Capital Punishment in the UK - Debate Re-opened?

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**Albatross**

The Guardian wrote:MPs must not shy away from debating capital punishment if a groundswell of voters backs a petition demanding it be returned to the statute books, the Commons leader has said.

Sir George Young warned that it would damage democracy to ignore strong opinions among members of the public "or pretend that their views do not exist". He spoke ahead of the publication on Thursday of the first submissions to a new e-petitions scheme which could see the most popular appeals discussed in parliament.

Among the most prominent is one calling for legislation allowing child killers and those who murder police officers to face execution. It has been presented by Paul Staines, who writes the libertarian Guido Fawkes blog, and has already been backed by several MPs.

If it is signed by the required 100,000 supporters or more, then the cross-party backbench business committee will decide whether it will be debated.

Young played down fears about airing the subject – which was effectively abolished as a sentence for murder in the UK in 1965. "The site has been widely welcomed as a realistic way to revitalise public engagement in parliament," he wrote in the Daily Mail.

"But there have been some who have been concerned by some of the subjects which could end up being debated – for example, the restoration of capital punishment.

"The last time this was debated – during the passage of the Human Rights Act in 1998 – restoration was rejected by 158 votes. But if lots of people want parliament to do something which it rejects, then it is up to MPs to explain the reasons to their constituents. What else is parliament for?

"People have strong opinions, and it does not serve democracy well if we ignore them or pretend that their views do not exist."

Tory MP Priti Patel said such a debate was long overdue and that she favoured restoring capital punishment "for the most serious and significant crimes" – a position echoed by party colleague Andrew Turner.

Another Conservative, Philip Davies, told the newspaper he would like to see all murders punishable by death.

Young said hundreds of petitions had been submitted on subjects "from setting up an English parliament to ensuring Formula One remains free to air".

Any petition deemed to be libellous, offensive, duplicates existing open petitions or is not related to government will be rejected. Moderators will also block any that concern honours and appointments.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/04/death-penalty-e-petition-commons

So basically, the news is full of the possibility of a government debate on the reinstatement of Capital Punishment, after the subject was repeatedly raised as part the government's e-petition scheme. Thoughts?

**Mr Mystery**

100,000 eh?

I reckon I could find that many people wanting Thatcher tried as a witch

**biccat**

So the debate is about whether the parliament should be allowed to debate Capital Punishment?

This seems needlessly complicated, and frankly quite stupid.

If there's interest in Parliament to reinstate Capital Punishment, they should debate the issue. If there's not even enough voices to get it to the stage of debate, then there aren't enough voices to pass it, and therefore to debate the issue would be irrelevant.

**HellsGuardian316**

I read this, this morning on msn news, I'm quite interested on how this will turn out and will be keeping tuned.

**Albatross**

@Mr Mystery - You probably could, though being a witch isn't illegal these days...

I signed the leading petition, by the way. It was submitted by Paul Staines, the Guido Fawkes political blogger, and is as follows:

We petition the government to review all treaties and international commitments which may inhibit the ability of Parliament to restore capital punishment. Following this review, the Ministry of Justice should map out the necessary legislative steps which will be required to restore the death penalty for the murder of children and police officers when killed in the line of duty. The findings of the review and the necessary substantive legislation to be presented to House of Commons for debate no later than 12 months after this petition passes the acceptance threshold.

The e-petitions site has been crashing all day due to large numbers of traffic.

@biccat - The idea is that members of the public are allowed to submit petitions to the government that will be debated if they pass the appropriate threshold of support.

**Mr Mystery**

biccat wrote:So the debate is about whether the parliament should be allowed to debate Capital Punishment?

This seems needlessly complicated, and frankly quite stupid.

If there's interest in Parliament to reinstate Capital Punishment, they should debate the issue. If there's not even enough voices to get it to the stage of debate, then there aren't enough voices to pass it, and therefore to debate the issue would be irrelevant.

Utter nonsense! Though I see it as a bit odd, it is a brave attempt to moving toward true democracy. It is NOT up to the MP's themselves what is debated. They are there to represent the people, and the people's wishes, not their own agenda. Whilst not one for Capital Punishment myself, I'm perfectly happy to accept the will of the majority.

Though one does wonder, given reading on the Beeb that there are multiple petitions for the same things, whether it just needs a bit more organisation. It's like competing Cancer charities. They all want to achieve the same goal, and I can see the sense in having a few seperate bodies for ratification and scope of research, but when you have dozens and dozens, it seems counter productive, and you risk the monies raised not being centralised enough for proper research. Same here. If there's already a petition for a debate on Capital Punishment, just sign that one. To make your own just smacks of egotism!

**biccat**

Mr Mystery wrote:Utter nonsense! Though I see it as a bit odd, it is a brave attempt to moving toward true democracy. It is NOT up to the MP's themselves what is debated. They are there to represent the people, and the people's wishes, not their own agenda. Whilst not one for Capital Punishment myself, I'm perfectly happy to accept the will of the majority.

Assuming, for the moment, that the MP's won't pass a Capital Punishment law, what would be the purpose of the populace forcing them to debate the issue? They're not going to pass the law, so forcing them to debate the issue is mostly meaningless, and any benefits could be better achieved through alternative avenues (e.g. an advertising campaign to convince people to support capital punishment).

Now, if there were a referendum process where the people could pass a law over the objection of the MPs, that would be a different story.

Albatross wrote:@biccat - The idea is that members of the public are allowed to submit petitions to the government that will be debated if they pass the appropriate threshold of support.

That's what I suspected. It seems meaningless if there's not enough pressure in parliament to bring the issue up on their own.

**dogma**

biccat wrote:So the debate is about whether the parliament should be allowed to debate Capital Punishment?

This seems needlessly complicated, and frankly quite stupid.

If there's interest in Parliament to reinstate Capital Punishment, they should debate the issue. If there's not even enough voices to get it to the stage of debate, then there aren't enough voices to pass it, and therefore to debate the issue would be irrelevant.

This is one method of indicating that there is sufficient political support for the reinstatement of capital punishment to make it worthy of consideration on the part of MPs.

biccat wrote:
Assuming, for the moment, that the MP's won't pass a Capital Punishment law, what would be the purpose of the populace forcing them to debate the issue? They're not going to pass the law, so forcing them to debate the issue is mostly meaningless, and any benefits could be better achieved through alternative avenues (e.g. an advertising campaign to convince people to support capital punishment).

Now, if there were a referendum process where the people could pass a law over the objection of the MPs, that would be a different story.

The benefit of petitions is that they are relatively cheap to produce and disseminate (as signatories tend to talk about signing), and if they're popular they are often picked up by news agencies.

Petitioning, particularly this kind of petitioning, is one of the oldest forms of grass-roots activism.

Having worked in fund raising before, I think its also worth noting that this type of things can have a huge positive impact on donations to your cause, which often leads to more effective tactics.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mr Mystery wrote: If there's already a petition for a debate on Capital Punishment, just sign that one. To make your own just smacks of egotism!

It actually good sense, from the perspective of an activist. Being able to say more petitions existed generally causes more of a stir than being able to say more people signed fewer petitions. Its just one of those weird quirks of social psychology.

**Paul**

Is this about democracy or mob rule?

**reds8n**

Neither, it's actually about trying to reform or redraw the Uks position in Europe.

Politically, not geographically one hastens to add.

**Kilkrazy**

Capital punishment doesn't work.

There are more important things to do.

Stop wasting time.

**Azza007**

I personally welcome the thought of the death penalty back. Some crimes deserve such a punishment I feel. Just like corporal punishment in schools should come back. Have a few other things I wouldn't mind seeing come back or enforced.

**schadenfreude**

I think it would end up being fubared like capitol punishment is in the USA. Nonstop legal battles debating over every small issues from "is the phentobarbitol approved by the fda" to "does inserting an iv for lethal injection break the nurse practice act". I am about as pro death penalty as you get, but I will quickly admit the truth: In the USA it costs on average more money to exexute a prisoner than it does to keep them in prison for the rest of their life.

**sebster**

Kilkrazy wrote:Capital punishment doesn't work.

There are more important things to do.

Stop wasting time.

I get the impression the issue works about the same as calls to restoring the monarchy worked 200 years ago. It's got bugger all chance of ever happening, but for a certain type of reactionary it works as a fantastic rallying call.

**notprop**

schadenfreude wrote:I think it would end up being fubared like capitol punishment is in the USA. Nonstop legal battles debating over every small issues from "is the phentobarbitol approved by the fda" ........

Less of a problem here if the last method was used - rope is rope after all.

Generally this is just a rehash of the polling website Tony Blair introduced, did anything come out of that?

I did also dee on the BBC yesterday that although the death penalty topped the list of those polls taken, if you included the ones rejected it would seem that the most pressing idea on the Uk publics mind is whether Formula 1 should remain on the BBC and not Sky.

Hang 'em all I say; the wasters whitehall that came up with this poll idea I mean. Waste of time getting MP's to debate it, they will more interested in whats for lunch.

**htj**

Azza007 wrote:I personally welcome the thought of the death penalty back. Some crimes deserve such a punishment I feel. Just like corporal punishment in schools should come back. Have a few other things I wouldn't mind seeing come back or enforced.

So long as we can grant reprieves ten years later if they were wrongly convicted, OK? Dig 'em back up, and let them get on with their lives.

Like for like is not justice. It is revenge.

**notprop**

Hopefully this will see the Pierpoint film reshown on TV.

**mattyrm**

It makes fiscal sense, we could televise the killers deaths and you could text in your Friday victim, and text in the weapon used to speed their demise.

Hammers, drills, dildos, swords, put it on channel 4 like BB, think of all the advertising revenue, its all good.

Then 50% of the money could go to Victims families and 50% could be used to stimulate the ecomomy! Brilliant!

On a serious note, as always liberal chislers annoy me no end. Sure Im not even 100% behind the idea because I dont know the ins and outs enough to comment. Some studies suggest it reduces crime, others suggest it doesnt (US states with capital punishment apparently have higher crime rates), some say revenge should never be a motive, but if someone shagged my kids to death, I think id be inclined to change my mind.

The point is, it's a difficult, endlessly complex subject, but its certainly something that we should be talking about if millions of people will it so.

KKs statement is typical of the left leaning sort.

Kilkrazy wrote:Capital punishment doesn't work.

There are more important things to do.

Stop wasting time.

I'm correct, Im right and I don't have to listen to anybody else. (And if you disagree with the opinions of the left your a bigot or a nazi and you vote for the BNP)

If millions of British citizens, possibly tens of millions want to talk about, then we should be bloody talking about it.

That's democracy guardian readers.

Suck on it.

**Leigen_Zero**

biccat wrote:So the debate is about whether the parliament should be allowed to debate Capital Punishment?

Welcome to British Politics Biccat! The realm of beuracracy and convoluted red tape, where we have to come to an agreement on whether we want to agree on something or not

As for the whole Capital Punishment thing, My view is:
Currently there are 2 problems:
Prison overcrowding and murderers/rapists/peadophiles/etc

Start giving the emperor's mercy to the 2rd problem and soon problem 1 will solve itself!

I am for capital punishment, but only for the most serious of crimes, such as (I think the US term is 1st degree, as in pre-meditated, motive-driven and not a 'crime of passion') murder, child sex offences, large-scale organised crime (as in, the head of the mafia or something) etc.

And for the argument that if we execute them they rest peacefully while the victim's families spend the rest of their lives in misery and suffering, so we should let them rot slowly in jail. The kind of people that commit crimes worthy of a death sentence would probably not be suffering while in jail, through either contacts etc or just pure mental instability, in fact they will probably spend the time goosed up on drugs and enjoying a more frequent sex life than the shattered victims they have left in their wake...

**biccat**

Kilkrazy wrote:Capital punishment doesn't work.

Depends on what you mean by "work". It isn't a good rehabilitation device, but it works wonders for recidivism.

Leigen_Zero wrote:
biccat wrote:So the debate is about whether the parliament should be allowed to debate Capital Punishment?

Welcome to British Politics Biccat! The realm of beuracracy and convoluted red tape, where we have to come to an agreement on whether we want to agree on something or not

I'm beginning to wonder how the Brits can even remotely associate their form of government with democracy. It's more like a complicated weave of red tape where the measure of success is having the most willingness to cut through the bureaucracy.

**Kilkrazy**

biccat wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:Capital punishment doesn't work.

Depends on what you mean by "work". It isn't a good rehabilitation device, but it works wonders for recidivism.

It doesn't work as a deterrent, which is the key point.

Recidivism is very low among released murderers in the UK.

**Albatross**

To me, there are some crimes that are so heinous that they represent not just an offence against their victims, or their victims families, but also a crime against our nation, against our values and sensibilities. I'm not talking about the state, I'm talking about the people who constitute the nation...Us. We should reserve the right to exact the harshest penalty from such transgressors by taking their lives, because for some crimes rehabilitation is not possible, nor is it deserved, Punishment is the only just response for the murder of a child, and it should be a final punishment.

Take someone like Ian Huntley for example - every day that he draws breath is a further crime against his victims and their families. The Chapman and Wells families have to live with the knowledge that the man who brutally murdered their daughters is still alive, and living a couple of hours drive away. How will they ever be able to try and move on and find peace in their lives, knowing that? It's an absolute disgrace to us as a people that we allow animals like that to live. It's the families that serve the life-sentence under the current system.

**htj**

Albatross wrote:To me, there are some crimes that are so heinous that they represent not just an offence against their victims, or their victims families, but also a crime against our nation, against our values and sensibilities. I'm not talking about the state, I'm talking about the people who constitute the nation...Us. We should reserve the right to exact the harshest penalty from such transgressors by taking their lives, because for some crimes rehabilitation is not possible, nor is it deserved, Punishment is the only just response for the murder of a child, and it should be a final punishment.

Take someone like Ian Huntley for example - every day that he draws breath is a further crime against his victims and their families. The Chapman and Wells families have to live with the knowledge that the man who brutally murdered their daughters is still alive, and living a couple of hours drive away. How will they ever be able to try and move on and find peace in their lives, knowing that? It's an absolute disgrace to us as a people that we allow animals like that to live. It's the families that serve the life-sentence under the current system.

I agree with the sentiment, but not the solution. Death is an easy out. I believe that they should suffer a miserable, demeaning, back-breaking life, every day being subjected to unpleasant, humiliating work, long hours, be fed only the most basic foods, be denied sight of the sky or anything beyond their bleak, concrete prison. Give them no comforts, no respite, no hope of an end. Every day remind them of what they did, and why they now live like this. And make sure that they live a long, long life like this. That is punishment. Death will seem preferable in the end.

**Albatross**

....But they are still alive. If someone murdered my son, I wouldn't consider that restitution. I would be tortured by having to breathe the same air as that person.

**htj**

Even if their every day was suffering? That they would be made to suffer as you had?

**Steu**

Revenge is never a just cause to take anothers life

**mattyrm**

Steu wrote:Revenge is never a just cause to take anothers life

Sure it is.

**Leigen_Zero**

htj wrote:
I agree with the sentiment, but not the solution. Death is an easy out. I believe that they should suffer a miserable, demeaning, back-breaking life, every day being subjected to unpleasant, humiliating work, long hours, be fed only the most basic foods, be denied sight of the sky or anything beyond their bleak, concrete prison. Give them no comforts, no respite, no hope of an end. Every day remind them of what they did, and why they now live like this. And make sure that they live a long, long life like this. That is punishment. Death will seem preferable in the end.

If only prison was actually a horrible place full of misery and suffering...

**htj**

Leigen_Zero wrote:
htj wrote:
I agree with the sentiment, but not the solution. Death is an easy out. I believe that they should suffer a miserable, demeaning, back-breaking life, every day being subjected to unpleasant, humiliating work, long hours, be fed only the most basic foods, be denied sight of the sky or anything beyond their bleak, concrete prison. Give them no comforts, no respite, no hope of an end. Every day remind them of what they did, and why they now live like this. And make sure that they live a long, long life like this. That is punishment. Death will seem preferable in the end.

If only prison was actually a horrible place full of misery and suffering...

It would be if I ran them.

**Albatross**

mattyrm wrote:
Steu wrote:Revenge is never a just cause to take anothers life

Sure it is.

Yup. It's as good as any we already use to lawfully kill people in this country, IMO.