Agree or disagree

[Blitzkrieg]

Exactly, well put Gore. The fact that the criminals would have to just sit on their hands and live with what they did, and can't do anything about it is a great punishment, and eventually they will die anyway, only they lived a shit so many years before death. Eventually they amount to the same thing, but having them live a horrible life before death is much worse IMO.

As for people saying 'if someone I know was killed for example, I would want the killer to get the death penalty', well I know I wouldn't want that, I would want them to rot in a cold black cell for the rest of their life being fed groul twice a day.

Although, MeKaChrOme bring up an interesting point, what are we trying to accomplish? Punishment, revenge, or rehabilitation? Drawing the line for what crimes get a 'rehabilitation' punishment and what crimes get you chucked in a dark cell for the rest of your life would be a hard task. Probably crimes against humanity, such as rape, murder, ect, against crimes such as fraud, theft, ect....but it would still be hard to draw a nice line.

Ahh, you have to love discussion about a heated issue.

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

Spawny: Your arguing that nobody gets life imprisonment... so change the law so its the death penalty...

Well if you can change the system to introduce the death penalty, wouldn't it be easier just to introduce make life imprisonment a more common punishment?

 

[Goreripper]

Spawny: Your arguing that nobody gets life imprisonment...

Actually, life imprisonment does get handed down, but it's pretty rare. Martin Bryant, John Wayne Glover, Ivan Milat, and the killers of Janine Balding and Anita Cobby will never be freed. It's likely the Snowtown murderers will never get out either. As for Mekachrome's point about revenge, punishment and rehabilitation... first of all, there's no precedent in law for revenge. Punishments aren't metered out to criminals to avenge what they've done. As for rehabilitation, people aren't put in prison to rehabilitate them. They're put there to be punished. Perhaps they can be rehabilitated while they are there, but that's not the purpose of locking them up. They're locked up as punishment. Does prison work as a deterrent? I believe that it does. It doesn't deter everyone, obviously, or there'd be no crime, but I think most of us think about the threat of being tossed in jail (even for a little while), and have second thoughts about breaking the law.

 

[spawn]

Why keep them alive so theres a possibility of escape? Just get rid of them. Killing them has nothing to do with letting them off easy or revenge, its getting rid of the shit of the human race. If they are in prison for LIFE, then why bother keeping them alive, no matter what the conditions are. What if they escaped, they might go on a massive killing spree knowing they have no chance of ever getting out anyway...

 

[dreamwatch]

Hmmm, interesting debate indeed. I'm confused though - we're all in agreement that murder is wrong and should be punished, but if you live in a society that accepts and practices execution then you're a murderer. So who punishes you? Just because it's state sponsered doesn't take away the fact that you have made a premeditated decision to take the life of another human being. And that, as we are all aware, is wrong.

Tis a mghty web we humans weave...

 

[MeKaChrOme]

Gore, I see what you mean about lockin people up...

I guess the topic is all about prison and the death penalty, so yeh, prison is generally a punishment. And probably to keep them from harming society any further....

I see your point spawny... a very thin line in the sand ..

 

[Mark]

Not having the death penalty is one of the few things that seperates us from the Americans. That's why I'm against having it

 

[vic was 'ere]

You could look at it in a different way and say that punishing criminals (whether by death penalty, imprisonment, fines etc) doesn't work. Capital punishment is not a deterrent and many mass murderers commit suicide after they have completed their killing spree anyway. Imprisonment doesn't work because it makes people angrier and more fucked up in the head when they are released so they offend again. A person imprisoned for life could just commit suicide anyway if the prospect of never being released is too harsh for them.

I don't think there is a deterrent as such, if anyone REALLY wants to kill someone then they'll do it at any cost. The latest school of thought says that we are too busy looking at the effect and are forgetting to look at the cause, and that society should try and remove the factors that cause people to be crims in the first place. What this should involve I don't know, but they're probably saying something like there would be less crimes if more people finished high school, if there are more jobs out there so everyone can work etc.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

You could look at it in a different way and say that punishing criminals (whether by death penalty, imprisonment, fines etc) doesn't work. Capital punishment is not a deterrent and many mass murderers commit suicide after they have completed their killing spree anyway. Imprisonment doesn't work because it makes people angrier and more fucked up in the head when they are released so they offend again. A person imprisoned for life could just commit suicide anyway if the prospect of never being released is too harsh for them.

Yes, but under my theory, the criminals would indeed become more angry and fucked up in the head, which is part of the punishment for the crime they commited. This wouldn't matter, as they would never be released, and the chances of them being able to commit suicide would be minimal as they would be locked in an empty cold dark cell and never let out, merely having 2 meals of groul slipped to them through a slot twice a day.

I agree that prevention is the best method.....has anyone seen 'Minority Report'?

 

[JonBonJovi]

I see my work here is done! Dangle the bait for a bit of lively posting on this heading for boredom forum and you all come out to play! That was the easiest thing I have ever done!





Oh yeah the original posting I did does not reflect my view just wanted to throw my usual testing of the masses to see what the results would be!:Spin:

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Hehe, good work JBJ! Your right, the forum has been a bit too dull lately, and I love a good two sided discussion on big issues.

 

[phlogiston]

And the thread stayed on topic for two whole pages!

And speaking of dangling bait, does anyone here like fishing?

 

[Spiff]

OK, hands up who wants to start the thread about abortion?

 

[spawn]

A religious one too! Plus a politics one. Sorted

 

[Spiff]

This place is so gonna rule over the next few weeks!!

 

[spawn]

You always did like a bit of conflict Spiffy!

 

[dreamwatch]

OK, hands up who wants to start the thread about abortion?

Damn it you beat me to it.

 

[The Amazer]

disagree

why kill anyone?

 

[spawn]

agree

kill everyone!