An EYE for an EYE???

Question

Should we kill people here in England, who kill English citizens without any good reason (in cold blood, NOT in self-defence)?? I think we should, especially immigrants, or foreign people who come over and kill our people, like the case of the Chelsea business man last year stabbed to death in his own home. Should the killers die, this would free up space in our full up jails, leaving more space to chuck more criminals in there who are getting let off, or let out early now because of lack of space for them. Why should the TAX PAYER pay to keep the scum bags alive for like 20 years. Get rid of them and have done?? Anyone agree

a_911girl I appreciate that you say its cheaper to keep them in jail than kill them... in the U.S MAYBE, BUT in England our prisoners get 3 course meals, tv's in there cells, playstations, even frigging Argos vouchers. We are muggs. Its probably cheaper to put someone in a hotel than in a English jail

Answer 1

I agree totally, these people are not worthy of breathing the same air as the rest of us, hang the bloody lot of em (its the cheapest method) and burn the corpses. We have enough financial demands made of the state without financing other countries filthy criminals.

Answer 2

I think there are many factors to consider when it comes to the death penalty in ANY country. Here in South Africa the prisoners are actually complaining about space and bathroom facilities, and people are actually giving them atention for it. There are so many rapes and killings in so many countries without the death penalty every day, and one of the main complaints is that the prisons are getting too full and the prisoners too pampered. There are convincing arguements from either side, and a lot of it has to do with religion.

It'd be great if somewhere there were statistics available with comparisons between places that do have the death penalty and those that don't, comapring prison environments, crime rates and public opinion.

I have always been in support of the death pentalty for my own reasons, but nothing should be more or less severe because of someone's nationality. A crime is a crime and a sin is a sin no matter where you came from or where you are. And an English man killing someone in a country that's foreign to him is just as bad as any other murder.

Answer 3

The concept of an “eye for and eye” means that, if someone should cause the loss of your eye, you can do no more than pluck out his eye. That is, you cannot harm the individual more than you were harmed. It has been so since the time of Hammurabi. This provides the opportunity to mitigate fines or retribution. For example, harm cause can be converted to monetary fines.

However, after all is said and done, some acts are so monstrous the perpetrator has given up any right to life. Clearly this isn’t pleasant for most people, but it is the responsibility of society to do those things that are necessary. Putting some people to death is one of those necessary things.

While there may be some degree deterrent to the death penalty, I suggest that to consider it as a deterrent is a mistake. Within a society we have a implied contract, one with another, on the ethic of actions. When an individual breaks that contract it is the responsibility of the others (acting through the State) to accept their adult responsibility and do what is necessary.

Answer 4

I have to take issue with a comment further up. The death penalty works well in Texas. How? It obviously doesn't deter or you wouldn't still be using it.

You can't quote the Bible quite that selectively. Which takes precedence - "an eye for an eye" or "turn the other cheek".

I don't like the racist tone of your argument. It sounds like you only want to hang killers of English people. And why are foreign / immigrant murderers more deserving of the death penalty than our own home grown killers? Read what you've written!

You really do believe the crap that you read in the Sun about our prisons, don't you. Why not find out for yourself? Commit a crime and spend a couple of months in Pentonville! Think of the fun you'll have playing on your PlayStation while the waiters bring the lobster thermador and champagne to your cell. Actually, you know it's not true, don't you.

There is a serious debate to be had about the death penalty and what we are doing with our prisons. It's just that racist ranters like you have nothing intelligent to contribute to it.

Answer 5

I understand your frustration. The only problem with "an eye for an eye" is that if your are wrong, you can never take it back. In the U.S. it is more expensive to kill someone than life in prison. This is due to the costly expense of legal defense and court time in appeals...far greater. As for us, here in America, the majority of our murderers are home grown. So to single out immigrants/foreigners seems to be a waste of energy. Time and money could be better spent in prevention, so our citizens do not continue to use violence as an option. I am a public servant and see daily how people hurt one another. When you see it so often, you get a sense of how violence begets violence and at some point one needs to just find other alternatives.

Answer 6

Be careful. After the Chelsea businessman was murdered, the police showed up at my house uninvited to interview me. I suppose they were interviewing all males over the age of 16 in the neighbourhood. But their questions were naive and counterproductive.

Eventually I told them that at the time of the crime I was with my daughter at a formal dinner attended by (wait for it) three Law Lords. I don't think the police officers knew what a Law Lord was.

But before answering your specific question, let me copy a question first posed on the French Y! Q/R over a month ago:

«Qui, au 19° siècle, avait proposé d'abolir la peine de mort, et, à la place, de crever les yeux du condamné ?»

"Who, in the 19th Century, proposed abolition of the death penalty, and in its place, plucking out the eyes of the condemned?"

The answer given by the Y! member (who has since removed the question so you can't Google it anymore) was «Jules Ferry».

I spent about a month trying to track down such a proposition. Perhaps the absence of any support explains the reason for its removal by the maths teacher who posted it. After all, nobody answered it correctly. Jules Ferry was minister of education, and is credited with bringing universal secular education to French children. (An education that, a century later, benefitted my many children, who were not polluted by English or Scottish education until well beyond the age of reason.)

But my wife thinks it's not a bad idea. And you?

((By the way, Ian F, in our part of England prisoners do not get TV and 3-course Kosher or Halal meals. They get bread and water and slopping out. But perhaps you live among true liberals.))

To get serious for one brief moment: this issue comes up all the time in Y! Q/A UK. Get this straight: Protocol 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms bans capital punishment (if only it also banned capitol punishment . . . ) under "all circumstances". The UK cannot remain in the EU and not adhere to the ECHR and Protocol 6. (The status of Protocol 11, capital punishment in time of war, is more problematic but I would guess even though Britain hasn't ratified it, it can't execute even traitors in wartime.)

Answer 7

Yes,our country has become a haven for the scum of the earth,foreign and home grown,kill anyone,you should face the rope,commit a crime,go to prison.Sometimes I despair of some of the soft,slight punishments dealt out by near senile "judges"

Answer 8

The argument is full of emotion with which it is easy to sympathise, because we all want justice, security, peace of mind, yet in today's Britain we are swamped in injustice, left to fend for ourselves & prosecuted for it wherever possible, living in an ever more hostile environment, where the causes of conflicts have escalated out of control because of the actions of T Blair & co. Yet it will always be true, An Eye For An Eye Makes the world go blind, as Ghandi mentioned. It was once hoped that if we could all learn the power of forgiveness, this would remove the existence of evil in men's minds, through catharsis. But the evil that men do grows more consuming each day.

Answer 9

The phrase "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", a quotation from Exodus 21:23-27, expresses a principle of retributive justice also known as lex talionis (Latin for "law of retaliation"). The basis of this form of law is the principle of proportionate punishment, often expressed under the motto "Let the punishment fit the crime", which particularly applies to mirror punishments (which may or may not be proportional). At the root of the non-biblical form of this principle is the belief that one of the purposes of the law is to provide retaliation for an offended party. This early belief is reflected in the code of Hammurabi and in the laws of the Old Testament (e.g., Exodus 21:23-25, Leviticus 24:18-20, Deuteronomy 19:21).

Answer 10

The death penalty is Wrong. Murder is murder, whether the state does it or a citizen.

And it does not work. Those countries with capital punishment have consistently the highest murder rate, how is that possible if capital punishment works as a deterrent?

Capital punishment brutalizes the whole society that allows it to happen and is nothing any country that would call itself civilized should even contemplate.

Answer 11

YES! Hang them all. Every convicted, first degree murderer, whether foreign or domestic deserves nothing better than a strong length of rope. Cruel and unusual? No, not cruel, it's punishment, only unusual because it's not done enough. After conviction, give them two days to get their things in order, then string them up in public. If wrongly convicted, it was by a jury of his or her own peers. Too expensive? No. I know that an ad in any daily paper will bring volunteers running to pull the hatch on the gallows of guilty scum. It may not be a good deterrent, but that scum will never kill again. Remember, it is punishment.