

Of course the deterrent aspect only works if those committing the crimes actually think there's a chance they'll be caught. I think we're seeing that issue right now. Politicians love to prattle on about being "tough on crime" and introducing more and more laws with harsher sentences. But heaven forbid that they actually fund the police properly so that they can investigate crimes, that they fund the CPS so that they can prosecute crimes using the laws which, in most cases, are already sufficient for the task, that they fund the courts so that cases can be heard promptly in facilities that are fit for purpose, that they fund legal aid to make sure that we can all be certain that when someone is charged that everyone has access to proper representation, etc etc.

Doing those things of course is expensive and hard. Far easier to get a good splash in the Mail trumpeting how you're "tough on crime" whilst the entire system of criminal justice races towards total collapse. You could have prisons and sentences which wouldn't be out of place in Stalin's Russia but when the entire criminal justice system is in collapse it won't do much to deter crime!

 

[Busaholic]

Because if the State has made a mistake or has wilfully ignored evidence/obfuscated the evidence (which the CPS have been known to do) then that person who has been wrongly convicted can be released and steps taken to make the harm good be that with an apology setting the record straight and financial restitution for the damage done to their life.

If they're dead then there isn't anything that can be done. They're dead and that's that. As far as I'm concerned as long as there's even the slightest chance that a mistake can be made then the death penalty (even if I might think the likes of Harold Shipman, Ian Huntly, Myra Hindley, etc do deserve the death penalty) is unconscionable.



Of course the deterrent aspect only works if those committing the crimes actually think there's a chance they'll be caught. I think we're seeing that issue right now. Politicians love to prattle on about being "tough on crime" and introducing more and more laws with harsher sentences. But heaven forbid that they actually fund the police properly so that they can investigate crimes, that they fund the CPS so that they can prosecute crimes using the laws which, in most cases, are already sufficient for the task, that they fund the courts so that cases can be heard promptly in facilities that are fit for purpose, that they fund legal aid to make sure that we can all be certain that when someone is charged that everyone has access to proper representation, etc etc.

Doing those things of course is expensive and hard. Far easier to get a good splash in the Mail trumpeting how you're "tough on crime" whilst the entire system of criminal justice races towards total collapse. You could have prisons and sentences which wouldn't be out of place in Stalin's Russia but when the entire criminal justice system is in collapse it won't do much to deter crime!

I totally agree with all that: it's an appalling situation with no indication of it not getting worse. One of the problems you highlight is that the Mail etc calls on the one hand for tougher sentences, then presents a picture of current incarceration being a piece of cake for the inmates. Nothing could be further from the truth! Any Tory who declares this to be fallacy, like Ken Clarke, gets shouted down by the likes of Patel and her (a)moral equivalents such as Farage and Widdecombe.

 

[AlterEgo]

Because as has already been said, if someone goes to prison, they can be released. If the State executes an innocent person due to poor evidence, they cannot be brought back to life.

Yes, but neither of those things reverses the sentence. The state does all sorts of dreadful things to our worst criminals like keeping them in solitary confinement, but you would be wrong to describe a late release as some sort of correction of justice. It is nothing of the sort.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Because as has already been said, if someone goes to prison, they can be released. If the State executes an innocent person due to poor evidence, they cannot be brought back to life.

A person who is murdered by a criminal equally cannot be brought back to life. So a more pertinent question is probably, would capital punishment on balance reduce the numbers of people who are killed? If (hypothetically but plausibly) it saves more innocent lives (by deterring criminals) than it causes to be lost (through occasional miscarriages of justice), then you have an argument that capital punishment may on balance do more good than harm.

(To be fair, it's arguably not quite equal, because a person convicted on a miscarriage of justice probably has his/her life ruined for many months by the criminal conviction process, whereas I would imagine most people who are murdered by criminals will have had a normal life, without any idea of their impending fate, until a or short time before they are killed. But that doesn't change the point that the harm done by miscarriages of justice has to be balanced against the good that might be done by deterring/preventing crimes).

 

[nw1]

Yes, but neither of those things reverses the sentence. The state does all sorts of dreadful things to our worst criminals like keeping them in solitary confinement, but you would be wrong to describe a late release as some sort of correction of justice. It is nothing of the sort.

True, but I you're going to occasionally get miscarriages of justice like this. The ideal solution of course would be to investigate the case better and avoid it happening in the first case, but some are inevitably going to slip the net and at least the prison option does allow some of the damage to be undone.

 

[Busaholic]

Yes, but neither of those things reverses the sentence. The state does all sorts of dreadful things to our worst criminals like keeping them in solitary confinement, but you would be wrong to describe a late release as some sort of correction of justice. It is nothing of the sort.

Are you suggesting that the state just shrugs its shoulders if someone is exonerated years after the event and says '' you might as well serve the rest of your sentence now you're institutionalised'' which is the logical upshot of that sentiment?

 

[nw1]

A person who is murdered by a criminal equally cannot be brought back to life. So a more pertinent question is probably, would capital punishment on balance reduce the numbers of people who are killed? If (hypothetically but plausibly) it saves more innocent lives (by deterring criminals) than it causes to be lost (through occasional miscarriages of justice), then you have an argument that capital punishment may on balance do more good than harm.

(To be fair, it's arguably not quite equal, because a person convicted on a miscarriage of justice probably has his/her life ruined for many months by the criminal conviction process, whereas I would imagine most people who are murdered by criminals will have had a normal life, without any idea of their impending fate, until a or short time before they are killed. But that doesn't change the point that the harm done by miscarriages of justice has to be balanced against the good that might be done by deterring/preventing crimes).

I'm not sure whether you can use simple 'good or harm' equations like this though. One could argue on moral grounds that being killed wrongly by the state over a crime you did not commit is especially bad. So, depending on your viewpoint, even if the death penalty saves lives on average, the sheer magnitude of wrong caused by incorrect death sentences for the innocent is such that it should not be considered.

I do always find it hard to bring 'numbers' into these sorts of moral arguments, I often find that people's opinions, including my own, are based on their own personal 'feeling' on the matter which can be hard to quantify. So to me, the possibility of the State killing an innocent person is such a huge wrong that it trumps any possible benefits the death penalty might have.

 

[AlterEgo]

Are you suggesting that the state just shrugs its shoulders if someone is exonerated years after the event and says '' you might as well serve the rest of your sentence now you're institutionalised'' which is the logical upshot of that sentiment?

I don't agree that is the logical upshot of what I said, which is merely that releasing an innocent man is not a reversal of his sentence or in any way a correction of the injustice meted against him.

You will always have miscarriages of justice in any judicial system. I would consider it unjust that a police officer who raped, murdered, and burned a complete stranger gets to live until he's probably 80 years old, in confinement or not. He should already be dead. I think most people in Western democracies live in such a state of safety and relative comfort that the idea of the state wrongly executing someone once every few years is a total abhorrence. In fact, so unspeakable and unconscionable it is, we reach the point we are happy for people like Wayne Couzens to have three meals a day and complete a university degree. I'll repeat - he should be dead.

 

[Busaholic]

I don't agree that is the logical upshot of what I said, which is merely that releasing an innocent man is not a reversal of his sentence or in any way a correction of the injustice meted against him.

You will always have miscarriages of justice in any judicial system. I would consider it unjust that a police officer who raped, murdered, and burned a complete stranger gets to live until he's probably 80 years old, in confinement or not. He should already be dead. I think most people in Western democracies live in such a state of safety and relative comfort that the idea of the state wrongly executing someone once every few years is a total abhorrence. In fact, so unspeakable and unconscionable it is, we reach the point we are happy for people like Wayne Couzens to have three meals a day and complete a university degree. I'll repeat - he should be dead.

At a personal level, I wish Wayne Couzens were dead too, in fact I'd be prepared to say he deserves to be, but that's a different matter from the state deciding to kill him and other similar people. It's interesting that Albert Pierrepoint, one of the last hangmen in this country, concluded in his autobiography that capital punishment no longer acted as a deterrent.

 

[Gloster]

It is stating the obvious, but to be a deterrent, the death penalty must deter. In my opinion it rarely does. Most murderers either don’t think before committing a murder because they are acting in hot blood or are just too stupid to consider the consequences. Or they believe that they are so clever that they will get away with it. The number who will think it through and chose to commit a murder if they will ‘only’ spend many years in prison (and often not be able to gain the advantages they seek), but won’t risk it if they risk being executed, is going to be pretty small.

 

[yorksrob]

It's not just about deterrence though. It's also about the punishment being proportionate to the crime. That can be achieved without the noose, but it does require whole life tariffs for the worst crimes.

As an example, The chap in Norway who massacred hundreds of people. I personally never felt that his punishment was proportionate to his crime as Norway doesn't have the equivalent of a whole life tariff. Obviously that's their choice, but I don't think we would stand for it here.

 

[AlterEgo]

At a personal level, I wish Wayne Couzens were dead too, in fact I'd be prepared to say he deserves to be, but that's a different matter from the state deciding to kill him and other similar people. It's interesting that Albert Pierrepoint, one of the last hangmen in this country, concluded in his autobiography that capital punishment no longer acted as a deterrent.

It isn’t supposed to be a deterrent - the death penalty never has been a deterrent - it’s there to enact justice which is quite different.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It is stating the obvious, but to be a deterrent, the death penalty must deter. In my opinion it rarely does. Most murderers either don’t think before committing a murder because they are acting in hot blood or are just too stupid to consider the consequences. Or they believe that they are so clever that they will get away with it. The number who will think it through and chose to commit a murder if they will ‘only’ spend many years in prison (and often not be able to gain the advantages they seek), but won’t risk it if they risk being executed, is going to be pretty small.

I think you're partly correct: If you're thinking about specific one-off terrible crimes that have been done in the heat of the moment or with minimal planning, then yes, very often the person committing the crime isn't rationally thinking about the possible punishment, so in that case the deterrent impact may be minimal.

However, where I could imagine a much greater possible benefit is in the tendency for people who commit one serious crime to go on to commit other serious crimes (including, even after serving prison sentences). Clearly if someone has been given the death penalty for some terrible crime, then they can't subsequently commit more crimes - and that may well mean you've saved other innocent people from having their lives ruined.

 

[Busaholic]

It isn’t supposed to be a deterrent - the death penalty never has been a deterrent - it’s there to enact justice which is quite different.

Amnesty International, who campaign against the death penalty in any circumstance, say that most countries that indulge in execution cite the supposed deterrent effects.

 

[AlterEgo]

Amnesty International, who campaign against the death penalty in any circumstance, say that most countries that indulge in execution cite the supposed deterrent effects.

Do they go around asking them, calling up justice ministers every year to check if that’s the reason? I wouldn’t believe a single word Amnesty said about anything.

 

[Paul Jones 88]

The death penalty makes economic sense, what is the point of keeping someone alive in a prison for decades if they are never to be released?
It can cost the tax payer anything up to £90,000 per year to keep someone in prison.
Would anyone shed any tears for a dead paedophile, rapist, child killer?

 

[birchesgreen]

Terminating a human life makes economic sense eh? Interesting.

 

[THC]

I wouldn’t believe a single word Amnesty said about anything.

Which says more about you than it does AI.

THC

 

[jon0844]

Terminating a human life makes economic sense eh? Interesting.

Those who advocated herd immunity early on during Covid likely thought so too. A perfect example of 'economic sense'; it mostly killing older people (drain on pensions, NHS etc) and/or those with underlying health conditions (more expense on health service).

From an economic point of view, especially in a country with an ageing population, you can see why many people would think this (even if many would not dare admit it).

 

[edwin_m]

However, where I could imagine a much greater possible benefit is in the tendency for people who commit one serious crime to go on to commit other serious crimes (including, even after serving prison sentences). Clearly if someone has been given the death penalty for some terrible crime, then they can't subsequently commit more crimes - and that may well mean you've saved other innocent people from having their lives ruined.

Can you cite any cases where someone has committed what would be a capital offence, is caught and imprisoned for many years, then released and commits further serious offences? The only cases I can think of for multiple killings (at least) commit all their crimes before being imprisoned for one of more of them, or people who kill in some circumstance that wouldn't have been a capital offence, serve a relatively short period, then kill again later. Murderers get a mandatory life sentence, and committing even a minor crime after their release may result in their recall to prison.