masona said:
So, what's the answer then?
Keep them in prison until they died bearing in mind the government are letting them out early to kill again because the prisons are full up.
So are you saying if a murderer admitted killing a number of people, death penalty is not the answer only on the condition that they stay in prison until the end, if so, then I agree.
I have no problem whatsoever with the concept that some people have done things so appalling that they forfeit the right to live with the rest of society ever again, and that they spend the rest of their lives in prison. I do believe that a society has the right to say to someone "you have shown beyond doubt that you are not prepared to conform to the standards of behaviour that are required of a member of a civilised society, and accordingly you may no longer live amongst us".
And I think a lot of people here would probably be surprised at the types of offenders I'd support that for.
But they are not killed, and when they are in prison they are not tortured or starved or beaten or worked to death, for that is not what civilised people do.
I believe that some people are so sick that they can never safely be released, and that they have to be confined forever, but that in those circumstances, which are no more their fault than it is the fault of someone with a physical disability that they cannot perform certain physical acts, they should be given as comfortable a life as possible.
Expensive? It certainly is, but if you think having a society is expensive, try anarchic barbarism.
Regarding the death penalty, the situation is very,
very simple.
I believe, utterly, that there is an absolute moral imperative that the state does not, ever, under any circumstances whatsoever, put anybody to death as a punishment.
I find any belief to the contrary, that there can be any circumstances where a civilised society should decide to take someone's life, morally wrong. For no matter what that person has done, as soon as the state is prepared to take a life then it has lost all moral authority to say that taking a life is wrong.
I find any arguments to the contrary, that there can be any reasons why a civilised society should decide to take someone's life, particularly for reasons of cost, as arguments against morality, and therefore utterly disgusting, vile, abhorrent, obscene, contemptible.....