Death Penalty: Would it work?

[Stan Tamudo]

I live a happy and fulfilled life, if you really need to know.

 

You don't have a happy and fulfilled worklife, you seem to spend your time at work on here moaning.

[SiSiSi]

The death penalty is wrong simply because every now and again they execute people who are later proven to be innocent. It might only happen in a very small proportion of cases but I wouldn't want that one case to be me!

[alchresearch]

Moral arguments aside there is no evidence to suggest the executing anyone is cheaper, or more efficient than keeping someone in prison for life.

 

The average cost of putting a single person to death in California is in excess of $250m. To keep someone in a top security prison only costs $90k per year so I'm sure you can do the maths.

 

http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42

 

Can we have some English figures please?

 

It cost £1200 a day to keep Huntley when he was on suicide watch. That's £438,000 if he was on for a year.

 

Even in solitary it costs £120,000 a year according to the William Crawley at the BBC.

[dell12]

Can we have some English figures please?

 

It cost £1200 a day to keep Huntley when he was on suicide watch. That's £438,000 if he was on for a year.

 

Even in solitary it costs £120,000 a year according to the BBC.

 

There are no figures for Britain or Europe simply because we don't have the death penalty. In a similar fashion to when we bring in new social policy, we would have to look to America for evidence of its effectiveness.

 

There is no suggestion that it lowers crime, and no suggestion that it is any cheaper than keeping someone locked up for life. Other than it being a tool for revenge which might keep the Daily Mail happy, I see no viable reason to introduce it.

[alchresearch]

There are no figures for Britain or Europe simply because we don't have the death penalty. In a similar fashion to when we bring in new social policy, we would have to look to America for evidence of its effectiveness.

 

There is no suggestion that it lowers crime, and no suggestion that it is any cheaper than keeping someone locked up for life. Other than it being a tool for revenge which might keep the Daily Mail happy, I see no viable reason to introduce it.

 

Hmmm, that's not really answering the question or addressing the incorrect figures you posted though is it? You claimed it only cost $90,000 (£56000) a year to keep a prisoner, but UK costs are far higher, especially for a higher risk.

[alchresearch]

Perhaps we should look closer to home? Our nearest neighbour, Belarus, still has the death penalty.

 

In a 1996 referendum, one of the seven questions asked was about the opinion of Belarusian people about abolishing the death penalty. According to the results of this referendum, 80.44% of Belorussians were against abolishing the death penalty. However, at the time of the referendum, the longest available prison sentence was 15 years. Since then, the sentence of life-long imprisonment was introduced, in December 1997. There have not been more recent surveys to determine whether the change in maximum prison sentence affected public sentiment about the death penalty

[dell12]

Hmmm, that's not really answering the question or addressing the incorrect figures you posted though is it? You claimed it only cost $90,000 (£56000) a year to keep a prisoner, but UK costs are far higher, especially for a higher risk.

 

The figures are correct for the USA, and in terms of comparing the cost of keeping someone in prison against the cost of killing them provide an accurate comparison I think.

 

The latest figures for keeping someone in prison in the UK are quoted as £37,305 (2005) in England and £31,106 in Scotland (2009). So not vastly different to the US.

 

http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/subsection.asp?id=349

 

http://www.sps.gov.uk/default.aspx?documentid=B08BF1B6-292B-4B39-B850-0EE5A87924BD

[Wildcat]

Even closer to home are all the countries of europe that don't have the death penalty because it is immoral, doesn't achieve anything and killls people subsequently discovered to be innocent. I don't think Belarus is a very relevant role model

[Conrod]

You don't have a happy and fulfilled worklife, you seem to spend your time at work on here moaning.

Do you really know me well enough to be able to make such a judgement because of what I type onto a forum over a coffee from time to time?

[Stan Tamudo]

Do you really know me well enough to be able to make such a judgement because of what I type onto a forum over a coffee from time to time?

 

Looking at your last 300 posts I know that 286 have been made between 8:00am and 6:00pm Monday to Friday. On that basis I feel I know you well enough to say that your bored at work.