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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pam3	13-Dec-2007 20:33
the anti-death penalty advocates always harp on about "miscarriages of justice" but how many people do you know of who have been wrongly convicted 3 or more times? if we reserve the death penalty for repeat offenders there is almost no possibility that the condemned man (or woman) would have been innocent of all 3 (or more) offences(but we have to accept the occasional mishap). obviously the most serious criminals (murderers, rapists, paedophiles) should never be allowed the chance to commit 3 crimes and should be locked up for life with no chance of release after a 2nd (or even 1st if the crime and evidence are overwhelming) offence.

RichardCostello	4-Dec-2007 22:43
This is hard for me being a British Nationalist, on one side my party would say hang the perverts and murderers, then on the other side i realise that you cant trust the police, then there is always the peculiar magistrates, they cant be tough on this subject as it maybe them one day, better just to give a caution to sex offenders, or buy the poor victim a bicycle. Capital Punishment is Good!!! But!! Only without innacuracies!!.

billbailey	22-Nov-2007 21:56
The main reason for the restoration of capital punishment is that its abolition has led to a gradual diminution in the perceived value of life. Human life is now regarded as a commodity which may be bought at the cost of a few years in prison. It is no paradox to say that the death penalty is a reminder that murder is taken seriously by a nation. Of course there must be caveats. The death penalty should not be issued when the evidence is purely circumstantial. Also it should not be applied unless both judge and jury give their consent. Subject to these conditions restoration of the death penalty has now become essential in our increasingly lawless society.

tays	12-Nov-2007 23:54
The death penalty would be the best test of a democracy.Bringing it back, as would happen under a truly democratic government, would inevitably lead to the killing of an innocent party. How do the enfranchised react? The blood is on their hands, do they accept the responsibilities of power, do they find fault with practical mechanisms or do they reject the capital punishment until a new generation clamours for it again?

alteclansing	10-Nov-2007 21:19
bring it back

Herb	9-Nov-2007 22:33
We are all going to die some day, so we should stop being so squeamish. The death penalty has two enormous advantages. The first is that it ensures that the criminal never repeats his crime (think of the number of murderers who have been freed and then go on to murder a second time). The other great advantage is that it's far cheaper to painlessly gas a criminal than to keep him in confinement and feed and attend to his wants for the rest of his term in jail. There is of course the argument that sometimes, people are wrongly convicted. The answer to that is that nothing in life is guaranteed to be fair. It has its risks whether you're in the dock accused of murder or driving along a road or riding in a train. People get killed driving cars and riding in trains, but we don't propose the abolition of trains or cars. We accept that there are risks & we live with them.

barrymx5	3-Nov-2007 15:48
Currently in USA where injection is being questioned by Supreme Court allegedly because of possible pain for some time. Gas chamber seems better. Most killers are not worried about how much pain they cause their victims so not sure it is a major concern but if it sways people to accept, so be it.

pearmtn	31-Oct-2007 19:11
The death penalty does not deter crime, rather it makes murderers of those that use it.

IanMacdonald	21-Oct-2007 10:47
I feel the death penalty should only be bought back in the form of an injection. Anything other would be pure barbaric. Just because the perpetrator of the crime is it does not mean we should step down to their level. I see very little point in paying taxes to keep major criminals alive. To those that say the death penalty dose not solve anything. You are all wrong. At least the statistics go down by 1! Maybe other people might think twice.