| Capital Punishment |
| We're too soft! It strikes me that we are too soft on criminals these days. Murderers serving 5 years. Paedophiles who openly admit they're a danger to children are still released from prison only to reoffend. People committing hideous crimes and all but getting away with it. If your grandparents were beaten up, your mother murdered, your children raped, would you feel justice had been done if the criminal got 5 years behind bars? How about 10 years? I know I wouldn't feel very happy about it. |
| Those who can't be rehabilitated should be sentenced to death I think if someone has been convicted of a crime so heinous that he or she will never be released from prison, that it would be better to enforce the death penalty. They will have paid the ultimate price, and the taxpayers can stop paying for their food for the next fifty years. The only disadvantage of that (as far as I'm concerned,) is that death is 'too good' for some people. Say someone has tortured, raped, and brutally murdered several children, then a quick and painless death (such as lethal injection) can almost seem like a soft option for them. Some might say that an apt punishment would be for the perportrator to be tortured and raped for the rest of their lives.... but I don't think that is ever likely to happen. I concede that some death penalty methods (electric chair, and hanging, for example,) aren't necessarily that quick or painless though, but that's neither here nor there. |
| Prisons are overcrowded You know, one of the reasons that petty theives and minor violent crimes are incurring a fine rather than a prison sentence is that our prisons are overcrowded. I don't know whether it's that more people are committing crimes these days, or just that our detection / convicion rates are better, but either way, the result is that there are more people behind bars than ever before. I think prison is an apt means of punishment, and that theft and violent crimes should incur a prison sentence - but we can't give these people a prison sentence cause there's barely any space to squeeze them into a prison. Well I can think of one quick way of getting some space in prisons.... "But the death penalty doesn't decrease the crime rate" ... "Well it does by one" (I think that quote may be from Alan Partridge, but I feel there's wisdom in it.) |
| Related links: Arguments for and against. Let it not be said that I'm biased!! Pro-Death Penalty.com - website in favour of the death penalty. Succinct and accessible. Capital Punishment: Right or Wrong? - Australian sie, but presents a vast array of information, with arguments both for and against the death penalty The Death Penalty - A Defence - A whole online book defending the death penalty Death Penalty Links - Over 1,000 links to other pages on the death penalty (both for and against) The Bible's teachings on Capital Punishment - if you're into all that religion malarkey. Can't say I am myself; if you don't believe me, see my rant on religion Botched Executions - counter-examples to everything I've just said. Let it not be said that I'm biased! Death Row Prisoner Webpages - straight from the horse's mouth (click on the country you want) |
| Sentences are too short A criminal serving a "life sentence" of 25 years can often be out in 15 years (if not less). OK, so there are a select few criminals who would never be let out - Myra Hindley, Fred / Rosemary West, Harold Shipman, Ian Huntley - but these few are in a minority. Most murderers will be back out on the streets after serving less than ten years. Is this really a satisfactory state of affairs? Well frankly, no, I don't think it is. Rehabilitation OK, so there is something to be said for rehabilitation, but if Myra Hindley, Ian Huntley & co are able to be rehabilitated, then they should be released, shouldn't they? The people who really are going to be kept in prison for the rest of their lives are there because we don't believe they can be rehabilitated. |
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| Ian Huntley: should be put to death |
| Harold Shipman: killed hundreds |
| Legally, prisoners have to be treated reasonably well (though the recent treatment of alleged terrorists in Guantanamo Bay may be a notable exception.) Our prisoners have to be kept warm, clothed, fed three times a day, given a bed to sleep in and recreational activities to keep them occupied: We can't |
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| A prison library |
| Classrooms in a prison |
| Miscarriages of justice A major argument against the death penalty is that there are sometimes miscarriages of justice, and you can't go back once someone's been killed, whereas you could if they'd only been kept in prison. Well yes, that's true, but plenty of people plead guilty to crimes, don't they? And often, evidence can be so overwhelmingly that it's clear that the person did indeed commit the crime ("with malice aforethought") that we can say beyond a shadow of doubt that it was them. The law at the moment states that it's better to have ten guilty people walking the streets than have one innocent person locked up. I argue the opposite: It's better to have one innocent person locked up, than ten guilty people walking the streets! |
| So bring back the death penalty! In short, those people who have committed the most brutal crimes should stop taking up space, time, and money, and pay the ultimate price for their crimes; they should be put to death by the state. I think that would be far better justice than their being in prison. So there. If you disagree with any of the above, please click here |
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| Death by lethal injection: quick and painless |
| just kick them down some stairs into a damp cellar and toss in a crust of bread once a week (though admittedly, this seems like just deserts for some people.) The prisoners arguably have a better quality of life than many pensioners these days (and don't even get me started on that!) It costs a bloody lot of taxpayers' money to look after prisoners for decades, money which would be better spent on education, the NHS, and policing the streets, among other things. |