Death Penalty

[Theland]

In my opinion, only hanging murderers will make us safe from knife wielding thugs.
Two dead and two injured in Milton Keynes and one dead in Scarborough yesterday.
Hardly a day goes by without another stabbing murder.
Hanging the culprits would deter these scum.
What do you think?

[jno]

what deters criminsals is not the severity of punishment but the certainty of it. As long as police numbers are reduced they will think they've got a good chance of getting away with it. And while they do their best to catch killers, how many are left to deal with burglaries?

[retrocop]

Forget a knife pulled on you. I had a Luger P08 pulled on me and the holder, Senor Ernesto Picardi, pulled the trigger. Yes I wanted the rat hung.

[ummmm]

Mozzz...I read about James Hanratty and from what I read I thought he was innocent and then some years later I read a different view point. If the stories were taken as true no one could have really made the guilty/not guilty decision, both were feasible.

[jno]

yes, I think DNA proved Hanratty was guilty after all. On the other hand, it looks as though Dr Crippen may have been innocent.

[Mozz71]

//Au contraire - polls show the public in favour of the death penalty. Only MPs (& Lords?) are against it.//

That would make an interesting referendum. And as we know, the government ALWAYS honour the result of a referendum. LMAO

[davebro]

"The bible advocates the death sentence for working on the sabbath."

Is that double time or only time & half?

[Old_Geezer]

What do I think ? I think you're wrong. Not only do primitive societies such as the USoA indicate that murdering prisoners don't deter, it would also mean the nation would drop to the immortality of the perpetrators, and no longer be really civilised.

But all this has been posted before.

[MallyJ]

Theland...yes I have had a gun pulled on me .. the first time I was 10 and walking home in the dark.

[Barsel]

/Birmingham 6 and Guildford 4?// I have to show my ignorance here ummmm as I'm afraid I don't know about them so I'm not qualified to answer.

[Mozz71]

Well, even if it doesn't deter killers, it will certainly see a decrease in repeat offenders.

[ummmm]

Sorry, Barsel. They were wrongly convicted of the IRA pub bombings, along with the McGuire 7. Police lied and fabricated evidence and it was only by accident that a solicitor discovered it.

[AuntPollyGrey]

Theses days the DPS have to be 100% sure of the evidence before it even gets to court. DNA, CCTV + they are pretty sure you are guilty before you enter the courtroom. Yes Death penalty for Pedos, Terrorists and all murderers who kill with Intent. Teenager gang members knifing other teenager gang members -no -let them get on with it -Darwins law and all that

[NellieMay]

Prison for life and hard labour would be good. But not much hard labour jobs around now.

[ummmm]

Oh...and they served 15+ years before their conviction was quashed.

[davebro]

"//Au contraire - polls show the public in favour of the death penalty. Only MPs (& Lords?) are against it.//

That would make an interesting referendum. And as we know, the government ALWAYS honour the result of a referendum. LMAO"

They only hold a referendum if they are sure they will get the result they want - like they did in 2016!

[jno]

DNA evidence is entertaining when you're researching your family tree but it's unreliable even for that. You certainly shouldn't use it to hang anyone

https://science.howstuffworks.com/why-dna-evidence-can-be-unreliable.htm

[ummmm]

jno - I didn't know that about Crippen.

[Neveracrossword]

Does anyone have a link to the claimed support for the death penalty?

[Barsel]

Thanks for that info ummmm. As you said earlier, you have to believe in the police 100% but you can't can you when you hear of stories like this. I think in the James Hanratty case, the police wouldn't admit there were discrepancies and the only thing they had to go on was Valerie Storey saying that the murderer said ( I think it was 'fing' instead of thing) and that was how James Hanratty spoke so they hung him.

[retrocop]

//The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It abolished the death penalty for murder in Great Britain (the death penalty for murder survived in Northern Ireland until 1973). The Act replaced the penalty of death with a mandatory sentence of imprisonment for life.

The Act was introduced to Parliament as a private member's bill by Sydney Silverman MP. The Act provides that charges of capital murder at the time it was passed were to be treated as charges of simple murder and all sentences of death were to be commuted to sentences of life imprisonment. The legislation contained a sunset clause, which stated that the Act would expire on 31 July 1970 "unless Parliament by affirmative resolutions of both Houses otherwise determines".[3] This was done in 1969 and the Act was made permanent.//

Give or take a year or so the Abolition of Capital Punishment Act has been with us for 50 years or so.
It would be interesting to learn the amount of murders committed 50 years prior to the abolition compared with the amount since abolition.
If someone can convince me that the figure of murder rate has decreased since abolition then I might be swayed. Until then I remain convinced that Capital Punishment is a deterrent. Happy to be proved wrong. Go for it. :-)