Personally, I do not understand why a sociopathic murderer should have more of a right to live in this country than an innocent unborn baby, whose only crime was to be conceived.

Extremely hypocritical if you ask me...

what's more deadly guns or knives...

lol

I would just like to reply to the post made by 'open minded'.

Yes, murder's occur in every single country, every day. There is always one area that suffers with gangs and violence the most. In Great Britain, London is that area.

I have lived in England my entire life. The Government are always holding meetings to discuss ways to improve the justice system. The media, such as The Sun, are always pulicising what is going wrong within this wonderful country. There are often places where people can dispose of weapons. No one sees what is going right in this land and they always focus on the bad things.

I believe national service and capital punishment should be reintroduced. Life in prisons has become so cushy and it's like a haven for criminals.

Life in prison isn't really torture though. You get TV, free food, you get to work out, you can even get your doctorate and you get visits and letters from everyone you know.

I dislike that we put people to death. Most countries in the UN do not do this anymore. I believe it puts us on par with places like Iran, China, Sudan, etc.

We are a christian nation after all and yet we do not practice forgiveness.

I believe that no one has the right to take another's life. Even if that person has killed that does not justify killing again.

Watch Trigun.

saying that you prefer life imprisonment over capital punishment is like saying that you'd rather have someone tortured to death rather than having them die quickly.

quote:

p

I really don't think using Great Britain's justice system as a good example a sound idea- I visited the London area for four weeks during the summer and in the London area alone there were about 15 fatal stabbings. Punishments for crimes are the opposite of harsh, many people escaping consequences for heinous crimes committed. I believe the death penalty should be used in cases of truly horrific crimes- torture and murder, rape, pre-meditated murder, etc. but not necessarily for accidental killings like a robbery gone wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by Wolfie:
The hard statistics are being debated here because if the morality of the governement or whether or not they have the right to end life was debated it would make everyone go around in circles. It would fall into the never-ending argument thread like abortion and gay marriage. lol

Your probably right, that said, Viva made plenty of good points. I had never actually questioned the supposed right of the government to end a life before. If the purpose of government is the maintenance of basic security and public order, wouldn't life imprisonment serve the same purpose as ending the life?

Couldn't going above and beyond a perfectly viable conclusion be construed as cruel and unusual punishment?

The hard statistics are being debated here because if the morality of the governement or whether or not they have the right to end life was debated it would make everyone go around in circles. It would fall into the never-ending argument thread like abortion and gay marriage. lol

I really don't think the issue here is the deterrent or retributive nature of Capital Punishment.

The issue is whether or not the state and government powers should beendowed with such extensive and invasive powers over the individual as to end their life. The state's power trumps individual's rights.

You choose to debate instead the the costs of rehabilitating a fellow man, and the converse benefits of simply cutting short that life. Economic benefit should never overrule human liberty or the right to life.

You choose to debate whether or not capital punishment has an adequately preventative effect. Well, of course it prevents re-offense, but so does the proper application of lifetime imprisonment.

The a prime issue highlighted by SumanPilaii was the idea of a life sentence being botched in application. {{

quote:

Later on due to a change in sentencing laws, James Moore is eligible for parole every two years! Moore should have been executed long ago and Pamela’s parents could have put the whole horrible incident behind them forever."}

Here, the solution should not be capital punishment but instead improvement of the justice system, improvement towards the greatest ideal; the achievement of justice.

I am 110% against the death penalty. (Also last time I checked we didn't kill people for drug trafficking, this isn't China you know). Capital punishment is not a detterent because most murders are crimes of passion, usually the person isn't in a state when they think "well, I should stop strangle this guy or else I might be killed."

Besides life in prison is way worse than death. Who says we have to keep them in "luxury hotels." Give them no TV, no newspapers, no chance to get a degree or anything. Now that's a punishment. Also, it costs A LOT less to keep someone alive for the rest of their life (about 750,000) while years of appeals end up costing the courts roughly 2 to 3 million dollars.

I think it's a little sad that we are the only superpower that still has the death penalty. Why don't we take a look a England, wow they don't have a death penalty, they've banned guns and their crime rates are lower than ours. Maybe we should revise our outdated and primitive punishments.

Check out the innocence project.

I support the death penalty, but only in the most heinous, greusome murders, and only when we are completely sure that the right person will be punished.
And don't say "if they've been convicted..." b/c a lot of people have been sent to prison for murders they didn't commit and been proven innocent later -several were on death row at the time.

how would you like to stay in prison for life?
thats a long time to sit around and do nothing.
and im not positive of this, but i dont think that prison breaks happen that often. when inmates escape, it is usaly when they are being transfered. and do off set the cost of the inmates being in prison, make them work! do somthing productive while they sit on there butts

I agree, capital punishment is one of the best ways to get rid of murderers (i'm not saying it gets rid of murder (i'm saying it gets rid of the people who commit the crime) a long time ago we may have gotten the wrong person a few times but now we have the technology to rule people out and get the right person. if we let murderers go like this then they will get other people killed. one dead murderer saves another few hundred.

There's no denying what you say is true. The death penalty is being down played because people think its inhumane or no different than the murderers who get the sentencing. But what fear would anyone have with The System if they know for sure that they are only going to get a slap on the wrist and a lifetime stay at a "luxurious" hotel where the food is free and all they have to worry about is what nickname do they use to look intimidating. So by all means, hang them all if that's what is fair to their crime. Only then would there be fear in their hearts and doubt in their minds to commit their acts. Unless of course they're totally suicidal, in which case, there is not a thing that can change their mind.