Chamber of Debate

CRIME - death penalty

Serial killer Steve Wright will die behind bars for killing five prostitutes, a judge ruled on 22 February 2008.

How much would that cost the taxpayer?

Do people who kill for fun deserve to die?

Is there any point at all in keeping these people alive at the expense of the taxpayer when Britain's prisons are already so over-crowded that prisoners are being released early to make way for more recent convicts?

"A life for a life, a limb for a limb, an eye for an eye" is an argument for proportionality and justice. Should we heed this injunction, or are we too blinded by liberal hand-wringing that we can no longer see the virtue of condign punishment or the moral validity of an effective deterrent?

The possibility of a miscarriage of justice and a wrongful conviction exists, of course. However, it could be argued that a criminal who is insufficiently deterred and inadequately punished is also a miscarriage of justice.

An opponent of the death penalty once said: "It is better that a hundred guilty men should go free than a single innocent man be wrongfully convicted."

Better? For whom?

Vote: Should the death penalty be re-introduced in some form, eg for the worst cases of murder?

Our Unique Parallel Polling System

OMOV (One Member One Vote)

Yes 69%

No 31%

Yes

OMMV (One Member Multiple Votes)

Yes 67%

No 33%

Yes

AAA Awarded members only.

Members Comments

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dudley	25-Feb-2008 16:58
if under admission or without doubt i.e dna then hang em high,also bring back the birch and that will sort the yob culture out with a reduction in petty crime and vandalism

barrymx5	25-Feb-2008 16:34
How many more people are the b****y liberals going to kill by refusing the will of the majority and permitting a death penalty?

semperparatus72	25-Feb-2008 15:59
Theres no need for people to be behaving like animals these days murdering people. Go back a 100+ years to the days of abject poverty, lack of health care, slum housing, slavery etc, and you can understand why someone may have killed back then in certain circumstances. Today we live cushy lifes and if we cant work the state will pay us benifits and house us. So bring back the death penalty for the worst offenders.

pam3	25-Feb-2008 15:35
"the death penalty would make the state guilty of murder" what a load of cr*p! this old line is trotted out every time this debate arises but i suggest you look up the definition of murder: the unlawful, premeditated homicide of a human being. note the word "unlawful". therefore the death penalty can never be murder as it would be lawful. it's true it would involve killing but killing someone in itself is not evil, not if it's done to protect innocents. the other standard trotted out btw is that prison is crueller than the death penalty; so their argument for abandoning the death penalty is that it isn't cruel enough, lol! if it wasn't actually being used to release paedos and rapists this argument would have me rotfl!

pearmtn	25-Feb-2008 15:24
You've been wronged. A loved one has been murdered and you want revenge. You're not interested in punishing the killer, and you're not interested in revenge as a deterent since you have read all the statistics and studies and know it doesn't work. So you have the killer in front of you and the means to do it at hand. Youor alone so no one can see and later judge you. Do you? Are you sure this is the right person. Can the taking of another's life ever be committed by someone whole and funtioning with all their moral senses working. What about warfare. What about defending the life of your family in a real time situation. Theres a lot to consider here. Good luck.

evansthespy	25-Feb-2008 15:16
I think Judges are there to make the final decision and in the light of DNA evidence I would say guilt is pretty well proven. Not many would shed a tear for the likes of Fred West, Harold Shipman, Ian Huntley etc I am sure who planned and commited murders. Let hanging be an option for premeditated murder and attempted murder ie terrorism.

06gforty	8-Jan-2008 17:41
a true proper punishment for the very worst is 392 months in solitary confinement with bread and milk.

06gforty	8-Jan-2008 17:35
would you take someones life, who had lived and breathed as you- that would make the executioner, the court and anybody who agreed as bad as the murderer and also what, in a very rare case he was later proved not guilty- it has happened

Hally40	8-Jan-2008 17:15
If someone takes another's life in the full knowledge of what they are doing, whether for payment, greed, envy or whatever, then to my mind they have forfeited the right to live in our society. Contract killings and cold-blooded murders are obvious cases for disposing of the murderers once satisfactorily convicted. This last point brings into question the current nature of the British legal system based on the adversarial approach. I would prefer the continental system with all parties trying to achieve the best outcome from the facts available. It cannot be right that those most clever with words can distort facts to achieve a positive (for them) outcome. However, once oner is happy with the nature of a legal system to present the truth then I can see nothing wrong with executing murderers such as mentioned above. If that is the way they wish to treat the world then they cannot be too surprised if the world wishes to treat them in like manner.

patridas	2-Jan-2008 7:25
what we can not fix, we should never break. God gave life. Who are we to take life away?