Some Tangential Answers No-one, witness USA where they have the death penalty, but still have the ills we suffer with our society. Yes, witness the way they fitted up people when we did have the death penalty. Because they are civilised people living in a civilised society.
I don't want prisons to be dickensian holes, I want them to provide a secure environment where those that can be rehabilitated are and those that can't are kept safely away from the rest of us. Making a prison regime overly harsh will just make re-offenders less willing to be captured not less likely to re-offend, what we need to be doing with our prisoners is equipping them with the skills to contribute to society and offering them a way out of the cycle of drug addiction, crime and more prison which will in turn save money in the long term. As I said earlier if that means sending them on safari holidays and can be shown to be effective then I'm right up for paying for it.
How do you rehabilitate people who, for the sake of argument, kill and eat their victims? (I don't mean hungry people, I mean those that choose it as a lifestyle). How to you train a man in his sixties to re-skill, from, oh, burying numerous people under his patio? Perhaps a career away from bricklaying. landscaping and such is indicated? I am not talking about people imprisoned for any old thing, I mean the ones that really have opted out of the human race. Juries are guided by judges in certain respects in trials. Between a judge and a jury, they should be able to work out the difference between a drunk driver who had one moment of very culpable madness and a mass-murdering cannibal. Just for instance. Royum, thanks for your answers. They don't wholly satisfy me but it's good to thrash things out.
You obviously missed the bit where I wrote and of course those examples you mentioned are such common events I'm surprised there aren't dedicated cannibal squads in every county police force and that there's no legislation forcing people to buy their paving slabs from the local nick. Some people clearly are beyond rehabilitation and those people should be kept locked up somewhere secure for the rest of their lives, the vast majority should be offered,even forced to accept, help. Jeffrey Archer has some very interesting things to say on the subject, did you realise 60% of the people in our prisons are illiterate, did you realise they get actively dis-incentivised to take training or education over menial work?
By the way, nice handing of the Baton Mr Royum. I will try to keep the pink shirted orange track suited loud one happy :biggrin:
Ah, see I should be running the relay leg instead of those numpties, baton passing, it's an art not a sport!! LOL
I hope I don't get arrested for what I am pretending I'm wearing. :tongue: Didn't miss it, it just didn't address my point. I consider myself civilised but I see no reason to pay to keep certain kinds of murderer around at a time when the public money would be better spent on ... oh, just about anything you care to mention. However, don't get hung up on the mention of money. The saving of costs is very secondary, hardly at issue at all, to me. Not sure where you're driving with this. :smile: Did I say I wanted to see executions every day? Every week? Twice on Sundays? No, what I am referring to are uncommon events, which police are often ill-equipped to deal with and the Courts doubly so. In my opinion. I would certainly agree that a cold-hearted killer, illiterate and lacking in moral guidance perhaps, should be kept out of the way for ...um ... ever, maybe. Or he can be re-habiliated and released, OK, but only if you can prove he is no future threat (which you cannot). Once again, I am not addressing the issue of 60% (or even 99%) of convicted criminals and their crimes. I am not discussing the issue of re-habilitating such people. I am talking about crimes that are beyond the pale. As for Archer, I am prepared to concede to his expertise on breaking the law, but not to his grasp on the psyche of amoral, unnatural monsters (but enough about Thatcher).
LOL What's Right Wing? :wink: They haven't come up with a political party I like the look of ... not yet, anyway.
Nope, a thoroughly nasty piece of work and the worst of the worst. Wait. You said "Austrian"? I read it as "Belgian" and thought you meant Hercule Poiret. Oops.
I also think the most passionate views come from parents. I for one in the last 20 years society has become worse and worse ... I often wonder what the hell it's going to be like next generation.
Lord Justice Denning, one time Master of the Rolls, said that hanging the occasional innocent man was a price worth paying for the benefit that the death penalty would bring. I disagree. Where the evidence is absolutely clear, with no doubt whatsoever, then the arguments against the death penalty are beginning to look a bit thin.
Well I'm a parent and I don't want my children being executed or at risk of it by either state or lunatic! Statistically society is safer than it was historically, we live with the idea that we used to have some idyll that was much better than it is now, it's not the case at all. The 24 hour news media that we have now repeats things that would have been past their sell by in the age of print media.
Personal experience is no basis upon which to formulate law. I agree that we have a major problem with lack of parenting from each successive generation creating ever greater problems. I think the me me me culture is partly to blame.
I believe that things generally speaking are no worse now than forty years ago, crimewise. It is our access to information that has grown exponentially, not the crime rates. The public's perception of their own safety has been skewed by the information explosion. Just my own feeling, with a startling lack of evidence to back it up :smile:
