Capital Punishment: Should the Death Penalty Still Exist In A 'Civilised Society'?

Perhaps not an unrelated story:

Public perception of crime higher despite falling figures, report says
Social Trends report shows two-thirds of people think crime is on rise, while statistics reveal it is at lowest level for 30 years
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/04/public-perception-crime-higher

I've been watching that story for a few years now. The optimist in me finds it heartening, a breath of fresh air, a godblessed relief. The other side of me is fairly confident that the reason the stats are dropping is that they are being systematically juked.

dara o'briain to thread

for example, Baltimore rape statistics between 1995 and 2009.

BREAKING NEWS 2009: Baltimore rape statistics at all time low

In other news 2009: Baltimore rake statistics at all time high

LOL

http://lilla.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Simpsons-rake-scene.png

I'll tell ya about capital punishment though. Nothing makes me suffer more than when a state's capital is not the most populous or well-known city. Portland isn't the capital of Oregon, you say? What's up with that?

I've been watching that story for a few years now. The optimist in me finds it heartening, a breath of fresh air, a godblessed relief. The other side of me is fairly confident that the reason the stats are dropping is that they are being systematically juked.

Pretty much any way you look at it crime has fallen (in most categories) but people are never going to believe they weren't safer back in the (g)olden days. I'm sure I've mentioned this before but I've spoken to people at meetings in villages where the biggest crime was someone stealing a bicycle that one time and they were still convinced they were lucky to get through the day without being murdered (I am exaggerating only slightly). If they couldn't think of examples of crime from their neighbourhood they would mention things in the news from elsewhere as if it had happened locally to back up their overwhelming belief that it was all GTHiaH. I can only assume that they actually wanted to be scared.

Capital punishment? OK, it's a pretty crap station but how come Magic and Heart FM get off scot free?

The scottish aren't allowed to listen to Heart FM?

They aren't allowed to work there

It's all been snakes and ladders, the career of Paul Coia.

He coulda been a contender

i don't understand this british business - you guys don't have the death penalty now, right? and so some assholes are trying to petition for it to be reinstated? i thought to be a member of the EU a state had to abolish the death penalty

well they want us to withdraw from the EU first

oh i see your right wing idiots are about as realistic as ours. carry on

can't wait for the commons debate on whether prison diets should be restricted to bread and water

oh i see your right wing idiots are about as realistic as ours

Probably less

the death penalty should only be allowed for those who venture to the planet Talos IV

This E-petition thing seems a bit silly...as the House of Commons doesn't have to do a thing about it other than a quick debate, which is good in the case of the Death penalty, but a worthy issue may come along...but to me the E-petition will be hijacked by right-whingers, and J. Marbles types, it would seem.

Where is Rebekah Brooks now there's a pitchfork-wielding campaign to run?

I'll tell ya about capital punishment though. Nothing makes me suffer more than when a state's capital is not the most populous or well-known city. Portland isn't the capital of Oregon, you say? What's up with that?
--kkvgz

otm btw

How about in the case of child sexual abuse?

― kkvgz, Thursday, August 4, 2011 7:15 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well, at the very least you'd move them to another parish iirc

― CH3C(O)N(CH3)2 (darraghmac), Thursday, August 4, 2011 7:17 AM (5 hours ago)

rueful lol

but srs a: still no

"Some of the children featured in these images and videos were just infants and in many cases, the children being victimized were in obvious and also intentional pain, even in distress and crying, just as the rules for one area of the bulletin board mandated. They had to be in distress and crying."

Not sure a change to the law that would effectively encourage paedophiles to kill their potential accusors has been entirely thought through.

i don't think that's logical tbh, a paedophile who genuinely thinks their victim will tell or that they can be caught is probably sufficiently motivated to kill anyway.

People who make child porn. Jesus. Hard to think rationally about what to do with them. Hard to justify the effort in doing so.

I'm against capital punishment if only because it is as chilling as it is horrific. I'm intrigued though by the argument that the death penalty is more expensive than a life sentence. Is this really right? Can somebody show the thinking here / any refs?

i believe it refers to systems that allow lengthy delays in trials and appeals processes, etc.

The countries that have the death penalty, but not the above, i dunno would you want to live in those countries

People who make child porn. Jesus. Hard to think rationally about what to do with them. Hard to justify the effort in doing so.

― CH3C(O)N(CH3)2 (darraghmac), Thursday, August 4, 2011 6:37 PM (57 minutes ago)

jail/mental institutions seem ok to me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zl_D-WkDAw

I don't know. It really doesn't seem enough. Can't we do something with steaming entrails?

i can't tell if you're serious abt the first part \o/

i am, i think? A striongly rehabilitative system seems too dispassionate for a crime like that, it doesn't tend address the outrage that a lot of people tend to feel when hearing details of the offence- an offence which is committed pretty much wholly on the individual, at such cost to them, yet it's hard to feel that a system that relies on a rehabilitative method doesn't at the same time somehow almost remove any focus on the victim impact in favour of dry diagnosis of treatment of the perpetrator.

This dispassionate approach is widely held to be a good thing, but sometimes i struggle to see why, and high-minded rhetoric doesn't fill the gap. I'm finding the point elusive, tbh kev, but i think it's one a lot of people struggle with when eg taking issue with what they see as light sentencing for what are often pretty horrific crimes- 'if that were my kid' type of reflection.

it doesn't tend address the outrage that a lot of people tend to feel

I'm not sure why that needs to be addressed. Not trying to be some wide-eyed ingenue or adopt some holier-than-thou stance here - I feel this outrage as much as the next person (well maybe not if the next person is a daily mail reader...) and yes there's a part of me that wants to see these people struck down with a great vengeance and furious anger. But there's another part of me that thinks - what practical purpose does that achieve?

fair question.

It comes back, maybe, to what i was talking about with nv above- if a justice system doesn't represent the victim's interest (save perhaps in the broadest, loftiest 'societal justice not individual justice' of ways), then, if it doesn't reference public opinion, exactly who is being represented? Our 'higher ideals?' what the oiks 'would think' had they but the benefits of a classical education?'

I know that the HYS mentality is a descent to mob rule, and i can see the connect with what i'm trying to think through here. I'm not advocating that. But it makes me uneasy when views are held to be disregardable because they're disagreeable to, well eg a liberal group such as ilx.

Personally speaking i still can't help feeling that the liberal ideal of redemptive justice ignores a lot of fundamental human feeling that won't be balanced out by eg the reading out victim impact statements before sentencing, which is again very lofty and noble, but yadda yadda disconnect btwn lawmasters and the masses yadda yadda who should be leading who i guess

i vote lawmasters

Not trying to be some wide-eyed ingenue or adopt some holier-than-thou stance here

Don't be bashful - You're doing fine! ; )

xxp Yeah, I do get all that. Logically speaking, I could say that you're suggesting the practical purpose of placating public outrage is - to placate public outrage. Haha! You are trapped in a vicious circle. But that is a mean and unhelpful dodge. Essentially though, while I do understand the need for victim representation etc, with NV I would prefer our legislative system to aim for higher things than we might sometimes do as individuals.

Or I could just stop pussyfooting around and say public opinion can fuck right off.

The answer is because history has repeatedly proved that "referencing public opinion" has led to nothing but grief, misery and death.

Salem? Burn those witches! The majority of the public agree!

Thomas Cranmer? To the stake with him! The majority of the public want it (and then when he thrust his hand which signed the confession into the fire, the "public" were suddenly overcome by remorse for what they had allowed to be done)!

Throw out the Jews? Fine! It's what most Germans want!

So, as an oik with a classical education, I say "higher ideals" go first or else we're never going to evolve, either as a species or as a society.

oh whither democracy!

Nah, on a good day i'd be making the same argument tbf

I hate victim impact statements for two reasons. The courtroom is no place for sentimentality; the low creep of same is, I think, responsible for both over-vituperative judges' statements given with an eye towards the headlines and punishments that 'set an example' for gratuitous or strictly irrelevant reasons. There is also the issue of whose statements deliver the most impact in that setting: is it, as with damn near everything else, the articulate middle classes getting more attention and respect for their submissions? Not that people shouldn't be able to express their sense of loss, but things as they are now is just... cheap theatre.

When Britain abandoned the death penalty, one of the reasons was that this sort of state-sanctioned killing was not a hallmark of a civilized society, so restoring this punishment would be a tacit admission of a decline in civility and would endorse the idea that less civility is OK. I'm anti-DP in all circumstances; it's not for the prison system to assert its authority by killing killers - there are other ways of leading by example and that's what the HYS crowd fails to understand, or do.

xp to ledge, tho i was entertained greatly by mc

good days and bad days

one of the problems with asking for input on important issues from the thoughtless or ill-informed or mental general public

classical education, right?

important issues like....elections?

yep, suzy otm.

an election shouldn't be an issue

suzy,

Re: the decision that britain was now too civilized- decided by whom? all decisions of govt are unquestionable, irreversible? Or only in the case of decisions that march towards a progress that, well, is depends on one's own POV as far i can see?