are you pro/anti death penalty? Why?

Question

If you are pro, which crimes should carry the death penalty?

Do you think the current penal system is working?

How would you change British justice in the 21st century?

Answer 1

I think rape, murder and paedophilia should carry the death penalty BUT... the people convicting them of the crime would have to be absolutely 100% certain that they were guilty. They would have to be caught red handed in case of a mistake and unfortunately this rarely happens so I don't think it's practical. Also, who is anyone to take another's life?

Answer 2

Anti for the following reasons:
Even with modern technology mistakes can be made. What happens if you put someone to death and later find out that person was innocent. There is no way back
Killing someone is wrong and in a civilised society the death penalty has no place,
It has not been proved that having a death penalty reduces serious crime.
People advocating the death penalty are not looking for justice but revenge. That is no basis to run a judicial system.
How would I change the system:
Paedophiles should never be released.
If someone is sentenced to life it should mean the only way they leave prison is in a coffin.
Anyone carrying a knife should be sent to prison for 5 years with no parole or early release.
Anyone illegally carrying a gun should be sent to prison for 10 years with no parole or early release
Abolish parole or early release so that prisoners are made to serve what length of serntence they were given
If a foreign national commits a crime and is found guilty deport that person immediately
Have consistent sentencing. Two people found guilty of a similar crime may get different sentences depending on what judge they come before.

Answer 3

If the reason for the death penalty is to act as a deterrent. It does not not work. If there is another reason that reason most likely not defendable.

Some of the answers on here really beggar belief. Particular the South African, this is a country where 20 years ago most violent crime was not reported and when it was reported was often not receorded by the police. South Africa is safe a place as it has been for a long time. In the townships they have vigilante groups that perform isntant executions this has had no impact on reducing violent crime.

The death penalty should never exist an a civilised and liberal society.

Answer 4

Anti death penalty.

First reason: its wrong to take life.

Second: it is a punishment that once inflicted cannot be reversed or compensated for. If you hold a prisoner and new evidence comes to light at some future time proving innocence, then the state can and should provide some measure of compensation. How are you going to compensate a corpse?

Third: very inefficient and wasteful. In America, most of those on Death Row have been there for years, with the only beneficiaries being lawyers, being paid out of taxes, to object against pleas about commuting the sentence to life. These constant return to the courts ties up the judicial system as well. And I'm not blaming the defendant. Who would not argue for ones life?

Four: its a mark of a civilised country how we treat people on the fringes of society. Prison punishes by removal of liberty. The aim, if possible, should be rehabilitation of the individual into society, in order to make ammends for past crimes. Kind of hard to do if you're dead.

Answer 5

I am anti. To be honest I was really pro death penalty but I had to do research and an essay on it for college. The evidence was quite scary in the working class black people fill death row in the states - the richer ones can afford a good lawyer. Seems that the poor suffer with this and the rich get away with it so I'd like things to stay as they are unless its for murdering a child or maybe even rape. Another problem was that several have been found to be innocent after the event. This is obviously very unacceptable...

Answer 6

I am Pro death penalty. This is God's deterrant to crime. In the Old Testament days, if you broke one of the laws God handed down, it was automatic death penalty by stoning. It was even that way in the New Testament on certain crimes.

Back then even adulters and those having sex out side of marriage were subject to this type of penalty. Why shouldn't we have the same type of punishment today? Violent crimes and certain other crimes should have the death penalty invoked without question. However, all the evidence should point to the criminal and be determined without a doubt that they are the ones that did the crime.

Answer 7

I am anti death penalty because I believe that no one has the right to take life other than God, and in applying the death penalty we are taking a persons chance to repent which God says we can all do.I do believe how ever that people convicted of murder or pedophiles convicted of crimes against our children should be given only the basics to preserve life,3 powdered meals a day and an empty jail cell where all they can do is sit in complete isolation from the rest of the world and just think,alone for the rest of thier lives.

Answer 8

The current penal system is too soft.

The death penalty should come into force if someone has committed a serious crime i.e murder, rape and child molestation.

Change the state of the prisons. They are more like hotels than jails.
If they were not so pleasant then people would think twice about committing crime

Answer 9

I am anti death penalty!
If it is the answer to all society's criminal problems why doesn't it work in the USA!!
The death penalty was in force at the time Brady and Hindley were killing - if it's such a powerful deterrent why did they torture and kill? and as for the brigade who call for it in the case of child killers, that's ignorant...what do you say to parents 'ok, your child was 15, so the killer dies but not yours because he/she was 17!'
I believe that life should mean life - again, all Myra Hindley wanted was to be free - death would have been an easy option. Keep them in prison for life but lay off on the perks.

Answer 10

I am anti death penalty.

I feel that if someone would comit such a horific crime (along the lines of Ian Huntley, Boulger's killers and Sarah Payne) that the death penalty is far to good them.

They will be given a lethal injection, probably feel no pain and slowly slip by. I am a tax payer and i am happy for part of my tax to go toward keeping these killers in prison until the day they die. I feel that you would be giving the person who commited the crime what they want (Huntley recently tried to kill himself)

Let the ba****ds rot in prison for what they have done - even that is too good for them!

Answer 11

Very Much PRO. I also think every case angle should be exhausted before actually putting them to death. For some this would be more merciful than spending their whole lives in Prison. Granted if you are going to be put to death with the way that our system works you will still be in Prison for most or all of your life. However if people would go ahead and use the needle then we would not have all the over crowding.