Capital Punishment

[Gerontious]

10 minutes ago, Bender said:

That's your view and your welcome to it, witness a stabbing as a kid, live where I did then get back to me.

I have been stabbed. in the back and the chest. collapsed lung. needed a transfusion and spent 4 weeks in hospital. I didn't need to witness it, I experienced it. it is terrible.

As a child I was involved in a very minor way with the A34 murders. The man who did it spent 45yrs in prison. I'm glad they didn't hang him. I'm glad he spent 45yrs behind bars until he died. he killed a girl I can't remember though my mum has a photo of me sat next to her at her birthday party.

 

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

3 minutes ago, Bender said:

Bla bla bla, eyes wide open

Yes you sound receptive

[Bender]

Just now, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

Your emotions about your experiences are not the best basis for decision making. 

They are, Im happy to leave the level to be set by others.

[MarkW]

12 minutes ago, Bender said:

Yup perfectly, don't confuse insanity with someone who has a temper and huge amount of strength.

 

How does he cope with a face full of incapacitant spray and a good twatting with a baton? 

 

As an aside, we bought our house off a prison officer that I knew from the local karate club. The first time went round to view it he was absolutely knackered after a three-day riot at the prison. When I asked him what had started it he said  "One bloke on the wing went up to another bloke and said 'Your mum shops in Lidl'".

 

 

[Bender]

1 minute ago, Gerontious said:

I have been stabbed. in the back and the chest. collapsed lung. needed a transfusion and spent 4 weeks in hospital. I didn't need to witness it, I experienced it. it is terrible.

As a child I was involved in a very minor way with the A34 murders. The man who did it spent 45yrs in prison. I'm glad they didn't hang him. I'm glad he spent 45yrs behind bars until he died. he killed a girl I can't remember though my mum has a photo of me sat next to her at her birthday party.

 

And that's terrible and how you feel, you've still not lived in my shoes.

[Bender]

2 minutes ago, MarkW said:

How does he cope with a face full of incapacitant spray and a good twatting with a baton? 

 

As an aside, we bought our house off a prison officer that I knew from the local karate club. The first time went round to view it he was absolutely knackered after a three-day riot at the prison. When I asked him what had started it he said  "One bloke on the wing went up to another bloke and said 'Your mum shops in Lidl'".

 

 

He's one of the UK's most dangerous prisoners, he just dosen't give a toss.

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

 

9 minutes ago, Gerontious said:

I have been stabbed. in the back and the chest. collapsed lung. needed a transfusion and spent 4 weeks in hospital. I didn't need to witness it, I experienced it. it is terrible.

As a child I was involved in a very minor way with the A34 murders. The man who did it spent 45yrs in prison. I'm glad they didn't hang him. I'm glad he spent 45yrs behind bars until he died. he killed a girl I can't remember though my mum has a photo of me sat next to her at her birthday party.

 

Jesus that’s awful. 
I heard victims relatives say that they prefer a person stays in prison as they feel the death penalty would be an easy way out. 

Edited December 31, 2020 by Slowlycatchymonkey

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

6 minutes ago, Bender said:

He's one of the UK's most dangerous prisoners, he just dosen't give a toss.

Attacking guards, other prisoners, stabbing someone to death and being one of the UKs most dangerous prisoners isn’t someone with a bit of a temper, it’s a sick mind. Don’t confuse the two. 

[MarkW]

1 minute ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

Jesus that’s awful. 
I heard victims relatives say that they prefer a person stays in prison as they feel the death penalty would be an easy way out. 

That's the thing: it's only a punishment while they are still alive and know it's coming - assuming they even care. Mate of mine is a crime correspondent for a tabloid, and spent time with Ian Brady, who desperately wanted to be allowed to die: the real punishment was keeping him alive.

[Bender]

7 minutes ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

Attacking guards, other prisoners, stabbing someone to death and being one of the UKs most dangerous prisoners isn’t someone with a bit of a temper, it’s a sick mind. Don’t confuse the two. 

He was released after only 10yrs the first time as he was the absolute model prisoner, was passed sane both times, suffering from no psychological problems, he's not insane he is just bad through and through.

[MarkW]

28 minutes ago, Bender said:

They are, Im happy to leave the level to be set by others.

No, they really aren't, and there's a substantial body of evidence to support that fact. The effect of gruesome cases on jury decision making and information processing has been fairly extensively studied by psychologists, and there is most definitely an effect on both. It's a significant area of research (or at least it was years ago when my mother was involved with it) precisely because emotion-led decision-making is the last thing you want in a trial. The line between justice and retribution is easily blurred.

[Bender]

32 minutes ago, MarkW said:

No, they really aren't, and there's a substantial body of evidence to support that fact. The effect of gruesome cases on jury decision making and information processing has been fairly extensively studied by psychologists, and there is most definitely an effect on both. It's a significant area of research (or at least it was years ago when my mother was involved with it) precisely because emotion-led decision-making is the last thing you want in a trial. The line between justice and retribution is easily blurred.

I wasn't on about a jury setting the bar, what you on  

[MarkW]

5 hours ago, Bender said:

I wasn't on about a jury setting the bar, what you on  

Neither was I. 

[James in Brum]

I’ll set the bar. We allow death penalty in any case of sexual violence and murder. The bar is that 100 years needs to pass to enable the advancement of science and opportunity for scrutiny of evidence in the light of new learning before it can be enacted.

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

1 hour ago, James in Brum said:

I’ll set the bar. We allow death penalty in any case of sexual violence and murder. The bar is that 100 years needs to pass to enable the advancement of science and opportunity for scrutiny of evidence in the light of new learning before it can be enacted.

 Im afraid in 100 years time humans will be as faulty then as they are now. 

[James in Brum]

Yes but the person awaiting their death penalty will have died. Each sentence can only be carried out 100 years after it is applied as punishment. 

[Six30]

3 hours ago, MarkW said:

Neither was I. 

mark , may i ask your view on coppers ramming scooter thieves , or defending your property and family against an intruder entering you house wanting to cause harm ?

[MarkW]

1 hour ago, Six30 said:

mark , may i ask your view on coppers ramming scooter thieves , or defending your property and family against an intruder entering you house wanting to cause harm ?

You may, Sir.

 

Capital punishment is not the same as killing in the defence of yourself or others who are at risk of imminent harm. I have no problem with firearms officers shooting terrorists dead on the street, no problem with bike thieves being taken out where they pose an imminent risk to others, and no problem with homeowners killing intruders where there is a legitimate reason for doing so: blowing a pikey in half with a 12-bore as he’s running away like Tony Martin did was undoubtedly bloody satisfying, but it was in no way legitimate self-defence. You can’t have members of the general public executing each other just because they’re pissed off.

 

But once you have arrested someone and got them in the dock they no longer pose a risk of imminent harm, and there is no longer any requirement that they be killed for public safety – there are other options available.

 

All that being said, I’m no fan of our legal system – it’s an absolute joke. The police force is currently tying itself in knots over whether or not it is institutionally racist, whilst missing the rather more pertinent point that it is institutionally incompetent: you stand a better chance of getting a visit from them if you’re accused of hate crime for accidentally ‘mis-gendering’ someone than you ever would if you reported a real crime. The CPS is as good as useless, and the judiciary is hopelessly out of touch. The whole approach to sentencing in this country leaves me dumbfounded – the idea that you can impose an appropriate term of imprisonment for the crime but then let them off half of it if they don’t f*ck about too much is totally arse-about-tit to my way of thinking. They should get time added on if they don’t behave, not taken off if they do.

 

As the old saying goes, justice not only needs to be done but needs to be seen to be done, and I’m sure the apparent feebleness of our legal system is at least partly what drives this enthusiasm among some sections of the public for killing convicts when there is no need to. I have every sympathy for the widow of Andrew Harper – dragged to his death by a bunch of gormless moon-faced pikeys who have been brought up to believe they can do what the hell they like and get away with it – and the sentences they received are an absolute insult to morality. But the idea of mandatory life sentences for killing emergency service workers is just another example of the woolly thinking that public dissatisfaction with the legal system leads to: are we saying that some lives are worth more than others merely by dint of profession?

 

“Had it been a policeman you killed I would have no choice but to commit you to life imprisonment. Luckily for you it was only a primary school teacher, so you will go down for 12 years.”

 

We need proper law and order and we need criminals to receive appropriate sentences, but we also need to retain the ability to make things right when the inevitable mistakes are made. The case @Bender sat through where someone was clearly guilty and admitted it may well be a clear-cut case, but in order for executing him to be an option capital punishment would have to be on the statute books. Quite apart from what it says about a society that allows its government to execute its citizens, the second that happens it is susceptible to exactly the same mistakes and miscarriages of justice as every other punishment. People who advocate for it clearly have far more confidence in our judiciary than I do.

[Bender]

Except being arrested and locked up dosen't stop them being a risk either inside or when released

 

 

I appreciate your point of view and opinions but they have not changed mine.

 

 

[MarkW]

5 minutes ago, Bender said:

Except being arrested and locked up dosen't stop them being a risk either inside or when released

 

 

I appreciate your point of view and opinions but they have not changed mine.

 

 

Then you are left with having to acknowledge that the risk of executing an innocent person every now and then is an acceptable price to pay for a more convenient way of dealing with the hard nuts. You can't have it both ways.

Edited December 31, 2020 by MarkW

[dynax]

I still like the idea of placing petty criminals in stocks in the market place

[Bender]

36 minutes ago, MarkW said:

Then you are left with having to acknowledge that the risk of executing an innocent person every now and then is an acceptable price to pay for a more convenient way of dealing with the hard nuts. You can't have it both ways.

Nope, I'm happy non of the ones I would put forward would fall into that category.

[MarkW]

3 minutes ago, Bender said:

Nope, I'm happy non of the ones I would put forward would fall into that category.

You can't reinstate capital punishment "only in cases where @Bender is happy they're a wrong 'un" - it can only be administered after due process, and that due process is frequently susceptible to catastrophic error. 

 

Would you have been happy that Sally Clark was guilty after hearing the expert testimony of a renowned paediatrician that she had murdered her children? The jury in the original trial were, as were the judges in the Court of Appeal, and had it occurred in the 1950s she would have been hanged. But she was completely innocent. Or would things have been different if you had been on the jury, with your infallible nose for a genuine wrong 'un?

 

Sally Clark wasn't some petty criminal whose comeuppance was long overdue - she was a hardworking solicitor from a good family who had the great misfortune to lose two of her babies, to be arrested for murder, to have an arrogant fool testify against her as an expert witness, and to have the prosecution withhold vital evidence of her innocence. This wasn't in some kangaroo court in the third world - it was Chester Crown Court in 1999.

 

That could just as easily have been your family, or mine. If it had been your wife, and we had capital punishment, what would you say to her? "Look love, I know it's a bit rough you having to step off when we both know you're innocent, but look on the bright side - we get to kill loads of genuine criminals..." Or is it only unimportant if it's someone else's loved one dangling on the end of the rope?

[Tiggie]

1 minute ago, MarkW said:

You can't reinstate capital punishment "only in cases where @Bender is happy they're a wrong 'un"

 

Especially if he's been drinking, aye @Stu? 

[skyrider]

1 hour ago, dynax said:

I still like the idea of placing petty criminals in stocks in the market place

that's it waz some tomatoes and eggs at em