Reintroducing capital punishment to the UK

Should capital punishment be reintroduced to the UK?

  • No, under any circumstances

  • Yes, for any murder

  • Yes, but only for the murder of specific members of society (eg children, police officers)

Results are only viewable after voting.
Pete Burrett said:
After another terrorist attack, I'm hearing people on social media demanding the return of capital punishment. 'An eye for an eye' is often mentioned, and retribution seems as important to some as justice or punishment.

As the barometer for the UK's thinking :) let's have the views of Yellows Forum posters.

For ease of voting, I've restricted the poll to murder, rather than treason or any other offence, but feel free to comment.
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Well at the moment the voting is quite clear Pete and shows the sense of the Uellow forum posters ?
 
Pete Burrett said:
Depends on your definition of 'civilised'. To my mind, no civilised society should put a person to death, IRRESPECTIVE (and that word's important) of what they've done. Just because Khan apparently acted in a totally uncivilised way, doesn't mean the state should respond similarly.

To seek to kill a killer for our own gratification and our own search for vengeance is a very 'Texas' attitude, and one that we've long since abandoned, thankfully.

Some of your above post smacks of a 'Baldy-style' effort. How much WOULD you be willing to spend to keep 'such creatures' alive? £10,000 per annum? Nothing? If a single mother living on benefits could benefit by, say, £1,000 per annum if we executed 'some creature', I wonder how she would feel about that? Khan did not seem to value human life, and neither do you.
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Wasn`t talking specifically about Khan and he got his sentence.
However I will humour you regarding keeping them alive.
In my world it would be a regime of the bare minimum. Solitary confinement, basic food,minimum interaction, in fact they would wish they were dead. There would be no rehabilitation, I think we agree whole lifers are beyond that.
I don`t value the lives of those who have killed, often in the most grotesque or religiously/sexually motivated way.
I do value the life of innocent people.
 
Marked Ox said:
That doesn't change the fact that there are wrongful convictions and when I last looked we can't resurrect the dead.
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We aren`t talking elements of doubt here. The starting threshold for "whole life" is stringent anyway.
Look at the list and find someone who is even remotely close to a "wrongful conviction".
 
There is no way I could agree with the return of capital punishment in our country. And I don’t think it would ever happen thank god.
 
Did 3 people seriously vote for the death penalty for any murder?
 
Essexyellows said:
We aren`t talking elements of doubt here. The starting threshold for "whole life" is stringent anyway.
Look at the list and find someone who is even remotely close to a "wrongful conviction".
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There have been people convicted of murder and terrorist acts who have had their convictions overturned. At the time of conviction, there weren't elements of doubt for the Jury etc as they got convicted. So they would now be dead with the death sentence and as I said I haven't seen anything to say we can yet revive the dead.
 
Essexyellows said:
Do you think it is right spending a conservative estimate of circa £38,000+ a year to keep such creatures alive? Just sat there waiting to die. I could think of people far more deserving of the investment and services.
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I'd be interested to know who these 'more deserving' ones are, since you already posted that people in poverty should get themselves out by eating less.
 
Marked Ox said:
There have been people convicted of murder and terrorist acts who have had their convictions overturned. At the time of conviction, there weren't elements of doubt for the Jury etc as they got convicted. So they would now be dead with the death sentence and as I said I haven't seen anything to say we can yet revive the dead.
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It would save money on expensive reviews of the cases where criminals have been freed after new evidence has been found, old old evidence uncovered - that would be one benefit of capital punishment. Plus it would improve the morale of the populace by reducing the number of cases where the police and authorities are found to have been imperfect - I mean they don't bring people to trial without being certain they are guilty, do they?
 
Rather than looking to execute those who put the state at a high level of risk, I would suggest that we actually look at reducing the prison population of those who are of a very low risk.

The prison population is around 80,000. And it costs around £25-35k per year to keep them locked up. Rehabilitation work has been hugely reduced due to budget cuts and the loss of experienced staff. Offending behaviour courses, education and job skills have either been removed or are given little more than lip service. Drug services are in place, but there is no incentive to remain substance free and psychoactive substances have changed the goal posts with high numbers of prisoners who are highly violent and unpredictable. Staff assaults are at their highest level, suicides and self harming too. Prisons are longer safe for prisoners or staff.

But we have around 10,000 prisoners who are foreign nationals. We could look to deport those who have no ties to this country whilst also providing funding to develop prison systems in the countries they would be going.

It can cost around £25k per year to put a drug addict through intensive therapy in an approved rehab centre. It costs around £8-10k per year to do something similar in the community. So we could refer drug addicts for treatment rather than locking them up to save money and make a real difference.

Mental health services have been stripped back and many prisoners could and should be under healthcare supervision rather than being behind bars. For the same kind of money we could offer real support with those who are trained to manage such complex issues. We also have an aging prison population with historical sex offenders. These often have more significant medical issues that are hard to manage in prison and their risk could often be managed better in the community.

So, we could save money and have a far more effective service if we cut our prison population in half. That would then give us the time and money to change those who really need it. Rehabilitation IS possible. Get people clean, address their thinking skills and offending behaviour, give them education, job skills and help them maintain family links and the vast majority of prisoners go on to lead law abiding and purposeful lives on release. So we focus on those who want to change, with real investment and opportunities - and penalise those that don't want to change (but not by killing them!).
 
Solution for the drug issue- give clean stuff away free on the NHS, no need to commit crime to fund their habit, no dealers, no county lines etc, they OD? Ho hum.
Deport convicted foreign nationals, absolutely.
Pay for other countries prison systems, no thanks. Reinvest that money in our penal system.
Historical sex offenders ..... anyone fancy having them living next door to their family? Thought not.
Good programme on the BBC about a trailer park in the US that is "home" to similar offenders. Lets create "Paedo Ghetto`s" that doesn`t create any problems.............

How about making prison a much more uncomfortable place to be so that offenders actually fear it rather than seeing it as a career "risk" ?
 
Essexyellows said:
Solution for the drug issue- give clean stuff away free on the NHS, no need to commit crime to fund their habit, no dealers, no county lines etc, they OD? Ho hum.
Deport convicted foreign nationals, absolutely.
Pay for other countries prison systems, no thanks. Reinvest that money in our penal system.
Historical sex offenders ..... anyone fancy having them living next door to their family? Thought not.
Good programme on the BBC about a trailer park in the US that is "home" to similar offenders. Lets create "Paedo Ghetto`s" that doesn`t create any problems.............

How about making prison a much more uncomfortable place to be so that offenders actually fear it rather than seeing it as a career "risk" ?
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We did that bottom one previously, it was called Australia. :)
 
Pete Burrett said:
I'll leave it to someone with first hand knowledge of the prison system to confirm this, but surely the punishment from being in prison is deprivation of liberty and loss of normal contact with family and friends, not to mention loss of any job the prisoner may have had, and severe impact on future career prospects. Not all prisoners are career criminals - many are otherwise normal members of society who made mistakes or errors of judgement.

It must be great to be locked in your cell for up to 23 hours per day, and to be around drug-dealers who are potentially violent, psychopathic or mentally ill. What changes would you like to see to make it even more uncomfortable?

You occasionally hear prison described as a 'holiday camp' simply because (some) prisoners have (some) access to a gym or TV or their own lavatory or even regular meals. For how many people is imprisonment actually preferable to freedom and life on the outside? I would guess not many. Prison serves its purpose.
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This will be my 25th Christmas working in the Prison Service, and every year without fail, one newspaper will run a full page article about the luxurious Christmas Dinner our legs will get! I'll tell you exactly what they get; a couple of wafer thin slices of compressed turkey roll, frozen and deep dried roast potatoes, peas and carrots with a slosh of lukewarm gravy. Hardly luxurious, and unless you expect them to get bread and water it's really not a lot to provide a "traditional" meal even if it only costs 50p each.

No prisons have sky tv, even the freeview is massively reduced to about 8 channels in total (and they pay 50p a week for this luxury!). They do have gyms but most of the equipment is 20+ years old and very basic. Prison cells are cold with often 2 or 3 sharing the space that was designed for one. They are locked up for anything between 18-23 hours a day and have to sleep, s**t and wash in that shared space. Violence against themselves and others are at record levels and they are pretty miserable places to be.

Of course, for some, prison is better than being on the streets, or dead. Prison is where some feel safe. But this would certainly be the minority, most hate it because our prisons are not nice places to be.

I'd be interested to know how some think our prison system should operate and consider if that would lead to an increase in staffing levels and costs?
 
Scotchegg said:
This will be my 25th Christmas working in the Prison Service, and every year without fail, one newspaper will run a full page article about the luxurious Christmas Dinner our legs will get! I'll tell you exactly what they get; a couple of wafer thin slices of compressed turkey roll, frozen and deep dried roast potatoes, peas and carrots with a slosh of lukewarm gravy. Hardly luxurious, and unless you expect them to get bread and water it's really not a lot to provide a "traditional" meal even if it only costs 50p each.

No prisons have sky tv, even the freeview is massively reduced to about 8 channels in total (and they pay 50p a week for this luxury!). They do have gyms but most of the equipment is 20+ years old and very basic. Prison cells are cold with often 2 or 3 sharing the space that was designed for one. They are locked up for anything between 18-23 hours a day and have to sleep, s**t and wash in that shared space. Violence against themselves and others are at record levels and they are pretty miserable places to be.

Of course, for some, prison is better than being on the streets, or dead. Prison is where some feel safe. But this would certainly be the minority, most hate it because our prisons are not nice places to be.

I'd be interested to know how some think our prison system should operate and consider if that would lead to an increase in staffing levels and costs?
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Thanks for that.
What pis*** me off is how our governments ( regardless of whether red or blue) seem to be unfit to govern.
If we are going to throw 10,000's in prison, we should have the space and it clearly is not a place to throw mentally ill 'patients'
Government after government seem to do nothing to improve things.
Are we looking at other Countries to see what they do and what works?
Newspapers hardly help. Sensationalising stories and indicating that prisoners have it easy.
 
I would re introduce it. Since it was abolished, there have been some terrible murders committed. I would certainly want to see it used against serial killers, and also the murderers that kill children. I’d also use it against child rapists. There is no point spending so much money to just lock them up with whole life tariffs. They should face the Firing Squad, as it would be cheaper to use a bullet than to keep them locked up using the tax payers money.

Does that make me a bad person, it’s just my opinion.
 
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