James Bulger

[milliezoe]

If the two animals that killed James Bulger had been hanged then we would not have half the problems we have today. I am pointing to the yobs that killed a shopkeeper with a hammer in the news today hanging would have made them think twice ?

[NoMercy]

I do believe that anyone who is arrogant enough to take another life, is arrogant enough to believe that they will never get caught. Thus the death penalty is not a deterrant. Though I wouldn't wish harm on ANY human being, if Venables and/or Thompson's past caught up with them and someone mitred out a similar attack on them, I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over it.

[milliezoe]

Zeuhl
What is your solution ?

[jno]

the girls in the Heavenly Creatures case served five years each, doc. And yet both seem to have been fully rehabilitated. So would you put them back inside to prove a point?

[Quinlad]

Following on from what jno said, surely a strong, functioning society is one that can take evil and destructive individuals and turn them into good, productive members of the community? If only for common sense and practicality, that strikes me as something worth aiming for.

Refusing to do that (because it feels like "letting them off") is just cutting off our nose to spite our face. It's stupid.

[anotheoldgit]

I don't believe where some of these anti-capital punishment brigade come from.

Are they all civil servants/social workers type of persons, sitting in front of their left wing council's computers, with little else to do during their "working" hours?

Go out onto the street, on public transport, in the supermarket, and speak to ordinary folk, the majority are fed up with all of today's violent and vicious crimes and wish for capital punishment to return, for vicious murder, (at least that is my experience).

To all those that say it would not prevent some of these murders I say "of course not, but it would reduce the numbers, and they wouldn't kill anyone else".

Take gun crime, in the past even the hardest of criminals would shy away from taking guns on a job, because of the fear if things went wrong it would be the long drop for them.

Before the abolishment of hanging, those that committed murder and consequently paid the ultimate price, went down in the annuals of criminal history.

How many murders are remembered today? They are happening on an almost daily basis.

[jno]

aog, my oppsition to capital punishment , as I mentioned above, comes from a very obvious place: the fact that (a) it doesn't deter anyone and (b) innocent people get executed.

Very few murderers go on to kill again.

[milliezoe]

anotheoldgit
Exactly the same response I receive when I ask the question as yourself my local MP agrees but he says the government would never sanction it.

I was never an angel as a lad but the behaviour of these yobs today really has to be addressed and I firmly of the opnion that if they heard the following.


Young man you will be taken from here to a place of executoin and hanged it will be a detterent

And maybe then we can walk the streets at night safely

[anotheoldgit]

jno

/// it does raise the question of whether released killers can ever live a normal life. The anwer is they can and sometimes do.///

No the answer is they took another's life, they themselves don't deserve to lead a normal life.

Because of them their victim or victims, haven't been given a chance to lead a normal life.

[Quinlad]

You firmly believe it, even though all the evidence suggests it's incorrect? Why do you do that?

[milliezoe]

Quinlad
everbody qotes America when this comes up ( texas is as big as Wales) I have worked in America and the ultimate punishment is a detterent many Americans have told me this. We now have DNA so the chances of a miscarrige of Justice is slim to say the least. We have to look for solutions to the yobs who murder and maim innocent people for peanuts or pleasure and I cannot see any other way to solve this problem. I have been a prison visitor and spoken to prisoners and they know they are free to continue there way of life on release.As a practicing Catholic it goes against everything I believe. But I can see no other way to solve this problem and most people I speak to feel the same way.

[LoftyLottie]

Scary, but often seen! ;o).

[LoftyLottie]

Well, of course, Zeuhl. Men just never grow up!! ;o). Just thinking back to Rugby Club parties years ago!!

[carolegif]

Perhaps they should not have been let out into the community at 18. They had spent most of their teenage years in custody, it is like sending children from care to look after themselves with little backup. I think they should have stayed in custody until they were perhaps 25 to give them a little more maturity to handle life outside.
Presumably Robert Thompson has kept out of trouble, even though he was regarded as a future psycopath. their case is the same as the one in the north east a little while ago where luckily the two victims survived. Young boys can be cruel to animals and insects, but is there a fine line between that and harming another human. I believe in punishment, but not the death penalty, we become no better than them.

[Ankou]

i can't believe that people here are advocating hanging primary school children.

even in the middle ages i don't think people were that barbaric. civilised society indeed.