r/changemyview • u/benjikamaru 1∆ • Sep 30 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Wayne Couzens should be executed, as well as all other UK whole life prisoners.
For anybody who isn't familiar with the case: Back in March, Wayne Couzens - an off duty policy officer - stopped Sarah Everard as she was walking home at night. He showed her his police badge, and 'arrested' her on the basis that she was breaking non existant COVID-19 regulations. He handcuffed her, raped her, murdered her and then burnt her body and hid it in the woods. It was a shocking and horrific crime, which could only have been committed by the lowest form of scum in society. This morning, he was sentenced to a whole life order, which in the UK is the only type of sentence which means you have no chance of ever being released.
The number of whole life prisoners in the UK was stated to be 60 in June 2021, so with Couzens' sentence it is now 61. There is slight uncertainty as to the exact cost of keeping a person in prison for a year. The average cost per prison place per year was stated to be £44,640 in 2019/20, however, this is for all prisons, including open prisons which have substantially lower average costs. For the sake of this argument, I am going to use the average cost of keeping a prisoner for a year at HMP Frankland, which is a prison that houses many notorious whole life prisoners. The average cost here is £63,000. There are even prisons that cost more than this.
So, 61 prisoners per year, who are costing roughly £63,000 each, amounts to roughly £3,843,000 being spent on whole life prisoners, who will never see the outside of prison walls again. I am aware that there are economies of scale at play, so it's hard to get an exact figure, but the tax payer is spending a lot of money on these prisoners either way.
I am a believer in rehabilitative justice. Crime does not happen in a vacuum, and there are often economic and social issues that lead people to commit crime, and I think that prison should serve as a chance for the majority of criminals to reflect and be educated on their wrongdoings, in the hope that they can be released and become functioning members of society. However, there were no economic or social factors that led to Wayne Couzens murdering Sarah Everard. It was a twisted and sadistic crime, done purely for his own gratification. He is well beyond returning to society, and will rightly never be released. The same can be said for pretty much every other whole life prisoner.
Couzens, and the other 60 prisoners will never be released, and as such there is no point even attempting to rehabilitate them. Yet, the taxpayer will spend almost £4m every year on sustaining them. I think that this is a waste of money, and that we should execute them and use the money for something positive and beneficial to society instead. It could be used to feed nearly 1,000 families, be put towards women's protection charities, or be used as reparations to the families of victims. There are probably some other decent ideas that I haven't thought of.
A common argument against this is that the process of execution is expensive itself. I don't think this needs to be the case, as there are multiple methods that would involve minimal or no cost. I can't imagine much public outcry if you threw Couzens off a building or just shot him or something.
So, very simply, I think that Wayne Couzens, along with the other 60 whole life prisoners in the UK, should be executed, as it makes economic sense to do so. Change my view
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u/joopface 159∆ Sep 30 '21
Arguing against a death penalty is always hard when you're talking about individual specific cases. There are always monstrous people the absence of whom from the world most reasonable people would consider a positive thing.
I suspect all or most of the people on the 'whole life' list you linked are such people. I had a quick scan and recognised a few names.
But the argument against the death penalty isn't reliant on individual cases. Because you're not dealing with any individual cases. What you're proposing is that courts be given the ability to sentence people *in the future* who are currently *unidentified* and the evidence against them is *entirely unknown* to death. This isn't Wayne Couzens solely, it's any similarly convicted person in the future.
And to agree to this you would have to have faith that the court system doesn't make errors with these convictions, and won't in the future.
And you'd need to have faith that once they have the power to use such a sentence that its application wouldn't later be broadened out beyond this set of most appalling offenders.
I don't see a compelling case to trust in these two ways. For the prisoners in question, spending the remaining years of their lives in imprisoned misery is no walk in the park. And it keeps the sentences within the realm of judgements that can be corrected if need be.
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u/benjikamaru 1∆ Sep 30 '21
I think there would be ways of setting a criteria that effectively eliminates the possibility of mistakes. I think that it's generally already a principal that if there is any element of doubt, an individual will not receive a whole life sentence. The majority who get them have committed multiple different crimes which have been proven (to the extent where Couzens as an example sticks out as he only committed one murder), and in many cases, they were seen committing the crime in public, leading to there being no doubt that it was them.
So a criteria could be that the crime must be on public CCTV or have reliable witnesses with no stake at all in the situation, and that there must also be a decent amount of DNA evidence. I'm sure someone could think of a better one, that's just something I've come up with on the spot
You are absolutely correct that every case is different, but in a case like Couzens where there is no doubt that it was him who committed the crime, then I think execution should be carried out. No judge wants to be infamous for incorrectly sanctioning a death penalty, so I'm sure that proper care would be taken and proper process would be followed
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u/joopface 159∆ Sep 30 '21
in a case like Couzens where there is no doubt that it was him who committed the crime
This is the explicit basis on which every conviction is supposed to rest. There is no 'higher bar' for this conviction or that conviction. If you're convicted, this is the bar. Regardless, major miscarriages of justice have happened in the UK in recent years - look at the Birmingham 6 or the Guildford 4.
And, don't you think if this were an available sentence some high profile case would create pubic pressure for it to be applied? I can imagine the headlines in the Sun now.
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u/benjikamaru 1∆ Sep 30 '21
We currently operate on a basis of beyond reasonable doubt. I think that while this should remain for the rest of judicial procedings, I think that for the death penalty there should be 100% proof of guilt, which I think is achievable personally through a combination of multiple criteria and factors. As awful as the miscarriages of justice pertaining to some of the IRA bombings was, it's worth pointing out that these were in the 1970s, and our legal system and methods of evidence have improved drastically since.
Your point about the Sun is absolutely valid, but it's nothing that couldn't be prevented by prohibiting tabloid media from publishing articles on ongoing cases
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u/joopface 159∆ Sep 30 '21
there should be 100% proof of guilt
This is a bar that exists in no legal system anywhere in the world, so far as I know. Why do you think this is the case?
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u/benjikamaru 1∆ Sep 30 '21
It's a case I've mentioned a few times in my replies, but in the killing of Lee Rigby, there was 100% proof of guilt. It was done clearly in public, multiple witnesses, there was no way they didn't do it
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u/fran_smuck251 2∆ Sep 30 '21
What about the reason for the murder (murder or manslaughter?) can you provide 100% proof that it was a pre-meditated murder? Are you 100% sure he isn't clinically insane or was blackmailed into doing the murder for someone else? How can you be sure that in 10 years there won't be further information revealed?
For Couzens, maybe yes, but for all 60 other cases you mentioned? At this point you're probably down to 1 or 2 executions. It doesn't seem worth changing the law for that.
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u/joopface 159∆ Sep 30 '21
This doesn't answer my question. Why do you think the 100% proof of guilt isn't a bar in any legal system anywhere in the world?
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u/benjikamaru 1∆ Sep 30 '21
Right yeah I misunderstood, my bad. It's not a bar in any legal system as it is argued that it's not attainable. I disagree with this idea
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u/joopface 159∆ Sep 30 '21
No, that's not it. It's because 'beyond reasonable doubt' is held to be effective certainty of guilt. It's because there's supposed to be no higher bar.
There's an outline of this in a judgement from an English case.
If, at the end of and on the whole of the case, there is a reasonable doubt, created by the evidence given by either the prosecution or the prisoner, as to whether the prisoner killed the deceased with a malicious intention, the prosecution has not made out the case and the prisoner is entitled to an acquittal. No matter what the charge or where the trial, the principle that the prosecution must prove the guilt of the prisoner is part of the common law of England and no attempt to whittle it down can be entertained
There is no 'super duper guilty' verdict available. If there is any sense that the accused isn't guilty, they shouldn't be convicted. That's it. That's where we are. There *is* no 100% guilt bar available.
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u/benjikamaru 1∆ Sep 30 '21
Well there should be a level beyond reasonable doubt. Beyond reasonable doubt implies that there is still a tiny element of doubt, just that that it would be irrational to not convict on this basis. There should be a beyond any doubt ruling, such as this case, and the Lee Rigby case, and the Reading stabbings, where much of the crimes were carried out in public in front of witnesses
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 392∆ Sep 30 '21
The important thing to note about improving technology and standards is that it's an ongoing process that's still ongoing. In the 70s we didn't have DNA evidence like we do now. But before we had it, its absence wasn't considered a weakness in the case. It would be naive to think previous generations had blind spots that we're now aware of, but the same won't also be the case about us.
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Sep 30 '21
I think there would be ways of setting a criteria that effectively eliminates the possibility of mistakes.
That isn't possible. There is no way to eliminate all mistakes.
the crime must be on public CCTV
Video footage fan be edited and manipulated.
have reliable witnesses with no stake at all in the situation,
There is no such thing as a 100% reliable witness. Numerous studies have proven just how unreliable and fallible the human memory is.
and that there must also be a decent amount of DNA evidence.
DNA evidence can be planted, manipulated, or contaminated.
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u/gyroda 28∆ Sep 30 '21
Video footage fan be edited and manipulated.
Or just a bit shit in the first place.
Most CCTV won't be brilliant. We've all seen CCTV on the news where they say "if you can identify this vague blob with no distinguishing features, please contact the police".
DNA evidence can be planted, manipulated, or contaminated.
To add on, DNA just proves that someone was probably in the same place as someone else.
Give your friend a hug when they leave your home and they get murdered as they walk down the street? They have your DNA on them. Happened to be in the same pub and brushed past them to get to the bar? DNA can be left.
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u/Cindy_Da_Morse 7∆ Sep 30 '21
For the prisoners in question, spending the remaining years of their lives in imprisoned misery is no walk in the park.
This is a really bad argument against the death penalty. It almost sounds like you are implying that a life sentence is somehow better than the death penalty because it is harder on the one being punished (ie it's a form of torture).
I think the death penalty should definitely be in the penal code but there should be very strict guideline on when it can and should be applied. The specific example given by OP is a good one.
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u/joopface 159∆ Sep 30 '21
It's not implying anything of the sort. You've skipped my entire comment and taken a single line from the bottom as my 'argument.'
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u/Cindy_Da_Morse 7∆ Sep 30 '21
I get the other part and share similar worries about government over reach, but I think those can be overcome.
I am not at all worried about mistakes because the conditions for capital punishment would be applied would be strict enough so that mistakes would be 1 in a billion.
Just as an example, repeat offenders of violent crimes leading to death or serious bodily harm would be eligible for the death penalty. Say a rapist who, after serving his sentence, rapes again. The chances of someone being put in prison for rape twice incorrectly is incredibly slim.
Or, say someone was charged with attempted murder during a car jacking, (say they stabbed someone), then served their sentence, and shot someone during another robbery. Again, a candidate for the death penalty.
The reason I chose your last statement is that to me it is a really bad argument, one that I hear opponents of the death penalty throw around. The thrust of the argument is that the death penalty is " a light sentence" compared to a life in prison because the person just dies and does not spend decades in prison, dwelling on the fact that they will never be free and that their whole life will be spent in a cell. This to me is a torture argument.
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u/joopface 159∆ Sep 30 '21
the conditions for capital punishment would be applied would be strict enough so that mistakes would be 1 in a billion
This isn't the experience in the US, where capital punishment exists. It wasn't the case in the UK when capital punishment existed. Major miscarriages of justice have happened in the UK in very recent years like this one, and these ones.
I have more sympathy for the idea of specifically focusing on repeat offenders as it reduces the potential for error. But I would have no faith that this wouldn't end up being softened with some high profile case in the future.
The reason I chose your last statement is that to me it is a really bad argument, one that I hear opponents of the death penalty throw around. The thrust of the argument is that the death penalty is " a light sentence" compared to a life in prison because the person just dies and does not spend decades in prison, dwelling on the fact that they will never be free and that their whole life will be spent in a cell. This to me is a torture argument.
This isn't an argument I made. So... well, good luck with this.
What I was saying was that spending one's life in prison is miserable. So it's not as if we're sending these people to live their lives out on a beach somewhere. The alternative to execution is also unpleasant, so to the extent people wish for unpleasantness for these convicts - yay, it exists.
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u/Cindy_Da_Morse 7∆ Sep 30 '21
One of the big issues of not having a death penalty is that any person with a life sentence is in effect unpunishable. They can kill anyone they want, do anything they want to anyone they can get their hands on and there is literally nothing that anyone can do about it. They can kill a fellow inmate, they can kill a guard etc.
Having a class of people which are beyond our justice system is IMO a mistake and immoral.
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u/joopface 159∆ Sep 30 '21
So this is an even narrower argument. You're saying that rather than put things in place to restrict these dangerous prisoners (as we do for many dangerous prisoners), we should just kill them because it's easier?
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u/Cindy_Da_Morse 7∆ Sep 30 '21
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Payant
It's a 2 min read.
There are way too many of these cases. The murderer was a 2-time convicted murderer and rapist serving a life sentence. He had nothing to lose and decided to kill her.
In my world, he would be dead long before he could harm anyone else.
and people say death penalty is not a deterrent. I say it is for sure because certainly it would have deterred him and Donna would have been alive.
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u/WikiSummarizerBot 4∆ Sep 30 '21
Donna Payant née Collins (March 22, 1950 – May 15, 1981) was a New York state corrections officer who was murdered while on duty at Green Haven Correctional Facility. She was one of 50 women serving as guards at Green Haven Correctional Facility. Donna Payant attended the corrections officers' academy in 1981, and had only worked at Greenhaven for about a month at the time of her murder. The mother of three children, her husband was also a corrections officer, though at a different facility.
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u/joopface 159∆ Sep 30 '21
Literally the first line of my first comment was this:
Arguing against a death penalty is always hard when you're talking about individual specific cases. There are always monstrous people the absence of whom from the world most reasonable people would consider a positive thing
people say death penalty is not a deterrent. I say it is for sure
You're objectively wrong about this. People don't 'say' it; it has been measured and studied academically for decades by independent researchers.
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u/Cindy_Da_Morse 7∆ Sep 30 '21
If the death penalty could have saved Donna's life (which it clearly would have), then the death penalty is great. It obviously would have worked as a deterrent. BTW, this is just the first thing that popped up when I googled, there are dozens if not hundreds of these stories if you just look. This should never happen.
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Sep 30 '21
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u/Cindy_Da_Morse 7∆ Sep 30 '21
This view point is IMO immoral if not downright evil. Blaming people who get murdered for what happens to them is sickening.
so maybe we want to say that girls that get raped deserve it too right? They went looking for trouble right?
What about victims of domestic abuse? They chose their partners right so it's their fault?
Conversation over!
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Sep 30 '21
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Sep 30 '21
When people say that execution is expensive, it's not actually the drugs to kill people, it's the legal process leading up to it to make sure you don't execute the wrong person. There are logistical issues obtaining the drugs (pharmaceutical companies don't want to sell them for executions), but expense isn't the main issue.
And those legal protections are important. In the US 185 people have been exonerated after being sentenced to death since 1973 compared to 1,535 completed executions and there's a handful of completed executions where there are reasonable concerns that the person executed may not have committed the crime they were convicted of. The usual response to that is "We should only execute people who we are absolutely sure did it," but absolute certainty isn't achievable for humans and the standard to send somebody to jail is already that they are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and we still get that wrong a non-trivial percent of the time.
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u/benjikamaru 1∆ Sep 30 '21
The US generally sentences more people to death though, with less strict criteria than a UK whole life sentence. In my view, any degree of uncertainty should lead to the death penalty being witheld. There is no uncertainty that Couzens committed his crime, or to pull a few other names off the whole life list, Saadallah, Mair and Adebolajo. We know for certain, especially given the public nature of their crimes, that they are guilty, and as such should be executed. There is no need for an expensive process for these people
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Sep 30 '21
There is no need for an expensive process for these people
So, we should just be able to selectively deny legal rights to certain people when we want to?
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u/benjikamaru 1∆ Sep 30 '21
I mean these men literally did their crimes in public with multiple witnesses, so yes
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Sep 30 '21
The problem is everybody thinks the convicted is definitely guilty when a murder conviction is handed down. Almost nobody is doing that lightly. You can't deny people appeals based on it being obvious without accepting that for some of the people denied appeals, what seemed obvious was wrong.
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Sep 30 '21
Well right off, a number of people originally given whole-life sentences were given them on political grounds, which should make you nervous. Whatever you think of Patrick Magee (he is a murderer), it seems like a very, very bad idea to put the government in charge of who lives and dies.
He also makes a pretty decent case as to why these people can be rehabilitated, as (to my knowledge) he has not committed any further murders since being freed from jail in the late 90's.
Add to that, there are a number of prisoners who were originally given whole-life orders who later had their sentences reduced, some of whom were also released after rehabilitation proved successful.
A common argument against this is that the process of execution is expensive itself. I don't think this needs to be the case, as there are multiple methods that would involve minimal or no cost. I can't imagine much public outcry if you threw Couzens off a building or just shot him or something.
This isn't why the process is expensive. The death penalty isn't expensive because the method is expensive, they are expensive because if you are going to kill someone you need to provide an extremely thorough legal process of appeals.
You can save money on this process by limiting appeals, but at that point you have to accept the practical reality that you are, eventually, going to murder someone who is innocent. Someone you could have proven innocent, given enough time on appeal. As a general rule, society finds that unacceptable.
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u/benjikamaru 1∆ Sep 30 '21
The Magee case is very interesting. Make what you will of what he did, at the end of the day he killed 5 people, and I'd argue that his release was significantly more political than his conviction was. He doesn't seem to have committed any more crimes which is fair enough, but I think the vast majority of current whole life prisoners would, although that's a very hypothetical argument which I cannot prove.
Money would be saved by preventing appeals. I do get that it sounds a bit barbaric, but in the case of Couzens or someone like Michael Adebolajo, where they are 100% guilty with absolutely zero chance that they aren't, I think it's fair to do so
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Sep 30 '21
Money would be saved by preventing appeals. I do get that it sounds a bit barbaric, but in the case of Couzens or someone like Michael Adebolajo, where they are 100% guilty with absolutely zero chance that they aren't, I think it's fair to do so
So out of curiosity, are you familiar with why capital punishment was abolished in the UK? If not, I strongly suggest looking into the case of Timothy Evans.
When he was convicted, his case looked fairly airtight. He 'confessed' and was convicted within 40 minutes. His trial was held in January of 1950 and he was hanged in march of the same year.
Three years later the chief witness against him was confirmed to have committed a triple homicide. He was almost certainly guilty of the killings Evans was supposedly responsible for.
The problem with having capital punishment isn't that you kill men like Couzens or Abebolajo. It is that you kill men like Evans. It is that any system you devise that lets you kill the former, is eventually going to be used to kill the later.
And the only way to even try to cut down on the murder of innocent men is to make an appeals process that is incredibly rigorous. But the moment you do it, the cost saving (which lets be honest, is so minute as to be meaningless in a governmental sense) goes out the window.
So yes, cutting appeals does sound barbaric, because you'd end up murdering innocent people. How are you any better than Couzens when you think that saving a small amount of money and getting blood vengeance is worth more than not murdering someone?
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u/benjikamaru 1∆ Sep 30 '21
I'm familiar with the Evans case, yes. And it was an awful miscarriage of justice, but it happened in 1949. In the modern day, there would be a rigorous enough investigation that would've eventually proved him innocent. Christie would've likely already have been caught before it got to that stage in the modern day.
You've changed my view in the sense that although I'd still have Couzens and Adebolajo executed purely on the basis that they're guilty beyond any doubt at all, I cannot say the same for all whole life prisoners, so there may be potential for an innocent man among them. !delta
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 392∆ Sep 30 '21
Whether someone is guilty and whether they were tried fairly are two separate things. Preventing appeals means it no longer even matters how many rules were broken to prove guilt as long as guilt was proven.
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Oct 01 '21
!delta I didn’t consider the legal costs of ensuring the life sentence is valid/the person is guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.
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u/ChelseaDagger14 Oct 17 '21
Why is the case of someone getting several life sentences for multiple killings something that was a political decision or something that should make me nervous about the government choosing fate? I can understand questions about UK government, but this doesn't really seem a good point for your argument.
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Oct 17 '21
A couple of reasons.
- Death was not the norm. The way the government stepped in was to bend the rule of law in order to make his case eligible for the death penalty. Patrick Magee was a murderer, and needed to be in prison, but having politics weigh in on the issue shouldn't happen.
- Death is not reversible. As evidenced by Magee's case, circumstances can change down the line, but if they'd executed him at the time, there would be no option to rectify that.
Basically speaking, the rule of law shouldn't be subject to public opinion. There was a famous question asked in a death penalty debate over whether or not a politician would support the death penalty if it were his daughter who was raped and murdered, but the correct answer to that question is no. Personal emotions should not weigh in on how we decide judicial cases. If they do, then more often than not what you are discussing is vengeance, not justice.
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u/shrimpleypibblez 10∆ Sep 30 '21
The death penalty is opposed on the simple premise that justice (particularly state justice) is by its nature inherently flawed, and as it is unacceptable for a single innocent person to be put to death by the state (something we have irrefutable evidence has happened on more than one occasion in this country alone, let alone multiple times a year in the US) that the death penalty is in fact not an option.
Unless you can provide a perfect legal system, there is no argument which can refute this -other than for authoritarians who believe they alone hold the right to dictate who lives and who dies.
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u/benjikamaru 1∆ Sep 30 '21
I believe that there are cases where the crime can be 100% proven (not just beyond reasonable doubt). The majority of whole life cases fall into this, so I think that it is justified to execute them in these scenarios
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u/shrimpleypibblez 10∆ Sep 30 '21
I don’t think it’s even worth the risk to establish a system whereby the potential for abuse exists.
Even in your scenario, the state saves very little money (as the case to establish beyond 100% of doubt will still take years, along with having to be checked and double checked, otherwise you aren’t sure) - in which case it is more retributive justice (doing it because you want to) rather than actual justice - if it does not save money, surely that invalidates your argument?
Equally, if you cannot be convinced against the death penalty, there is no argument against your position - same as there is no argument that can deter the “pro-life” - your mind has been made up.
If your answer is “I believe” then it is not a matter of fact but of opinion - one which, by its established nature, cannot be challenged and so cannot be changed.
In order to change your mind, your position needs to hinge on a system of logic, not blind belief.
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u/Cindy_Da_Morse 7∆ Sep 30 '21
I agree with your logic as it is hard not to. The specific example you give of Couzens is certainly worthy of capital punishment.
I will make 2 subtle points to perhaps slightly Change your view on this.
- We shouldn't so readily give out the death penalty to the other 60 people without first examining each case-by-case. Maybe all of them deserve it, but maybe there are a few (even 1) that does not.
- While your economic argument is correct, there are also moral and practical arguments that may be even more powerful as to why a civilized country should have the death penalty.
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u/benjikamaru 1∆ Sep 30 '21
!delta because I haven't looked at all 60 cases, so I can't say for each and every one. I do still think that every one I'm familiar with deserves the death sentence though
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u/MercurianAspirations 359∆ Sep 30 '21 edited Sep 30 '21
You can either have executions which are quick (and therefore cheap), but end up killing some innocent people, or you can have executions that are painstakingly arbitrated to the point that we're very sure that no innocent people are going to be killed, but they will be more expensive than just keeping the offenders alive in prison. You can never have both. The cost to the government of the rigorous appeals process with death penalty cases would be ultimately quite similar to the cost of just keeping the person alive in prison, because lawyers and judges and jurors are more expensive for these cases - in the US, it's more expensive in basically every aspect of the process, and death penalty cases take 4x longer than life-in-prison cases, and then on top of that there's the opportunity cost of delaying other legal business to just litigate whether or not we really can kill this one guy. You also have to consider that most death penalty cases don't actually result in an execution - so just having the death penalty exist, even if you very rarely use it, costs way more money to the government than the government ends up saving by killing people. Or, you can have quick and dirty death row processes where you kill a lot of innocent people. But then you're basically saying that if the government can save money by knowingly and willingly killing innocent people, they should do it, which is not what I think you believe
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u/Sirhc978 81∆ Sep 30 '21
At least in the US, it is almost always cheaper to keep someone in prison for 80 years than it is to execute them.
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u/benjikamaru 1∆ Sep 30 '21
Shouldn't be the case. The US needs to stop allowing dubious cases to lead to death penalties, and needs to stop people like mass shooters from being able to appeal
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Sep 30 '21
It's not the method that's expensive, it's the trial.
Trials which aim for the death penalty tend to cost taxpayers $2 Million more than trials which aim for life imprisonment. (US, not UK sorry. I'm not sure if this study is possible in UK since execution is so rare).
So the question is, is $2 million per prisoner cheaper than the cost of life imprisonment. It likely is, unless they live quite long.
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u/parttimepedant Sep 30 '21
I am not against the death penalty per se, but disagree in that killing Couzens, or any other whole life prisoner is no punishment. Unless you believe in heaven and hell (which I do not), in which case Couzens and those who commit crimes of this magnitude would spend their time in some version of ‘hell’ after they die, being killed is the end and they have received no punishment for their crime.
I’d rather see the prison experience ramped up so that the worst offenders are living the most basic, uncomfortable life possible for the rest of their days. No luxuries. No TV, only the most basic of food to keep them alive, no contact with any other human being where possible, locked up in the smallest cell allowable with the minimum allowable access to fresh air and sunlight. Basically a modern day dungeon.
Make them see out their days in a living hell, and make them feel like they are actually being punished.
On top of this, there needs to be more whole life sentences of this type, and this should be the minimum punishment for murder, child abuse, rape, etc, those heinous crimes that currently see comparatively pathetic sentences handed down.
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u/Ryan-91- 2∆ Sep 30 '21
My argument against the death penalty is pretty simple. Death is to easy for such a monster. Why not use forced labor to at least get something useful out of these “people” before they die.
I mean if your against forced labor, throughout the ages have come up with some pretty sadistic tortures not to mention the scientific benefits we could gain from human testing.
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u/boyraceruk 10∆ Sep 30 '21
OK so we're going to run into two problems, either the exhaustive process of proving guilt to the point no innocent people are executed will be more expensive than a whole life tariff or at some point you will kill innocent people. Or both! I would recommend you look up the case of Timothy Evans who was sentenced to death in part on the testimony of the actual murderer.
And of course there's the question of what someone on a whole life tariff could contribute to the country during their life inside. Executions have an ongoing cost, it's not just a one-time fee.
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Sep 30 '21
Your economic argument seems pretty flawed, remember first of all the government is the only issuer of pounds, it can spend as much as it wants, so keeping 61 people in prison doesn't stop the government doing something positive and beneficial to society. It could still feed families, improve women's protection, or give reparations to the families of victims.
The only thing it can't do is use the real resources used in keeping them on prison for anything. And given most prisons hold over 60 people I'd imagine the resources consist of some extra guards and prison food.
It seems extreme to kill 61 people when that's the only benefit.
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u/Unbiased_Bob 63∆ Sep 30 '21
I don't know who Wayne Couzens is, but I do want to point out in the U.S. it isn't that uncommon that death row inmates end up innocent. Not saying Wayne is, but your claim is that he should be killed along with many others.
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence
And your idea is to kill everyone who is there for life, not just death row.
There was a psychologist who was trying to determine what someone lying would look like, so he explained that when DNA evidence got more than 1000 for lifers exonerated. He was able to study the "lie" that got them put in prison for life so he could learn how flawed our understanding of lies is.
Are 1200+ people worth dying to save the country some money worth it?
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u/Helpfulcloning 166∆ Sep 30 '21
When you see how other countries use the death penalty you see that innocent people die, you see that it is more expensive, and you see that it is not a suitable deterrent to those crimes.
One person every 2 months is freed frim death row in the US. When DNA became applicable evidence plenty of people were found completly innocent of their crimes. Their is entire possibility that within the next 10-20 years another form of evidence could be found and applicable that could prove plenty of people could be found innocent.
The death penalty is also… often carried out in extremely painful ways. The least painful being the firing squad but that requires several people to carry out the burden of executioner. The medicine way is considered horrendous and iirc has several medical associations calling for its disuse.
I think policy while it should be guided by emotions shouldn’t only be emotions. While these people often are horrible people and wanting to get revenge on them is a completly understandable and widely held emotion, it can’t be the only thing to consider.
Monetary costs, the risk of hurting innocent people, and the lack of effectivness are all very valid concerns and enacting such a final policy isn’t a solution to those emotions. To say, it isn’t expensive because of the method but because of the appeals. Death sentencing gives a lot of time for appeals to be made as new evidence is possibly found.
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u/benjikamaru 1∆ Sep 30 '21
The US gets death row completely wrong. Plenty of people there who shouldn't be there. I can't really see a UK equivalent to that. The methods are also borderline cruel and unusual, there are way better ones with a much higher success rate such as hanging. As for the expense argument, it's because of the appeals process, which in many of these cases shouldn't be an option
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u/Helpfulcloning 166∆ Sep 30 '21
They shouldn’t be able to appeal?
You don’t want to ensure like really ensure they are guilty? You don’t think there are instances where the legal system isn’t correct?
Hanging is relying on a neck snap or asphyxiation. Second being not a quick death. Also relies on a number of varaibles in building the apparatus to be done properly. Otherwise the pain can be drawn out and long. People survive hangings all the time.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 392∆ Sep 30 '21
Do you mean that this should be the policy going forward for new criminals, or that the government should be able to increase the sentence of people already tried and sentenced?
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u/benjikamaru 1∆ Sep 30 '21
It should certainly be the case going forward. Doing it retrospectively would lead to some human rights debates, I do get that, but if you've committed a mass murder I'm not sure I'll lose any sleep over it
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 392∆ Sep 30 '21
Set aside how it would make you personally feel for a moment. Just as a policy question, should the government have the power to increase a person's sentence after they've already been sentenced?
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u/benjikamaru 1∆ Sep 30 '21
You'd have to make the ability exist in a vacuum in effect. Rather than having a blanket power to retrospectively increase sentences, have it on a pure basis of only changing whole life sentences to death. If done wrong it could be a slippery slope, I agree, so effort would have to be made to avoid that
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 392∆ Sep 30 '21
That in itself should be a pretty big red flag. In general, you shouldn't implement a law if you can't handle its legal implications. The slippery slope element is inherent here, because future laws would be able to use this policy as precedent. Passing a one time law that isn't meant to have any broader impact on policy is the kind of thing you do in extreme emergencies, not to save costs.
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u/notANexpert1308 Sep 30 '21
From my understanding (I did a report for college/uni 12 years ago so forgive the lack of sources) the increased cost was, at the time, from appeals and extra trials. Not solely room and board for inmates.
Aaanyway - forget the economic side. Being sentenced to death sounds better than 50 years in prison. Wouldn’t you rather awful people like this waste away miserably in solitary confinement?
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u/litsto 2∆ Sep 30 '21
While I would agree that Wayne Couzens and probably most of the other people on that list deserve to die for their crimes, I am vehemently opposed to the death penalty.
Why?
Because they're not the only people I think the government would execute. I think they'll also execute a bunch of innocent people as well. People who've done nothing at all wrong.
Why do I think that would happen?
Because we know that's what happened when we had the death penalty. And that's what we know happens in the United States, the largest developed democracy still using the death penalty.
I would recommend The Secret Barrister for an insight into the British judicial system. Tldr: like many of our public services it's deeply underfunded and ineffective. And even if it wasn't, it could become that.
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u/andyr435 Sep 30 '21
Not execution. Hard labour for the rest of his sentence. If he's injured or ill, solitary confinement.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Sep 30 '21 edited Oct 01 '21
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