I don't have any problem with the notion of the death penalty for certain crimes. However, I have no confidence that the judicial and penal systems would get it right all the time.

I mean, it's not as if innocent people aren't sometimes convicted of serious crimes, only to be vindicated many years down the track, is it?

We can all think of examples like Milat where the death penalty would not be easy to support in principle.

But once you have the death penalty it can be abused for political purposes and then it won't only be the Ivan Milat's who are killed by the State. In some countries like the US the death penalty in some States is highly politicised and judgements under that sort of hollowmen environment is too risky IMO.

We should have a death penalty.
After several years in prison a sex crime prisoner was said to be unfit for release, no reform had taken place.
What they are doing now is bulding a house for him inside the prison,
This has got to be a sure case for the death penalty.
After 25 years this man has threatened sex crimes against kids if released.

@MindlessCruelty

Indecision? No. Your comment seems to display a certain naiveté about the justice system in Australia. Juries determine guilt or innocence, they do not sentence the convicted, that is done only by judges. Individuals. Then the question becomes, which judge will enforce and when? In the US some judges are seen to be much harsher than others.

When I commented that we as country are safer, I did not actually have in mind being safer from criminals, but rather the state, and under that the 'system'. Our children travelling overseas are safer also. At the trial of Australian citizens overseas, eg Shappelle Corby the Australian Government is able to lobby for stays of execution or non-death penalty punishments, because we as a country are opposed to the death penalty. This would not be the case otherwise.

It will be the case that sometimes our citizens will be the target of foreign politics, eg. whenever the government of of a country wants to 'crack down' on foreign offenders, even if there is enough doubt under our own standards.

I think we are all safer without it.

I've come across some interesting data on
the death penalty as is applied in the US.
It's taken from Ian Robertson's, "Sociology,"
and in it he tells us that:

"the death penalty
often fails to deter, as presently applied because
no punishment is less swift or less certain..."

It seems that in the US a death sentence is never
carried out immediately: to minimize the chance of an
innocent person being executed, courts permit an
elaborate review process that sometimes lasts a
decade or more. And far from being a certain
punishment for murder, the death sentence is almost
certain not to be given or applied. According to Robertson
only about 5 percent of convicted murderers arrive on
death row, and many of them will never be executed.
Most convicted murderers are sentenced to "Life"
imprisonment - but in a recent Bureau of Justice
Statistics survey it was found that more than half of them
serve less than seven years behind bars.

Who are the unlucky few who do get sentenced to death
or even executed? According to Robertson - it depends
on the state. 90 percent of all executions have taken
place in the South, and 75 percent have occurred in just
four states - Floridda, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana.
Another factor is the ability to afford a skilled lawyer,
more than 90 percent of death-row inmates apparently
are so poor that they have to rely on court-appointed
defenders. The other factor is the race of the homicide
victim. In the US, people are four times more likely
to die for murdering a white as for murdering a black -
in fact, Robertson tells us that 96 percent of those
on death row killed whites - and about 70 percent of the
blacks awaiting execution murdered a white person.

In theory, it would be
possible to make death the swift and certain punishment
for homicide - but that would involve the specter of about
fifty executions in the US every day of the year.
Something without parallel or precedent in a civilized
society.

I believe in the death penalty "if" both the judge and the executioners are legally forced to take responsibility for the execution. In other words, if at a later date the executed person is found to in fact be innocent beyond doubt .......... then the judge and executioners should be executed for murder.

If we expect criminals to take responsibility for their murders, then we should apply the same standards to the sentencing Judge and the executioners.

Normally, the ONLY reason why executions are able take place is because those responsible for the executions are permitted to bear NO LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY WHATSOEVER for the execution.

How many judges/executioners would be prepared to send a person to the gallows if they know that they would also be executed, if the executed person is actually shown to be innocent in the future? Not ONE I bet.