Humanities coursework

[kittygobonkers]

I totally agree with you about the whole rape being hard to prove thing! Of course these crimes should only be punished if the person who commited them were found guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.

[seraph]

Thats James Brown's genitals being removed then . Love the avatar.

[kittygobonkers]

lol ewwwy!

Thanks, i'm no computer genius at all so i'm quite proud of myself for being able to change my avatar lol

[seraph]

I know the feeling

[DreamDangerously]

I don't know, I just think retribution debases people. It's a quick hop and step from state sponsored murder to other kinds of public punishment...tell you what, lets bring back the stocks and torture, just to make sure they're telling the truth.

In an ideal world, yes, only the guilty would get punished, but this is far from it and it also relies on an uncorrupt, unprejudiced justice system and we don't have that so it makes such things as absolute proof near on impossible. Look at cases where people have been "convinced" of guilt that many years later have been overturned and proved to be a complete sham.

Also where do draw the line? How about murders that are responses to systematic abuse and violence? If it's all so cut and dried you can't then have a some murders are less bad than others clause.

I just don't agree with murder in any form and capital punishment just pushes forward the notion that you repay violence with violence.

That's a little sick in my book.

[kittygobonkers]

I can see both sides of the argument here its just amazing when you get murderers like Ian Huntley sent to prison with a 'life sentence' and a slap on the wrist! Yes he's lost his freedom and access to the outside world but this punishment just doesn't seem enough! But then what more can be done to punish these people other than the death penalty?
Our Justice system is a complete joke but alas thats the way it is

[DreamDangerously]

but then what would you do? Turn him in to a victim by executing him? I think it's a bit of a misnomer to view prison as a walk in the park as well.

[andromachecasandra]

I voted not sure.

At first I thought, "No - I disagree with the Death Penalty", then I read some of the comments and realised I don't actually agree with Life Imprisonment either.

Perhaps it's because here in the UK, unless its a high profile case, a life sentance means roughly 20 years, but life expectancy is about 80 years; so you kill someone you spend less than a quarter of your life in prison and if you were young enough when you killed someone you get all sorts of special treatment and court ordered anonomity (like the killers of Jamie Bulger who got tickets to see Man United play and personal tutoring etc). And what about paedophiles who don't see raping little kids as wrong or sociopaths who either don't care or acknowledge the rights of other people - these persons are often unable to be "normalised" into society.

On the other hand, the Death Penalty is no more, really than state sanctioned murder and there is always the possiblity of the wrong person being convicted etc. The basis of the legal rights set out in the UN Declaration of Hunman Rights is that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. A quote a friend of mine who has a law masters uses is "Better ten guilty men go free than an innocent man is imprisioned" - I don't remember who from though.

[DreamDangerously]

I just want to make it clear, because I think my opinions might be getting misconstrued, I'm not against a life sentence meaning life. In fact I haven't said that once. I do believe that the length of sentence should reflect the crime and that some punishments aren't nearly long enough. That's not the issue that I'm against at all because life meaning life is an entirely separate issue from death as a punishment.

The case of child murderers is difficult I think because unless we're privvy to the psychological reports and assessment of those who were incacerated very young, we're prone to making judgements based on the evidence presented by the media, hardly the most reliable source of information. The simple fact being in these cases that children grow up and their sense of morality develops and in few rare cases if they were brought up in an enviroment where morality was absent or of severe abuse this affects them directly. That's not excusing it but it serves as an example. None of these cases are cut and dried.

[kittygobonkers]

dreamdangerously said:

but then what would you do? Turn him in to a victim by executing him? I think it's a bit of a misnomer to view prison as a walk in the park as well.

I don't believe for one moment that prison is a walk in the park its a harsh place and thats how it should be, but i don't believe that they should be standing around playing pool and watching TV and whatever other activities they get up to in there. They should be stripped of all luxurys including visits from loved ones!

The moment these people picked up a knife and started hacking innocent people to death or took a young child off the streets and committed unspeakable acts upon them is the moment that they lost any of their human rights. Ok so the death penalty has its pros and cons but if we are talking life sentences then it should be exactly that LIFE, the only time they come out of that prison should be when they are in a wooden box!

[DreamDangerously]

Like I said quite clearly, I'm not against life meaning life at all.

I'm very very pro human rights. People have worked hard for penal reform in this country and although the modern situation isn't ideal I think the idea of returning to victorian-esque style Gaols is ridiculous. Each prisoner is an idividual case and an individual circumstance and like I said, if you could say with all conviction that every person charged is guilty then fine but it's really not the case.

That woman who was accused of murdering her children for example, she was slammed in prison, was brutalised by other prisoners for being a child murderer and it turned out she was completely innocent.

I don't know, I just can't buy the eye for an eye mentality and removing people's human rights. Would we rather have prisons like they do in Asia which are horrific? Does Asia miraculously have no murder or violent crime. Hardly. Will treating them like scum change the mentality of psychopath, not at all. They have no sense of right or wrong, they probably couldn't care less .

[seraph]

I really agree with you DreamDangerously, I didnt want to get drawn into it because there are certain issues I CANNOT talk about without getting irate and this is one of them. I dont like the view of people as "monsters" or "devils" because of their crimes. At the end of the day people are people and anything from psychological conditions to terrible pasts can be contributing factors to these crimes. I just hate the Daily Mail point of view that we should string em high because they arent even human.

[DreamDangerously]

Exactly, each criminal is individual and each case has it's own set of circumstances.

Maybe I'm just too much of a bleeding heart liberal. (Plus like I said, I like a good debate.)

But back to the central issue of the death penalty, I just don't see any positive value in it other than revenge. It's not a deterrant. Even in countries who use less "humane" forms of execution it doesn't seem to stop rape and murder from happening.

Also if you condone the death penalty for one form of crime, it's very hard to then condemn the politics of another country where the death penalty is dealt out for what we view as lesser crimes, hanging for drug trafficking or possession for example. Suddenly when a that kind of execution happens to a westerner, there's outrage, but I don't see that as different to executing prisoners in the electric chair.

[kittygobonkers]

Gosh looks like i'm on my own in this debate lol

I admit i do have a 'daily mail' view of the whole thing but at the same time i do understand that stringing them up won't always solve everything and that every crime commited is unique, for example a woman who suffered years of violent abuse from her husband finally has enough and defends herself and accidently kills him in self defence, would she then suffer the same punishment as a man that murders a child!? A line has to be drawn somewhere and that is one of the reasons why we will never have executions in this country! You could never pick and chose who you think should be executed!

Nothing can be done to prevent people from commiting these crimes, prison doesn't seem to deter them and i'm sure the threat of execution wouldn't either so it would make sense to keep them locked away for as long as possible!

I don't know i'm pretty poo at debates

[DreamDangerously]

hehe. I think we just reached a point of agreement there.