A question for atheists / religionists / or the not decided.
What is deemed as a capitol offence?
I know that my last post here was removed and I have absolutly NO desire to return to name calling or anything of that nature. I am genuinly curious as to what constitutes a capitol offence in your eyes.
The one thing that I ask is that you be honest in your reply.
I am genuinly convinced that manslaughter should NOT be a capitol offence but that child sexual abuse SHOULD.
I dont think that an "on the spot" killing constituates the death sentence, whereby premeditated killing should.
And of course, where does the religious element come into it?
wizard66 Sun 11/05/08 20:55
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In my humble opinion, all murderers, paodophiles, rapists, an local authority wheelie bin inspectors, should be locked up for, "Life meaning life!"
Let them repent and reform and lead good lives behind the prison walls, in their own close knit community.
They should never be let out, and oh what a wonderful message that would send to the scumbags of a similar ilk.
I might just let the wheelie bin inspectors out after thirty years if they promise to be good!
The death sentence? Yes, I'm all for it, as a knee jerk reaction, but once I really ponder it, no way! It is totally immoral for society to plan and carry out the premeditated death of another human being. To do so demeans us.
But, the pendulum has swung to far towards leniency, and murderers are let out after ridiculously short sentences.
Life should mean life.
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I don't agree with acts of violence being responded to by further acts of violence. So I don't consider there should be capital punishment for any crime.
That is not to say that I don't think some people are too dangerous to be at liberty.
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Good grief - I agree with Theland.
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..actually, not *all* murderers - I think there is a distinction to be made between those who commit a crime without premeditation and those who do not, though I don't think it's a clearly defined line.
For instance, if Elizabeth Fritzel had planned and executed a murder on her rapist father, would anyone suggest this necessitated permanant incarceration [insert your own bad taste joke here]..? I think not, yet it would clearly have been a premeditated murder.
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The right of punishing its members by society cannot be denied; but how far this right extends, by the laws of nature or of God, has been much disputed although it cannot be denied, that most nations - ancient and modern - have deemed capital punishment to be within the scope of the legitimate powers of government.
Although as said above, I often feel emotive enough to say that certain people are so evil they deserve to be removed from life and society, I oppose capital punishment in all its forms. I don’t think any ‘religious’ element comes into at all.
Similarly to Waldo’s point above, another consideration would be a person who killed a burglar breaking into their home (accidentally or otherwise) would probably be committed rightly or wrongly (no clearly defined rule) to the fate of execution. And in my view, capital punishment is by no means a deterent of any sort. But unfortunately neither is our present system.
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I personally believe that “On the Spot” killing is more dangerous for any society than planned killing (however by saying this I am no way justifying any sort of killing). On the spot killing means that any innocent person was in a situation of being at the wrong place at wrong time. Most of the times criminal and the victim never knew each other before that incident. So anyone have a chance of being killed even if that person never did any thing bad or wrong. In a planned killing you kill someone who you think has done some thing bad to you or you have suffered because of that person’s direct or indirect involvement. In other words you had the reason.
As far as capital punishment is concerned, I am in favour of it. Few people are just never going to give up their ill nature and keeping them in the prison is actually a burden on the same society which already has suffered because of that person. Over crowding in the prisons that gives few criminals a chance to getaway. But before that in any society there should be a proper and humanly possible Fair justice system. Because if you do not have a fair, Same for all justice system then no society can make progress or have any stability whatever punishment system they may have.
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wizard use your wand on your next post as a spellchecker
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SPELLchecker ha ha ha
see what i did there!
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am genuinly convinced that manslaughter should NOT be a capitol offence but that child sexual abuse SHOULD.
If you make child sexual abuse a hanging matter-you are inviting te abuser to kill the child !
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Are you not contradicting yourself brionon?
Anyway I think you have to ask yourself what the purpose of a sentence should be.
I think there are 3.
1/ To reduce the risk of re-offence, either by removing the perpetrator or reform.
2/ To act as a deterrent
3/ To satisfy a notion of Justice/retribution etc.
Obviously Capital punishment satifies the first, but so do long sentences.
It's hard to argue the second if the offender does not believe he'll be caught and/or is not in full control of his actions
Certainly in abuse cases where nobody has been killed it's hard to justify the last even by the "eye for an eye" maxim.
The old "Life should mean life" phrase is trotted out, often by people who don't understand it.
A standard Life sentence, is Life because you are never free of it, you can be released but are effectively always on probation.
There is a IPP which is an indeterminant sentence where the offender has to show he is safe to be released. These are new and contraversial.
There is also the full life tariff. There are only a couple of dozen such prisoners. They will never be released under any circumstances and will die in gaol. Normally mass murderers.
Personally I don't support the death sentence because I look at the US which is a society not that different from ours and I don't see it as having a beneficial effect.
And it certainly seems there that it is mostly the poor and uneducated who seem to be executed most
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Some don't understand the 'life' sentence, but I think plenty of us do, and would like to see life tarrifs rather than life sentences for certain offences.
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I think what brionon is referring to is that if the punishment for sexual abuse was the death penalty, some abusers might in an attempt to avoid detection, kill the child. I have some vague recollection there is evidence to support this fear.
Also the death penalty for sexual offenders is a little more complex than just death to the paedophile! What all of them, even those who are themselves children? If over 18 does that include those with some learning needs? What about victims who want to disclose and see the perpetrator punished but not dead - feeling your actions caused someones death who you may even love, could be pretty tough. Why child sexual abusers only, what about those who sexually assault adults - your common or garden rapist. It becomes less and less black and white and more and more grey area.
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But people who violate adults can't be compared to those who violate children. How can we compare someone who rapes a grown woman - or man - to someone who rapes a baby? Both horrendous crimes, but surely there is no comparison?
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It must be a full moon, lets hear it for consensus.
I agree with aldo and Theland1 (it should be mk2) life tarrifs are in order alot of people take the plea on manslaughter and get out within a few years.
I read a story about a man who killed (manslaughtered) his girlfriend they let him out and he killed his next girlfriend (she was only 16 if I remember correctly) the man was in his early 20s, an old colleague of mine was manslaughtered (fcukin murdered) a few years ago.
There's no justice, there's just us...
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Apologies that should read I agree with WALDO not aldo, for all your sins I'm not going to accuse you of being a Kopite.
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Question Author
Thanks for all of your excellent replies (I even had to laugh at noknowledge). I must admit that its made me have a slight rethink on some aspects of capital (spelt with an a this time) punishment. Perhaps when it comes to certain crimes that its a knee jerk reaction to want to "hang 'em high" and obviously the issue isnt so clear cut to have a "one size fits all" punishment when it comes to murder and manslaughter. I have said before on here that I once knew a man who killed the man who had sexually abused him as a child and that wasnt even premeditated murder. He was serving life for that but personally I think that he should have got a medal for ridding the earth of a piece of kiddie fiddling scum that was allowed to walk the streets.
Obviously an emotive issue.
Thanks again for all of your replies.
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Can i just mention something that will bring this back to the real world. I agree that life should mean life an all BUT ours prisons are over run, there isnt any money to build new ones so what do we do? we need an alternative.
I'm not sure if i'm for capital punishment or not i really dont like the thought of peadophiles being allowed to breathe once the police have caught them for example but anyway what if the government wants to lock up people for life but can't afford to? what do they do except try and release people who are 'less dangerous'?
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Maybe we should stop jailing people for many crimes: women who fail to pay their TV licenses (women are disproportionately jailed for this crime), for instance.
They, and society, would be better served by non-custodial, community-based services.
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