Stopping an execution because the victim had died (horribly)

[Mr. Sausages]

You can get a study to prove anything you want to prove.

[Vulgarian]

Our approach to justice is chained to the way our primitive minds understand it. When someone has wronged us, done something bad to us, we crave retribution; we must do something bad to them - take their money, lock them up for some years, chop off some body parts, or kill them.

 

This approach is certainly not the best way to deal with crime. Fining people removes their wealth, a lack of which may be the reason they offended in the first place. Putting people in prison only creates more crime in the long term. The majority of criminals are young people, and we lock them up before they have led much of a life. In prison they associate with other people who have committed crimes, they become detached from the outside world and adjusted to prison life; they often become involved with drugs and gangs (if they weren't already). They may have left dependents on the outside who must now cope without them - the problem becomes systemic, and spreads. When they leave, after 10 or 20 years, say, the outside world can offer them very little. They have few life or work skills or experience, and a criminal record hanging over their head. They struggle to find work, they are ostracised by society, and resentment sets in. Little wonder that re-offending rates are so high. It short it creates more victims and more crime. The original evil that was done has become magnified.

 

Killing criminals solves some of these problems at least - we don't have to worry about rehabilitating them. The person has no chance at all to turn their life around, to give something back, to help and educate others, to become penitent and serve as example that people change their lives. We find it more convenient and more bloody satisfying to kill them. And that's what it's about - gaining the satisfaction that our primitive minds crave.

 

So justice at present isn't about trying to solve any problems, indeed it causes more societal problems than it solves. What's the alternative though? I don't know. But our desire for 'justice' wouldn't allow us to attempt any other approach.

[Lonan3]

Wonderful! And here's an equally random graph that shows the opposite of what you claim

 

 

 

[woolley]

But that is in a different country with a different history. Point is?

[Lonan3]

Capital punishment is not - and never has been - a deterrent.

[woolley]

Our approach to justice is chained to the way our primitive minds understand it. When someone has wronged us, done something bad to us, we crave retribution; we must do something bad to them - take their money, lock them up for some years, chop off some body parts, or kill them.

 

Killing criminals solves some of these problems at least - we don't have to worry about rehabilitating them. The person has no chance at all to turn their life around, to give something back, to help and educate others, to become penitent and serve as example that people change their lives. We find it more convenient and more bloody satisfying to kill them. And that's what it's about - gaining the satisfaction that our primitive minds crave.

 

So justice at present isn't about trying to solve any problems, indeed it causes more societal problems than it solves. What's the alternative though? I don't know. But our desire for 'justice' wouldn't allow us to attempt any other approach.

The one thing you can be absolutely certain of is that the person that killed or raped or tortured the victim who might be your mother or wife or daughter will definitely not do the same thing after being released by some liberal who thinks he knows best. To me that is worth more than any hand wringing and tears for the murderers shed by the "civilised".

[woolley]

Capital punishment is not - and never has been - a deterrent.

Next you'll be telling us it doesn't stop reoffending.

[Lonan3]

Cute line - almost witty if it hadn't been used a million times before. Which edition of the Daily Mail did you find it in?

[woolley]

Cute line - almost witty if it hadn't been used a million times before. Which edition of the Daily Mail did you find it in?

It was a serious point. One that you obviously can't answer and that's why it's been used a million times before. Often by the family of some poor soul left cut up in a ditch by those you would spare.

 

Not read the Daily Mail since 1969. Does it still have Fred Basset?

[Albert Tatlock]

100% of people murdered have died.

[woolley]

100% of people murdered have died.

And 0% of murderers die for it - unless fate takes a hand. Something wrong there in my book.

[HeliX]

 

100% of people murdered have died.

And 0% of murderers die for it - unless fate takes a hand. Something wrong there in my book.

 

So we get back to the same old point. You want an eye for an eye, and the rest of us can see that that's not a sensible way to run a society.

[woolley]

 

 

100% of people murdered have died.

And 0% of murderers die for it - unless fate takes a hand. Something wrong there in my book.

 

So we get back to the same old point. You want an eye for an eye, and the rest of us can see that that's not a sensible way to run a society.

It is better than the taker of the first eye being released to take another. Seems eminently sensible to me. Efficient and just. As for "the rest of us", do you really think I am alone in this regard?

[HeliX]

 

 

 

100% of people murdered have died.

And 0% of murderers die for it - unless fate takes a hand. Something wrong there in my book.

 

So we get back to the same old point. You want an eye for an eye, and the rest of us can see that that's not a sensible way to run a society.

It is better than the taker of the first eye being released to take another. Seems eminently sensible to me. Efficient and just. As for "the rest of us", do you really think I am alone in this regard?

 

Why are those the only two options in your mind? Do 100% of murderers re-offend? Do 100% of murderers get out before they die of old age?

[Lonan3]

 

Cute line - almost witty if it hadn't been used a million times before. Which edition of the Daily Mail did you find it in?

It was a serious point. One that you obviously can't answer and that's why it's been used a million times before. Often by the family of some poor soul left cut up in a ditch by those you would spare.

 

Not read the Daily Mail since 1969. Does it still have Fred Basset?

Same as the line probably used by the relatives of someone like Timothy Evans - you know, innocent people who were murdered by the state (you'd probably prefer 'executed') because the system got it wrong. Mind you, he was granted a pardon 13 years later, so I bet that made him feel so much better!

Or perhaps you think it would have been better if the 100+ prisoners on death row whose innocence was eventually proved had been given the quick bullet in the brain rather than the state 'wasting money' on letting them appeal against conviction?

There is an awful lot of bullshit talked about how capital punishment is effective - usually by right wing assholes who think (if that's not too generous a term) that the only answer to violence is violence. they're also the ones who are first to proclaim that they'd be perfectly willing to carry out the execution themselves to which, unless they're admitting to be complete psychopaths, the answer is "What a load of dumb, macho bollocks!"

In case you hadn't noticed, the diagram I used earlier showed that homicides were fewer in states that do not have capital punishment than in the ones that do. It doesn't matter about it being 'a different country with a different history' because saying that is simply employing the kind of diversionary tactic that slimy politicians use.

Killing is wrong - and it doesn't matter who does it or who sanctions it. If Dale Cregan was executed, for example, do you really think it would deter the young cretins who regard him as some kind of 'hero.' If you believe that, then you're seriously deluded. It would simply make them want to emulate him all the more - to commit murder and mayhem - and, as is always the case, violence would beget more violence.

Capital punishment was in use in Britain for hundreds and hundreds of years. Did it stop/prevent murders from happening?

 

And just in case you weren't aware of it, violent crime - including murder - peaked around 2002 and has consistently fallen since then. Oh... and the homicide rate has fallen in every part of the UK since 2003. Doesn't it make you wonder how that's possible without the 'deterrent' of capital punishment?