The Death Penalty – Bring It Back !!

Civilised Society

I’ve always been of the view that we are right in this country not to have the death penalty. We are supposedly a civilised society and in a civilised society you don’t execute people.

Mind Changing

In the past month I’ve had my mind changed twice. The first, being the brutal killing on our streets of Drummer Lee Rigby. The second was the sentencing of the cop killer who openly admitted killing four people, Dale Cregan. In both cases the killers not only didn’t deny their crimes but openly flaunted it. Lee’s killers didn’t even run, they stood in the street shouting about what they’d done.  

This is the game changer. Here you have animals who revel in what they’ve done, they don’t deny it; there are no errors in judgment or doubt that we’ve got the wrong person. Why should we allow there type to live in our civilised society (even if it is in prison) ?

The other major game-changer is technology. DNA, forensics and digital media all combine to prove guilt conclusively, something we didn’t have when capital punishment was abolished.

So what are the real issues, why can’t we bring back the death penalty for murderers ?

Innocent people may be put to death?

The long and complex processes involved in murder cases these days mean that the chance of being wrongly convicted for a crime such as murder are extremely low. DNA evidence and new forensic advances make proving cases much easier. Judges will not apply the death penalty where there is even some doubt as to the strength of the conviction, as it is vital that innocent lives aren’t taken.

Historically, the claim that the chances of being wrongly convicted existed in the British justice system. The Birmingham Six would have been executed. Stephan Klijsko would have been executed. However these were in different times, today forensics and technology would have eliminated them before they even got to court.

It costs too much, to keep repeat murders in our already bulging prisons.

Cost has never really been an issue in this country when it comes to dealing with crime. The justice system seems to happily carry out expensive, lengthy trials that result in not guilty verdicts and don't complain that money has been wasted. Dale Cregan’s trial cost over £5 Million and he pleaded Guilty !!

The cost to keep someone like Dale Cregan in prison for the rest of his life is a massive cost to the tax payer especially if he lives 60+ more years which is entirely possible. This cost could easily be negated by his early execution after conviction.

It would act as a moral guideline.

If we live in a society where there is capital punishment it will make would be murderers and the violent criminal think twice. As for terrorists, I believe they would be only venerated by a tiny minority so executing them would have little effect. As a moral guideline it would have a good psychological effect as certain people in ‘Gangland Britain’ would wake up to what is right and what is wrong. It will firmly establish what the population find unacceptable.

It’s a cruel and immoral punishment

Maybe so, but the punishment is for a cruel and immoral act carried out by the convicted person. Therefore not unfair. You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

The other side of the argument is that punishing like with like isn't how our justice system works. When someone steals a telly we don't take their telly off them as well, we remove them from society. Similarly, those who commit fraud don't get fined comparable amounts to the money they defrauded. So, defining murder as bad and then killing the murderer could be deemed hypocritical. To be fare there are one or two merits to this argument, but only for lesser crimes than pre-meditated murder.

EU Says No

Capital punishment is expressly forbidden under Article 2 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights for an EU member state to impose capital punishment to which Britain is a signatory.

Simple solution which works on so many fronts (see some of my previous blog posts) is we leave the EU.

It doesn't do anything to bring back the victim

Neither does a prison sentence, however it will probably give the victim's family more of a sense of closure. The family will know that, unlike prison sentences that can be cut short by a mixture of good behaviour and government incompetence, the murderer will never be a threat to another human being again. The death penalty is the ultimate form of vindication.

It may not do anything to bring back the victim, but you can guarantee there won't be a second one!

The death penalty as a deterrent

An actively used death penalty has to act as a deterrent. It would certainly make many potential killers think again, especially those who operate in our inner-city gangs.

Whilst murder is often an impulsive act, it is not always. Most impulsive murderers wouldn’t get the death penalty. That should be reserved for repeat offenders, mass murderers, serial killers, child killers and cop killers.

As it currently stands, the criminals of today have nothing to fear, they can get arrested, get life in prison. Prison today is not a punishment like it used to be. They don’t wallow in a hole with nothing but bread and water, they are given beds, television, pool tables, computer consoles, jobs, in essence they’re treated like a normal person when they are not normal at all, they are evil.

CIVILISED SOCIETY HAS CHANGED; IT’S A DIFFERENT WORLD NOW

We now live in a modern world where science and technology play a potent role in identifying people that commit crimes. With these measures in place there can never be a wrong death via execution. The science today is fool proof.

Our civilised society today cannot be maintained if we let killers live. If your child or someone close to you was murdered you would want justice; you would want to see the killer die for what they have taken from you. This doesn’t make us worse than the people that kill; we aren’t killing because we want too. No we want to see them die for something they have done, someone they have taken from us; some family that will never be the same because of that person. That is not wrong; that is not stooping to their level. It’s simply removing someone that can never destroy a family or loved ones ever again without reason.

For these people that kill another, particular those that murder children, death is probably too good for them, but death via lethal injection is a true justice rather than being put in a prison holiday camp to sponge off the state. Bring it back I say.