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Death Penalty for Violent Crimes

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ralphchadkirk

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Let's say that hypothetically, we re-introduce the death penalty. Each year lots of hardened criminals get executed, but amongst that number 2 innocent people get executed. But on the flip side, some of the executed criminals would - had they not been executed - between them have later on murdered 5 people AND raped 5 women, burgled 30 houses and caused life-changing injuries to 20 members of the public. Obviously I've just made those figures up but they don't seem totally implausible to me. So you've just wrongly executed 2 people, but on the flip side you've saved 5 other people from being murdered and a lot of people from having their lives devastated. Is it worth it? Obviously, that's a judgement call. But if in reality the figures are anything like the ones I've just made up (big if, I know), then overall you'd arguably have done a lot more good than harm by reintroducing the death penalty.
TL;DR: the numbers I've completely made up prove my point.
 
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whhistle

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So if an offender kidnaps someone and keeps them locked in a cage for ten years, you don’t think we should imprison them?
I see what you're saying but locking someone up and killing someone are two very different things.

Kidnapping someone is not the same as putting them in prison.
The person who has been kidnapped has probably done nothing to deserve it.
The person who is in prison is living through a punishment for a crime they comitted.


Oh this is getting ridiculous! Both of these posts amount to saying that we shouldn't have the death penalty because that's the Government doing something that is wrong if an individual does it. I've pointed the massive logical flaw in that argument twice in this thread (in posts #44 and #66): Noone has replied to either of my posts, from which I would surmise that noone can fault my logic. Yet people keep repeating this flawed argument.

Has reading at least some of a thread before you post a reply gone out of fashion?
A bit rude...

My post doesn't "amount to saying that we shouldn't have the death penalty because that's the Government doing something that is wrong".
My post simply states that I don't think carrying out the same action on someone that you're deeply condemning is right.

You have a passion for killing people who kill others with intent.
I do not.

It amazes me that some people here seem to be quite blasé about killing others. No wonder we have more stabbings these days - two high profile ones in the last week! Killing someone is an easy answer, but it won't change the situation, and if it eases pain... that worries me. That killing someone makes someone else feel better.
 

AlterEgo

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I see what you're saying but locking someone up and killing someone are two very different things.

Kidnapping someone is not the same as putting them in prison.

Right, well you’re missing the point...

If I commit a crime the police will come and chase me, tackle me to the ground, restrain me and put me in a vehicle, and then keep me against my will. The same applies to the court. People are forced to go to prison whether they like it or not.

The state is allowed to undertake acts in the same of justice which would otherwise be crimes if committed by private individuals.

If I don’t insure my car the police can take it off me without my consent and even destroy it.

Can you not see the rhetorical argument? Can you now move past the fallacy of “the state can’t kill people because if a person did that it would be wrong”, and start debating the death penalty on its merits?

That killing someone makes someone else feel better.

Justice should make you feel good because it punishes or sets right a previous wrong.

If you murder someone, it is justice to lose your own life.
 

DynamicSpirit

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You have a passion for killing people who kill others with intent.
I do not.

It amazes me that some people here seem to be quite blasé about killing others.

I think you have completely misunderstood me there. I do not have a 'passion' for killing people. Rather, I regard the death penalty as something that I feel uneasy about, but that I can see may be the least bad solution in some cases. You see, I recognise that we live in a very imperfect world, and sometimes we have to make unpleasant decisions because the consequences of those decisions are probably going to be less bad than the alternatives. And realistically there are people who seem to have devoted their lives to making other people's lives a misery: People who, once they are out of prison for their previous conviction, will routinely go on to assault/rob/rape/etc. someone else, and who will there go in and out of prison time and time again, each time leaving another innocent person's life devastated. People who, even when they are in prison, will use smuggled phones to organise further crimes or to intimidate their previous victims and so on. People who, it seems that as long as they are alive, will do all they can to destroy other people's lives. My point is that, in cases like that, by insisting that the death penalty is wrong, we may well be indirectly causing the deaths (or other crimes against) many other innocent people. So you have to decide: Which is worse? I'm guessing that none of us want anyone to die, but in some cases having noone die might simply not be an option: The choice is between sentencing a hardened criminal to death, or seeing other innocent people later get killed or have their lives otherwise ruined by that same hardened criminal. From where I'm standing, it looks like you're choosing the option that keeps your hands clean, whereas I'm open to choosing the option that causes the least overall harm.
 

DarloRich

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I think you have completely misunderstood me there. I do not have a 'passion' for killing people. Rather, I regard the death penalty as something that I feel uneasy about, but that I can see may be the least bad solution in some cases. You see, I recognise that we live in a very imperfect world, and sometimes we have to make unpleasant decisions because the consequences of those decisions are probably going to be less bad than the alternatives. And realistically there are people who seem to have devoted their lives to making other people's lives a misery: People who, once they are out of prison for their previous conviction, will routinely go on to assault/rob/rape/etc. someone else, and who will there go in and out of prison time and time again, each time leaving another innocent person's life devastated. People who, even when they are in prison, will use smuggled phones to organise further crimes or to intimidate their previous victims and so on. People who, it seems that as long as they are alive, will do all they can to destroy other people's lives. My point is that, in cases like that, by insisting that the death penalty is wrong, we may well be indirectly causing the deaths (or other crimes against) many other innocent people. So you have to decide: Which is worse? I'm guessing that none of us want anyone to die, but in some cases having noone die might simply not be an option: The choice is between sentencing a hardened criminal to death, or seeing other innocent people later get killed or have their lives otherwise ruined by that same hardened criminal. From where I'm standing, it looks like you're choosing the option that keeps your hands clean, whereas I'm open to choosing the option that causes the least overall harm.

Interesting we have now moved to killing "hardened criminals" rather than just murders ( and we started with serial murderers). I see we now include "assault" as an offence punishable by death.
 

trash80

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My point is that, in cases like that, by insisting that the death penalty is wrong, we may well be indirectly causing the deaths (or other crimes against) many other innocent people. So you have to decide: Which is worse? I'm guessing that none of us want anyone to die, but in some cases having noone die might simply not be an option: The choice is between sentencing a hardened criminal to death, or seeing other innocent people later get killed or have their lives otherwise ruined by that same hardened criminal. From where I'm standing, it looks like you're choosing the option that keeps your hands clean, whereas I'm open to choosing the option that causes the least overall harm.

So we should kill people who MAY one day harm others? Please don't try and paint yourself as someone morally superior, you are far from it with that kind of opinion.
 

AlterEgo

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So we should kill people who MAY one day harm others? Please don't try and paint yourself as someone morally superior, you are far from it with that kind of opinion.

He's suggesting that existing criminals, convicted of the most serious offences like murder, who have no hope or entitlement to reform, be executed.

I suspect you knew that anyway.

@DynamicSpirit is a poster with a long history of posting sensibly in this part of the forum and has mostly moderate and rational viewpoints.

This thread is seeing a very low-quality debate at the moment. There are only a few of us who are actually prepared to discuss things reasonably!
 

trash80

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Yes DS suggested killing criminals instead of prison in case they harm others one day after release. Its quite clear what they said and i disagree with it.
 

DarloRich

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He's suggesting that existing criminals, convicted of the most serious offences like murder, who have no hope or entitlement to reform, be executed.

that isnt, actually, what he said. He actually said:

And realistically there are people who seem to have devoted their lives to making other people's lives a misery: People who, once they are out of prison for their previous conviction, will routinely go on to assault/rob/rape/etc. someone else, and who will there go in and out of prison time and time again, each time leaving another innocent person's life devastated. People who, even when they are in prison, will use smuggled phones to organise further crimes or to intimidate their previous victims and so on. People who, it seems that as long as they are alive, will do all they can to destroy other people's lives

His list of crimes punishable by death include assault, rob and rape. It seems that a first offence would not lead to death but a second for a minor crime like assault, might. I wonder how the recidivist burglar would be treated in this world. Does he leave another innocent person's life devastated? What about the person who kills his partner and lover in a fit of rage?

BTW - who chooses those who have no hope or entitlement to reform?
 

DarloRich

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I think you need to re-read what he said in context. I will leave it to him to respond further.

I understand the context entirely. I simply use the post to illustrate a point. We started by suggesting that serial murderers be killed. My view is that once you open the door on execution you quickly allow all manner of offenders to be pushed through it. It is a populist thing to suggest. Who, really, would complain if the most heinous child abuser was hung from a lamppost? My issue is that it will quickly move on from that to other offenders. That is a dangerous road to go down in my view.

BTW - There is very little to stop decent people finding themselves in a bad position with regards to the law. I have been involved with several cases of normal, decent people in very serious trouble because of one moment of loss of control. It is worryingly easy.

The judiciary...part of their job is to remove rights from people who have broken the law.

I am not sure it is quite that straightforward. Do we as society not tell the judges ( through legislation, sentencing guidelines, public opinion and "morals" etc) how we expect them to behave?
 

AlterEgo

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I am not sure it is quite that straightforward. Do we as society not tell the judges ( through legislation, sentencing guidelines, public opinion and "morals" etc) how we expect them to behave?

In a way yes.

Society is absolutely comfortable with imprisoning people against their will, stealing their money and their property, forcing them into work for no pay, imposing restrictions on where they can go or whom they can see, and so on - as long as the person deserves it, because they have broken society's norms as laid down by the law. This is how criminal justice operates.

Judges already have to decide whether a person has forfeited their chance at reform when deciding to impose a whole-life tariff (also known as life without any possibility of parole or release). From Wiki:

The offences for which a whole-life term should be imposed on an offender aged 21 years or over at the time of the offence are as follows:
  • the murder of two or more persons, where each murder involves a substantial degree of premeditation or planning or the abduction of the victim or sexual or sadistic conduct; or
  • the murder of a child if involving the abduction of the child or sexual or sadistic motivation
  • a murder done for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause or
  • a murder by an offender previously convicted of murder.
Similarly, a judge may be in a position to imprison someone aged 80 for a period of 30 years, effectively removing that offender's chance at any reform.

Criminal justice isn't always about reform.

Sometimes it is about exacting the correct punishment for the crime.
 

Journeyman

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Interesting points from everyone, but ultimately I'm of the opinion that if you tackle the causes of crime - inequality, poverty, poor education, lack of decent mental health care, poor employment prospects, and a whole heap of social evils we don't seem very good at dealing with in this country - you'll start seeing a better society.

Crime hasn't actually changed much since the era when we routinely executed people anyway. Most statistics show that crime is either fairly flat or declining in most categories - the reason why knife crime appears to be so bad is that it's only been reported as a separate category for a few years. Britain is actually a very safe country, hence why most police officers aren't armed, a situation which is more or less unique, as far as I can tell.

Just to put things into perspective, the virtually-crime-free "golden age" that a lot of people hanker after never existed. One of my mum's classmates was murdered by a paedophile in 1949.
 

trash80

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As some bloke once said we need to be tough on the causes of crime. Making society more violent is not the way to fight violent crime as many examples around the world show. Doing this though takes time / money / patience though which seems to be the main problem in this country...
 

baz962

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The thing with the death penalty in my view and which I'm against is .1, The innocent people that get executed. 2 , Although I don't care for some monsters that are sentenced , I do believe that we shouldn't stoop to their level , even if we do in terms of imprisonment etc. 3 , What if that monster had young children , how do we look them in the eye while killing their father/mother , or what if they had an elderly mother/father that end's up dying of a broken heart , are we ok with that. I have seen up thread that people are ok with the occasional innocent being executed for the greater good, bit never answer the question. Would you still be ok if it was yourself , or you're parent or child that got executed wrongly.
 

Journeyman

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As some bloke once said we need to be tough on the causes of crime. Making society more violent is not the way to fight violent crime as many examples around the world show. Doing this though takes time / money / patience though which seems to be the main problem in this country...

It's also very much against the philosophy of your average Tory politician. Some of what Theresa May comes out with is terrifyingly authoritarian and illiberal, which is why I think she's completely unfit to run the country.
 

Journeyman

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I have seen up thread that people are ok with the occasional innocent being executed for the greater good, bit never answer the question. Would you still be ok if it was yourself , or you're parent or child that got executed wrongly.

This is what makes it absolutely unacceptable, in my view. You can't possibly say that an innocent person getting executed is tolerable or acceptable in any size, shape or form, especially when all the evidence suggests they'll have died for nothing - the death penalty has no measurable deterrent effect at all.
 

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I have reread this thread and I think it is going nowhere fast. There are two points of view and no meeting of minds or concessions bt either side.
Me I would have the death penalty rather than 30 years in prison but that is me. Death is the final solution . The state may make errors but what is perfect?
The state already kills in our name which is why we have armed forces so it is consistent to have the state execute people who are unable to live as the state decrees.
What we need are leaders who lead at the front rather than "inspiring" from the back playing the odds - and sadly those who fall are not just statistics but men and women with families and friends.
 

cjp

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Of course I don't KNOW how I would react (except to hope I would not choose to put myself in such a position) but I THINK that is how I would react.
It is all about choices . You make your choices. I make my choices. Bad people make their choices.

There is always a choice. Sometimes none of the options are good but it is a persons earlier choices that leads them to have to choose between unpleasant outcomes.

Life is not fair.

Having a choice is why I am in favour of euthanasia rather than having to endure pain ,suffering or the absolute dispair which leads people to messily end their lives.
 

cjp

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People always have a fear of the unknown. It is quite rational to have such a fear but I do not fear dying - why should I ? so yes given a choice of incarceration for the rest of my life in a small cell death seems like a good choice.
 

trash80

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Are you young? I never used to have a fear of dying when i was a youth but now i'm middle-aged i am not so sure.
 

baz962

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People always have a fear of the unknown. It is quite rational to have such a fear but I do not fear dying - why should I ? so yes given a choice of incarceration for the rest of my life in a small cell death seems like a good choice.
But would you be ok if say , one of you're children or grandchildren were executed , but were entirely innocent and wrongly convicted.
 

DynamicSpirit

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So we should kill people who MAY one day harm others? Please don't try and paint yourself as someone morally superior, you are far from it with that kind of opinion.

I think that is somewhat distorting what I'm saying. Yes, someone who's in prison for assault for the very first time. That person may one day harm others... you don't know. And I am absolutely NOT suggesting the death penalty in that case. That would be an absurd overreaction. But what about someone who's in prison for the 4th time? For the 7th time? Someone who has a string of 20 previous convictions for things like GBH? There comes a point where it's not that the person MAY one day harm others, but that for all practical purposes, you as good as know that as soon as that person gets out of prison, they are going to ruin someone else's life. And when you hit that point, I would suggest that as a society we need to start asking ourselves, whose life do we care more about... The person with all these convictions, or their next victim?
 

DynamicSpirit

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But would you be ok if say , one of you're children or grandchildren were executed , but were entirely innocent and wrongly convicted.

It's very easy to turn that round: Would you be OK if, say, one of your children or grandchildren were killed/abused/whatever by someone who who had a long string of previous of convictions and who would probably not have been able to do what he/she did if we'd had the death penalty?

In the end there are no easy answers either way. But we need to be realistic that we live in an imperfect world, and whatever choices we make about the criminal justice system, at least some awful things are going to happen to some people. In my view, the sensible debate would be about how we make it so that as few people as possible suffer awful things.
 
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baz962

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It's very easy to turn that round: Would you be OK if, say, one of your children or grandchildren were killed/abused/whatever by someone who who had a long string of previous of convictions and who would probably not have been able to do what he/she did if we'd had the death penalty?

In the end there are no easy answers either way. But we need to be realistic that we live in an imperfect world, and whatever choices we make about the criminal justice system, at least some awful things are going to happen to some people. In my view, the sensible debate would be about how we make it so that as few people as possible suffer awful things.

Still didn't answer it though did you. I would be ok with them having life imprisonment , I believe as obviously I could never know how I would feel until God forbid that situation ever happened. So a straight answer , would you be ok sitting watching a loved one strapped to a gurney and executed wrongly , in front of you.
 

trash80

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I think that is somewhat distorting what I'm saying. Yes, someone who's in prison for assault for the very first time. That person may one day harm others... you don't know. And I am absolutely NOT suggesting the death penalty in that case. That would be an absurd overreaction. But what about someone who's in prison for the 4th time? For the 7th time? Someone who has a string of 20 previous convictions for things like GBH? There comes a point where it's not that the person MAY one day harm others, but that for all practical purposes, you as good as know that as soon as that person gets out of prison, they are going to ruin someone else's life. And when you hit that point, I would suggest that as a society we need to start asking ourselves, whose life do we care more about... The person with all these convictions, or their next victim?

Thanks for the clarification but i still disagree. You are still going to kill someone because of something they might do in future which i think is a very dangerous precedent.
 

AlterEgo

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Thanks for the clarification but i still disagree. You are still going to kill someone because of something they might do in future which i think is a very dangerous precedent.

We imprison quite a few people for the entirety of their lives without possibility of parole, because of the risk they pose to other people following their conviction.

What is the moral difference?
 

DynamicSpirit

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Still didn't answer it though did you. I would be ok with them having life imprisonment , I believe as obviously I could never know how I would feel until God forbid that situation ever happened. So a straight answer , would you be ok sitting watching a loved one strapped to a gurney and executed wrongly , in front of you.

I didn't answer it because I wasn't the person you originally asked the question of! :D I was just butting in to this sub-debate.

But, obviously, I would not be OK if someone I loved was executed for a crime they hadn't done. I'd be absolutely devastated. I'd also be absolutely devastated if someone I loved was sentenced to 20 years in prison for something they hadn't done. (Come to think of it, I'd be just as devastated if they were sentenced to 20 years in prison or killed for something they had done too!) And I'd also be devastated if someone I loved were killed/raped/suffered life-changing injuries at the hands of a criminal.

But to my mind, that's not really the point. The point is, how do you get it so that as few people as possible suffer in that way. And here, I think the problem is that several people are using the risk of miscarriage of justice as if it's the end of the argument and a reason for dismissing the death penalty out of hand without any further consideration. It's not: It's a very legitimate and good argument against the death penalty, which then has to be balanced against all the other arguments both for and against the death penalty.
 

DarloRich

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What is the moral difference?

The moral difference is that society has decided which freedoms and liberties it is prepared to take away from a citizen following conviction of crime and which it is not. At present, and they are subject to change over time to reflect the prevailing mood of society and those we elect to represent us, we are not prepared to remove life from criminals.
 
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