Reintroduce the Death Penalty in Ireland

In my opinion, the punishment of a crime ought to be proportional to the crime itself. I believe that this should be a firm and unwavering legal principle. Therefore, in the case of clear intentional murder, I think that the death penalty ought to be established.

If you extinguished another human life intentionally, you should pay with your life. If you killed someone and caused them severe pain, distress and torture in the process, the way in which your death sentence is administered should reflect that. For instance, if you tortured, raped and murder someone in the most sadistic way possible, then the way you’re put to death after receiving the death penalty should be slow, tortuous and reflect the inhumanity with which you treated your victim. In my view, it would be morally wrong for you to be humanely executed in such a case, as you didn’t afford your victim such a privilege.

I do not think that the life of a murdering sadist ought to be treated with the same respect in the eyes of the law as the life of a decent citizen whose greatest run in with the law was a parking ticket. In fact, I'd take such a view to be an insult to the vast majority of the population. I believe that we need to strike fear into the hearts of the criminal classes and cut the liberal attitude towards punishment and how criminals are treated.

I simply think that our criminal justice system is a farce, so if you’d like to be spared a dubious unoriginal Liveline-esque rant then I suggest you stop reading now. Serial/career criminals get off scot-free with legal loopholes and are released shortly afterward into society to continue again where they left off. In hindsight, there is always money to be made off these legal cases:

Therefore, I don’t expect many in the legal profession (especially those whose specialty is criminal law) to push for a reform of the criminal justice system any time soon. However, I'm not going to totally condemn solicitors/barristers/judges though, there is good people in the legal profession.

The workload of the already understaffed and underfunded Gardaí is increasing all the time because of our twisted legal system. If I got robbed and/or bet up in Dublin City Centre tomorrow afternoon, the chances that the Gardaí would investigate the incident would be slim to none because they have to prioritise their resources on more serious investigations.

I have a lot of respect for the Gardaí and I think they have to put up with a lot of bullshit as it is. Some Gardaí might even avoid dealing with some cases where they may be putting their life or the lives of their families at risk. If two unarmed Gardaí were to walk down Abbey St. in Dublin on a Friday night and confront a gang who were a visible threat, they might get stabbed or worse and they mightn’t have the time to call for back-up, plus they have no real way of defending themselves then and there. Isn’t it only obvious why GardaI would try to avoid these areas if they could? Would you blame them? After all, they have family and loved ones like everyone else.

The death penalty will free up overcrowded prisons and make a scumbags think twice about sliding a knife into someone for the sake of a €50 note. Criminals are only profiting from the liberal attitudes that have seeped into the law.

Don’t get me wrong, I am quite liberal myself in relation to other things like equal rights in front of the law (e.g., marriage equality, abortion, secularisation of the state, etc...). I even agree with the legalisation of most drugs in an effort to get their distribution out of the hands of gangland criminals. In relation to crime and punishment though, I take a different view on things all together.

/RANT

By the way, in before “Go live in America”, “How long has it been since we’ve had one of these threads?” or any invoking of Godwin's Law.