Exile to penal colonies would be more a more effective deterrent than the death penalty, a closed, self sustaining community where the prisoners have to do everything for themselves and work together or starve.
With today's technology, renewable energy and so forth a self sustaining prison colony out on an island or in the middle of the desert somewhere would be viable, no visitors, no communication with the outside world, just the threat of exile for life for serious crimes.

Jay Of Melbourne,
very good suggestion, where do I sign ? I can only see one problem with that, our Judiciary.
They've proven beyond reasonable doubt that they have no concept of right or wrong. We'd really need to introduce a new set of Laws & Legislations to achieve the rquired mentality. I think a National Service is the only way ahead if we don't want to become the middle east of the Pacific.

Good evening to you INDIVIDUAL...

'...we don't want to become the middle east of the Pacific...' ? What a nauseating and loathsome hypothesis, and I would've thought, far from being impossible, as evidenced by the strong toehold they already have in this country ?

You know INDIVIDUAL, we Aussies are mugs when you think of it ? We see and hear warning after warning, yet we still see large pockets of the population that seem to reside in this 'bubble of apathy', with an apparent denial of the truth. Folk like the Greens, certain members of the Labor Party, and even a couple of the LNP are demanding that Mr Morrison temper his 'hard-line' on 'Boat' people. Just one of these appalling examples of our collective apathy ? Failure to safeguard our borders.

We see the burgeoning growth of ISIL all around us, but instead of demending that our political masters take a much tougher line...what do we do eh ? '...She'll be right mate, pass me another cold one...' ?

Individual, sadly I believe you're the first person I've heard to really enunciate our (Australia's) near future ? '...we don't want to become the middle east of the Pacific...' A truly mortifying thought, truly mortifying. Therefore we MUST subjugate and subdue this gangrenous and putrefying threat; to our people, our Aussie culture and our beloved country, before it's too late !

o sung wu,

Regarding “pathetically inadequate and feeble penalties”, multiple studies have been conducted around the world, in which interviewers read the details of various real-life court cases to the subjects of their study and ask them to state what they think would be an appropriate sentence. In nearly every case, the people suggest sentences similar to, or less than what was handed down in real-life.

The reason why the public remain so outraged despite these consistent and contradictory findings is because the media do a poor job of reporting the full facts of each case to the public, aggravating factors are always more fun to talk about than the mitigating factors. While time constraints and financial constraints play a role here, there’s nothing we love more than to shake our fists at the television while watching the 6:00 news, and the media knows this.

Jay of Melbourne,

Your suggestion of exile wouldn’t be more of a deterrent than life in prison or the death penalty, I’m afraid. The reason why capital punishment isn’t any more of a deterrent than life in prison is not because of its perceived severity by would-be offenders, it’s because most crimes - particularly the more serious crimes - are not rationally thought out, and any extent to which they are, the perceived benefits are disproportionately focused on while the risks are given very little thought at all. Furthermore, any additional deterrent effect that capital punishment might have had is probably negated by the brutalising effect that it has been found to have on societies.

AJ Phillips,
A charge of murder by definition requires evidence of pre meditation by a rational person, spur of the moment homicide is covered by manslaughter laws.
All of the other crimes the death penalty advocates want covered are also pre meditated in most cases, drug dealing, pedophilia, rape etc.

Exile would offer the opportunity of a wrongly convicted to get at least some justice. However, if exile were to be considered it'd have to be as was suggested by Jay of Melbourne. No modern comforts, let them live by the Law of the jungle, the same Law they first resorted too when committing the crime. To kill someone is not murder. It is murder when you take someone's in self-interest. To help a terminally ill & suffering person to end their misery is not murder, nor is self-defence yet they attract severe sentencing in comparison to the more heinous murder. Punishment for proven murder should beat Death as stipulated by the family of the victim. My personal solution would be harsh internment with a capsule of Cyanide on the cell shelf. It's a good enough solution for Astronauts so why not for murderers as well ?