Manchester Terrorist Attack!

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Slime said:
I've just read this through three times and I don't know where the Metro got their headline from .................... typical sensationalistic journalism I'm afraid.

What she actually said was;
"Today, we should announce that the death penalty will be brought back for terrorist crimes".
Not all terrorists end up dead as a result of their act.
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The death penalty is pointless and has no place in a civilised society. It doesn't act as a deterrent
 
woody69 said:
The death penalty is pointless and has no place in a civilised society. It doesn't act as a deterrent
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But it would certainly prevent them from re-offending after their release.
Also, whilst we are struggling to look after are ageing population properly, why should we spend fortunes keeping these people alive.
 
Slime said:
But it would certainly prevent them from re-offending after their release.
Also, whilst we are struggling to look after are ageing population properly, why should we spend fortunes keeping these people alive.
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Setting aside the moral side of the argument and the fact it wouldn't deter offenders from committing the crimes in the first place, plus all the other arguments that generally capital punishment is a consequence of a poor defence at trial and one of the most frequent reasons that death penalty decisions are reversed, you could also consider it is highly likely that a mentally ill person will be the one executed. For example, the 20 year old man who has just been sentenced to 15 years for putting that homemade bomb on a tube who suffers from Autism. If his crime was classified as terror related your suggestion would see him executed.

But yeah, setting all those reasons aside, I'm afraid to say you are wrong with regards to the costs. It costs significantly more for cases that have the death penalty applied. Using the US as a benchmark, I believe the costs have cases without the death penalty costing around $750k versus $1.26m where the death penalty is sought and that is for the trial alone. It is then almost $100k per year more to keep that inmate on death row than one kept in general population. With the average time on death row in the states being around 15 years, due to appeals and claims of habeas corpus, it costs on average around $1.5m. An inmate who is sentenced to life without parole is significantly cheaper than that.
 
woody69 said:
Setting aside the moral side of the argument and the fact it wouldn't deter offenders from committing the crimes in the first place, plus all the other arguments that generally capital punishment is a consequence of a poor defence at trial and one of the most frequent reasons that death penalty decisions are reversed, you could also consider it is highly likely that a mentally ill person will be the one executed. For example, the 20 year old man who has just been sentenced to 15 years for putting that homemade bomb on a tube who suffers from Autism. If his crime was classified as terror related your suggestion would see him executed.

But yeah, setting all those reasons aside, I'm afraid to say you are wrong with regards to the costs. It costs significantly more for cases that have the death penalty applied. Using the US as a benchmark, I believe the costs have cases without the death penalty costing around $750k versus $1.26m where the death penalty is sought and that is for the trial alone. It is then almost $100k per year more to keep that inmate on death row than one kept in general population. With the average time on death row in the states being around 15 years, due to appeals and claims of habeas corpus, it costs on average around $1.5m. An inmate who is sentenced to life without parole is significantly cheaper than that.
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This isn't the States.
 
Slime said:
But it would certainly prevent them from re-offending after their release.
Also, whilst we are struggling to look after are ageing population properly, why should we spend fortunes keeping these people alive.
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I think you are totally missing the point.
Terrorists are not afraid to die, if the state kills them they then become martyrs and recruiting agents.
The best thing you can do is imprison them for life as they are then failures and are ignored by all.
 
Doon frae Troon said:
I think you are totally missing the point.
Terrorists are not afraid to die, if the state kills them they then become martyrs and recruiting agents.
The best thing you can do is imprison them for life as they are then failures and are ignored by all.
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Totally agree with this, but would take it further. I believe the prison authorities are already segregating them in prison. I would include no visitors in that segregation.

No water boarding but a prisoner can buy simple things like access to a prison radio/TV service, with heavily censored content, by good behaviour and co-operating with the authorities.
 
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