Hi All,

Challenging topic and good comments from all.

Although I am not a great fan of the death penalty, I can't help
but thinking of it in some obvious cases like repeat murderers, rapists and above all serial drug smugglers.

These particular examples I believe its only fair to the victims.

FH, welcome to the discussion.

taurus29, something I missed out in my earlier response. Whilst I'm opposed to retribution I do support restitution.

We should do what we can to ensure that criminals when caught put right whatever can be put right of the harm they've done. Seizing of assets to compensate victims and whatever other means which might help undo the harm done. Maybe a fund could be set up out of the assets of convicted criminals to help compensate victims of crime.

We could also impose a higher tax rate for a period on a convicted criminals earnings. Other idea's welcome.

R0bert

Taurus,
I agree with your view on castration. If this takes away all interest of pedosexuals in kids, then the problem would be solved. Perhaps this could be their choice.

Not ALL world leaders believe in retribution.
Look at Mandela- who kept focusing on reconciliation rather than retribution.
And what about the Dalai Lama? His religion is simply: Kindness.

“Retribution is a natural human instinct and I cant stress too strongly enough that no matter how civilised we think we are, we are in actual fact just animals and animals deal in retribution.”
Animals, in fact, do not deal in retribution. That’s something humans do. We- the most evolved species!
Have you ever seen an army of mice attacking a cat because the cat ate their Gran?
If people were more like animals, there wouldn’t be retribution or wars; people would only take what they needed to survive.
So I think that humans are not as civilized as they think they are ;)

“As for humane life sentences? Why should they be humane? What human feeling and compassion did he show to the child he murdered?”
The emotions of a psychopath have nothing to do with how our legal systems are supposed to operate or the quality of these systems. Our systems’ standards should be of high quality, not based on emotions of psychopaths or social misfits.
We can aim to improve, we can aim to behave more kindly, more peacefully, and more respectfully towards other human beings, no matter what emotional state they are in, or what kind of mental problems they have.

If some people cannot do that because there is something wrong with them, either physically, mentally or socially, then we do not have to lower ourselves to their level- we can choose to set an example of how we would like the human race to behave. If some people are beyond help we will have to protect other humans from them, and we can do that in a way that is as humane as possible. How else are things going to improve?

continued

“Still think that theres something very perverse about asking taxpayers to support child rapists and killers” I agree; I’d rather see my money go to other things. I also rather not pay taxes to support wars, Howard’s payrises etc.
I don’t know if you’ve read all of the previous posts, but the fact is that it costs, overall, about 3 times as much when sentencing people to death than it does to keep them in jail for life.

“With DNA testing etc I fell there is very little room for error”
I agree- a death penalty system will be enhanced by DNA testing. However, DNA testing is only as good as the people who carry them out. Corruption is happening everywhere- there is no reason to believe why it wouldn't happen in DNA testings.
But I am not only concerned only about DNA testing- not everyone (my point about the wealthy and the poor and the resources they have access to) has equal access to quality or choice of defence. I worry about racism as well, as I said in a previous post.

“why do you say that they should have a choice?”
I’m still not 100% convinced that they should have a choice. I said I need to give it some more consideration, but atm giving them a choice doesn’t look too bad. My answer atm would be: We give them a choice because that is the most humane thing to do.