Martin2005

You're such a ****ing hero

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

See my post #52, I don't think it's that simple.

Martin2005

It really is though isn't it?

If the DP was a deterrent then the murder rate would surely be lower than in countries that don't have it, not SIGNIFICANTLY higher


I mean we can fart around with the small details all you like, but there is no getting away from the fact that more people are murdered in some US cities than the UK, France and Germany combined!

Boro

iTrader: (1)

Do all murderers really consider the punishment before killing?

I doubt they do, so you could have whatever deterrent you wanted and it wouldn't change anything.

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

I'm really starting to get the feeling you didn't read a single word of my post #52. If you had, instead of giving us lots of spin and waffle, you'd be citing alongside your murder stats for those cities the actual number of offenders who've been executed there in the past 10 or 20 years.

I'll come back later and see if you've bothered to do either of the above, but until then I've got better things to do with my time, thanks.

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Yup, and how much less do they consider it, if it to all intents and purposes it only exists on paper, as is the case in much of the US.

Martin2005

Why is it 'namby pamby' or 'soft' to think the death penalty is wrong. I just don't get it. It's like me say the death penalty is only favoured by bloody thirsty, ignorant, knuckle draggers

Martin2005

Is that really the point?

Are you suggesting that the criminal is getting into very subtle value judgments before murdering someone based upon the likelihood of execution within 20 years?

It doesn't feel likely does it?

Martin2005

This is where I wish I had a better short term memory. Presumably you are not saying this in a good way

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Do I have to do ALL of your research for you?

Number of executions carried out in the United States since 1976: 1307
Number of homicides in the United States since 1976: approx 470,000
(based on an average of 13,000 per year)
Likelihood of a murderer actually being executed: 1 in 358

You call that a subtle value judgement, I call it pretty reasonable odds, compared with:
Average annual number of justifiable homicides by law enforcement officers in the United States: 400
Number of justifiable homicides by law enforcement officers in United States since 1976: approx. 10,400

In other words, a criminal is around 25 times more likely to be shot and killed by a cop during attempted escape or in the commission of a crime than they are likely to be executed following conviction.

As the Yanks like to say, you do the math!

warrenm2

Just a bit better informed on this subject. Not sure why you posted that link, you are just repeating the error I took a paragraph to explain.

All that can be derived from that is that there must be a lot of crime in the US, but without the crime numbers it says nothing about the harshness of sentencing, which is what I believe you are alluding to

warrenm2

Well the figures seem to say otherwise. Could be a reporting difference and the classification of "crime" is different between the two, but I would have thought those obvious cases would be adjusted for somehow

DYK

Nothing like having a coffee in the morning and talking about the death penalty

hodgy0_2

i read the data completely differently, all the countries with a low (and relatively low) % of people in prison are much more stable countries with a far more developed legal system and sense of the law

so low % of prison population are the following countries

Denmark
Sweden
Finland
Belgium
Netherlands
Austria

Against countries with the highest % - and by your reading of the data should have low crime rates

Estonia
Latvia
Romania
Lithuania
Slovakia – need I go on?

Indeed if you compare apples with apples – as far as it is possible with crime stats amongst countries and just look at the UK and Germany you see that the UK has the highest recorded crimes and the highest prison population.

ritchie21

I'm very much against the death penalty, for many reasons.

I am more than happy to have a reasoned debate on whether or not it ought to be brought back. However, I DO NOT think we ought to even debate it/consider it until euthanasia is legalised. How on earth can it be ok for another person to be legally allowed to terminate the life of a person convicted of murder (and too many people in our history have been wrongly convicted) but we will not allow somebody with a terminal illness to die with dignity?? I appreciate that many safeguards would have to be in place before euthanasia could be legalised, but until we allow those who are suffering because of terminal illness the right to a peaceful death, we should not even be contemplating bringing back the DP.

IMHO.

GlesgaKiss

No, I'm serious.

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Right, but since when did superficial numeric correlation prove causation? There might be (and IMHO almost certainly are) plenty of other reasons for Britain's higher levels of criminality than simply the number of criminals it locks up.

hodgy0_2

correct - and for the record I was not the one posting a series of statistics to prove a point

I merely exercised a modicum of intellectual rigour to them to show that without context they are meaningless


and in fact what they show is pretty stark - and confirms my general view on crime and criminality within a society

Terminator X

iTrader: (7)

It's 3 times higher and probably because almost every person owns a gun out there ie easy to pull it out in the heat of the moment and shoot vs impossible if you don't carry one.

TX.

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Well, this is certainly the right thread to air those views, so don't feel like you need to hold back

GlesgaKiss

It's still about the same as ours or slightly higher if you remove the 60% of murders where a firearm has been used. That's with our figure still including murders where a firearm has been used. And you could also argue that a fair percentage of the American gun murders would still be carried out with a different weapon if guns weren't available.

So there must be many other at work here, but I really don't think the death penalty is worth bothering about on a utilitarian level, i.e. because it MAY reduce the murder stats. That's a big risk to take when there is the very real possibility of people being wrong convicted. That would be horrendous, in my opinion. You would have people being murdered by the state in a cold-blooded and calculated manner in order to prevent, for all intents and purposes, random acts which may or may not be carried out.

"Sorry, but we have to sacrifice you for a higher utilitarian purpose."

Even in the case of the worst crimes, the state being involved with that sort of cold-blooded killing is very worrying. We would have a system set up where people are put to death by people effetively totally detached from the business of ending a life (i.e. the politicians who bring back the death penalty) in order to please the tabloid-reading public who are, if anything, more detatched from the situation.

Terminator X

iTrader: (7)

^^ That's why in a previous post I said "Indisputable murder ie with many witnesses should = DP" ... I agree that not all murders should = DP cos of the risk of wrong convictions etc however cold blooded murder with witnesses should imho.

If I pulled up outside your house and started shooting random people then you agree that it's fine to just stuff me in jail for 13 years?

TX.

Edit - altered to 13 years as "Latest statistics show that the average time served by mandatory life sentence prisoners was 13 years in 2001."

GlesgaKiss

If you pulled up outside my house and I wasn't sh*t scared, I probably try to shoot you myself if I had a gun... but that's a different thing altogether. I would feel perfectly justified in killing a person in that instance. After the event, at the hands of the legal system, it would be a different story.

GlesgaKiss

There is just something unjust from the point of view of a third, objective person about killing someone who poses no threat, e.g. when they have been detained etc.

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

Read the thread much ?

Boro

iTrader: (1)

Yes Pimmo, I read the thread "much" but I read it properly, unlike you

PS stated the guy had been charged not arrested. There's a big difference

David Lock

You'd be in prison for the rest of your life if you did that. dl (address withheld )

Boro

iTrader: (1)

To be fair, you wouldn't need to pull up outside of his house, random people are all over the place ;-)

warrenm2

No, because you just made the point I was making and have agreed with me. The second group do indeed have lower crime rates than the first

David Lock

Double post - deleted

dl