Viewing Thread:
"Capital Punishment"

Is it right to take the life of a man who has taken a life?
Is it right to take the life of a man who has taken 10 lives?
Is it right to take the life of a man who had taken teh lives of over 100 hundred people?

Should capital punishment be brought back?
Personally i belive its only fair that if someone terminates
another humans exist in a cold and calculated way in the case of a terroist or a psycho nutter then the same should happen to them.

Also is it fair that peoples beliefs become swayed by the situation. If the killer killed a child for example some people start to lose there moral high ground.
A life is a life no less.
(dont get me wrong i spose i know why tehy do but still is it fair?)

I don't believe that Capital Punishment is right.

I don't believe that we have the intrinsic right to judge someone else's behaviour to the degree at which we can feel RIGHT in taking their own life in an act which IN ITSELF IS MURDER.

But this brings about the question of how to stop a murderer or an otherwise mentally unstable individual from repeating their crime. Is that our responsibility?

Perhaps not. Perhaps our actions in this life are our own responsibility and nothing else. Whether you believe in a judgement at the end of your life, or karma, or any similar system, most religion and much social acceptibility seems to teach that it is wrong for us to judge another person or to carry out a sentence upon them which may in itself be seen as a crime.

Why shouldn't a life be taken for a life in exchange? regardles of revenge, is being put into prison for a sentence of life reduced to 10 after the first and then let out for good behaviour after 7, justice?
Being able to live the rest of your life to continue to think to experience to even start a family are all things that the dead person in question will never do and family freinds etc's lives have been made that little bit more sadder for the rest of there lives.

but one teh other hand...
Some people can be rehabilitated.
Some people can be innocent but in teh case of murder cases and for the sentence of death to be impossed i dont think the person would have been convicted on substantial evidence.

I don’t believe in capital punishment. I never have.

I believe that prison is for rehabilitation more then anything else, an opportunity to make the offender a useful member of the public again. Prison should be part punishment and deterrent, but mostly rehabilitation and help to get on with the offender’s life afterwards. Like in the James Bulger case and the two boys being released, I think that is correct and they should have the chance to regain their life, because they were only ten when it happened. I know it was a terrible murder and almost monstrous that anyone could have done that, but they were young and I don’t think they should be punished for what they did then for the rest of their lives and I certainly don’t believe they should be “destroyed”.

It shocks me that Capital Punishment can be seen as “Justice”. It’s not justice, it’s revenge. Like the case of the Oklahoma bomber where certain representatives of the Oklahoma victims were allowed to see the execution “live”, because they wanted to see revenge. Not justice. There was an appeal on TV for the broadcasting of this live by an Anti-Death Penalty group, because they believe that if everyone could see a person actually dying in front of their eyes, they might change their mind about the humanity of the Death Penalty, but it was turned down.

Do two wrongs make a right? No, they don’t. An eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth, they say, but by instating capital punishment aren’t we going against what we’re teaching? “You killed someone, so we’re going to kill you.” I just don’t think that sounds like justice.

In some cases of murder too you never actually know who’s innocent and who’s guilty and there have been hundreds of cases where the wrong man has been sentenced. For example, Derek Bentley, an 18 year old, educationally subnormal youth who was put to death although he was in custody during the time his friend was carrying out the murder; Timothy John Evans, who was put to death for the murder of his wife and child although later evidence showed that the murder was almost certainly carried out by Christy, a serial murderer What if an innocent person was put to death? Isn’t this just as mad as murder? Or is it worse, because their death is labelled as being justified in the eyes of the law and their memory scarred? Are all these and many more victims of the so-called justice of Death Penalty worth it?

It doesn’t matter now many people they kill, it still doesn’t make it right to execute them in return. Could you imagine being on Death-Row? Knowing that someday in the future you’ll be killed by lethal injection and having your hopes raised and then dashed again every time your appeal fails? What if you know you’re innocent? What if you’re not? This waiting and suspense, which can be for decades, is completely inhumane in itself.

What do you think warrants the Death Penalty anyway? serial robbery, murder, rape, Treason? If you just choose one of those, then aren’t you saying that the life of someone such as a king is worth more then that of a normal person? Just by the concept of Death Penalty aren’t you saying that the life of a murderer is worth less then that of anyone else, they are human too, believe it or not.

So what if they might deserve it? It doesn’t make it right.

Enough of my nattering,
Iguana

The day capital punishment returns to this country is the day the value of life drops down another few notches.

Capital punishment appeals to people's natural desire for revenge. Some person killed ( or whatever crime they committed ) and we want them dead. No one wants justice, they want revenge ! I mean why bother with humane means of capital punishment, let's just toss the person to a howling mob eh ? Anyone who suggests medical experiments..... thats just plain wrong, morally and legally.

Back in WW2 Nazi scientists did commit horrible atrocities, and the allies knew this but still extracted them before the Russians could find them. Even the politicians at the time knew this was wrong but ignored the facts. We can't change history, but we can certainly make sure there is no repeat.

Timothy Mcveigh was the last person I know of who was executed afeter being sentence to capital punishment. I understand the families need to see him dead, but they just created a martyr for the american militia/supremacist groups. He should have been left in prison to fade into obscurity.

As others here have pointed out, what if the wrong person is sentenced ? Is it acceptable to lose one innocent life, then why not two ? Why stop at two, four...and so on.

On another aspect of this ( sorry for boring all you guys ) what about those who are executed without trial ? All the debate is on people who are caught and tried, but what about those who governments decide are too dangerous and order to be arrested knowing full well they will resist and be subsequently killed. E.g Northern Ireland, Libya - British Intelligence planned to assasinate Gaddafi, Iraq, Iran. Does it matter that they are different kinds fo criminals ?

If you kill someone who has commited a crime..

You can never find out why the crime was commited originally...

The more serious, sexual assult, murder, etc, cases are largly commited by those with mental problems...

If they are killed no reasearch can be done into their illnesses...

As a result no way to cure may be found for a wide variety of mental conditions...

Which means we will have no way of developing a undertanding of how and why it occured, and how to stop it...

Which means the crime will continue to be commited, by other individuals of the same type...

Who we wont be able to identify before the act, or to cure before they commit the crime...

Besides... If the Guilford 6 (4?) had been sentenced to death... and the papers started the story of their innocence... Were would we have gone to then?

If you really want to keep the country in order, Britain needs to become involved in a major war. (as such, I think I'll stick were I am :) )

Another thing is the sentances. The judge says I sentance you to 4 years in jail. That means 2 years or possibly 3. When was the last time someone searvered their sentance or more then their sentance. You should be sentanced for 4 years. After that you have a parole hearing and they decide wether to let them go or keep then if they have not been good.

How come, if I attack and rape someone, I get put in a nice building and I get food provided everyday, THere's a TV, a pool table, I get tought new things. WHILE a man beats his kid, who runs away, and lives on the street, freezing cold, starving, looked down upon by society and then dies, alone, frightened and in humainly.

How is that fair?

ALso Prison costs money to run, money that could be spent in educating the people, so they would not have to resort to crime, I say bring back CP.

Seeyas

But where's the rehabilitiation?

Suerely these people would be better surving some kind of purpose?

They could still remain in prisons, but work from there, for free, doing some clerical tasks, to help repay their debt to society.

Maybe if they learnt a trade, they wouldn't go back to crime, but get themselves a job?

But then prison is not a bad prospect, is it?

People will commit crimes to go to prison to get a second chance - free education to a high standard, well fed. But then there is the lack of female company, you can't go out when ou want...

I wouldn't want to be in charge of what happens to people once they've been convicted.

Back in the old days (I mean like AGES ago) people were scared to commit crime becuase if they were caught, the punishemnt was terrible (Chop your hands off etc). They weren't that likely to get caught, but IF they were, they were up the creek without a paddle. Or a boat.

Now, the punishemnt is much less severe, but the likelihood of getting caught is higher. I think we should make the punishment higher.

If someone is caught stealing, chop their hand off. But it means they can;t work again. Tough. They shouldn't have broken the law in the first place. They knew stealing was wrong, yet they still did it.

I dont think the idea of experimenting on humans, is good, In fact it makes my stomach turn. I completely agree that sex offenders, should be castrated, it makes perfect sence. I am also a strong supporter of capital punishment, and I dont mean the electric chair or a lethal injection. Why should someone get doe die nice and peacefully when he killed someone so brutally.

I think that a public beheading like in Saudi Arabia is much better, because it completely humiliates the murderer, or use stoning to death, like in isrealite times. That was the most fair, because the victims wife, or husband threw the first stone, to feel like there has been justice.

seeyas!