The Death Penalty

Iggy wrote:

Yes and let's take all the freeloaders off the roll as well shall we? Why shouldn't prisoners vote? They are a portion of society and if you tell them they don't belong to society what chance do they have for reform? And I thought you were a Christian man?

Whilst in prisoner you forfeit your freedom to be part of normal society......you are paying a debt to society.....it's par for the course.....if you want to keep your voting rights then obey the laws of the country.....simple really.

Playing devils advocate here, but personally, I think inmates should get only the bare necessities to survive whilst in the pen.

Food= Bread & water
Perks = none
Human rights = none.
Beatings with a stick=3 times a day

Make it as hard as humanly possible whilst inside - the chance of reform, imho, would be far greater if  when doing bird was as absolutely shite as humany possible. If life inside was made absolutely intolerable, would you re-offend?

Give them anything cushy whilst inside - then it won't bother them in the slightest to re-offend and off back to the pen for another cushy few years courtesy of the already much maligned tax payer.

Alternatively - they could be made swear an oath to support E*eter C*ty for the rest of their miserable lives.

Not hard is it?

PS: Do I sound like a communist?

Bring back crucifixion, nail some sense into 'em.

Greenskin wrote:

Bring back crucifixion, nail some sense into 'em.

I think you have a point.

Greenskin wrote:

Bring back crucifixion, nail some sense into 'em.

Nah, far to lenient, never had you down as a loony lefty liberal Skinny!

Peggy wrote:

As is often the case, I'm with Iggy on pretty much all of this. The death penalty is legalised murder, so just another example of one rule for us but another rule for everybody else.

When I was in the States, we went to Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary; they've got a little museum which includes an electric chair and a kind of honour role (a bit like the ones you get in schools with lists of all the headteachers or something) of everybody who's been executed there. Interestingly, though, the governor at the time - might still be in charge of the place, I dunno - wrote about his opposition to the death penalty: as a religious man, he said it denied people the opportunity for redemption.

I think we've got a problem in this country, though, because we don't have a single, shared idea of why we imprison people - are we trying to rehabilitate them, to protect the rest of us from them, or is it just about retribution? Officially, I think it's meant to be primarily about rehabilitation - in which case, the threat of not allowing prisoners to have books sent to them was wrong, although thankfully that decision's been changed.

Having worked with ex-offenders, and having been to a prison a couple of times, I'd also take issue with the notion that it's somehow a life of luxury nowadays. But that's just another form of divide and rule, I reckon - yet another example of a myth about 'them' doing better than 'us'.

Oh - and of course prisoners should be allowed to vote. They're being punished by being shut away, but most of them will come out again, at which point we expect them to reintegrate into society and not reoffend. Denying them basic stuff like the right to vote is just creating further divisions and making that reintegration less likely.

Can't disagree with any of that but by the same argument Peggy then you must also support allowing members of the House of Lords to vote?

Burn down the House of Lords ASAP.