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Reintroduce the Death Penalty in Ireland

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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,725 ✭✭✭charlemont


    Wouldn't be half the crime in Ireland if some the laws weren't so backward and if the legal system wasn't only interested in money.


  • Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    On a more serious note, if you go soft on criminals, the fear of committing a crime will go away.
    There is a point beyond which increasing the severity of the penalty will not have any effect on the numbers of people committing a crime.

    For low-level crime, there's a risk:reward ratio which the criminal subconsciously evaluates before committing the crime.

    The risk is a combination of the odds of being caught and the penalty for being caught, and the reward is whatever the criminal gets out of it - usually monetary in the case of low-level crime.
    High risk with low reward, and the majority of criminals will simply not go near it. Low risk with relatively high reward, they swarm all over it. Increase the risk, they back off. This is why it works in Singapore - crime of relatively low reward (like littering or mugging) carries a very high risk, which most sane people consider too high for the reward.

    But in terms of increasing the risk for the criminal, there is a tipping point where the 99.9% will not take the high risk for any reward, but the 0.1% will go for the reward regardless of the risk.

    In other words, the kind of criminals who engage in headline crimes such as murder, do so in the belief that they will not be caught. They're not thinking, "If I'm caught I'll only do ten years", the concept of being caught simply doesn't register with them.

    This is why increasing the penalty for murder (for example) from 20 years to execution, has no actual effect on the crime rate.

    The risk:reward basis is also why crime is higher in poorer populations and lower in more affluent ones.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,269 ✭✭✭GalwayGuy2


    What about for people who, for some reasons, just won't stop killing. I personally wouldn't apply it to terrorists (you'd only martyr them), but what about serial rapists, or serial murderers, or serial child molesters, so on so forth?


  • Registered Users Posts: 454 ✭✭TheCoolWay


    Stupid debate, not going to happen especially in Ireland.


  • Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    GalwayGuy2 wrote: »
    What about for people who, for some reasons, just won't stop killing. I personally wouldn't apply it to terrorists (you'd only martyr them), but what about serial rapists, or serial murderers, or serial child molesters, so on so forth?
    If you lock them up for life, then they don't get the opportunity to be "serial" anything.

    Anyone who acts with complete disregard and emotional disconnection from their victim, such as violent rape, murder, etc, is mentally ill. It's a mental illness for which there is no known cure, and they should be locked up for the rest of their natural lives.

    Not to punish them, but to protect the rest of us.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 28,928 ✭✭✭✭end of the road


    sixtynine2 wrote: »
    You have to look beyond human rights in proven cases,
    no you don't. they can be the bare basic ones.
    sixtynine2 wrote: »
    they forfeited their human rights by breaking the law. The
    their right to freedom yes, any of the basics no.
    sixtynine2 wrote: »
    The Human Rights Charter should not come into it.
    absolutely it should, either you emplement it or don't.
    sixtynine2 wrote: »
    Singapore may have ultra draconian laws, but they work.
    i would say the culture has a lot to play more then the actual laws, and if they have to be ultra draconian laws i would suggest that actually they have a lot of problems over there that they need such laws to sort.
    sixtynine2 wrote: »
    Unlike Ireland though, the inhabitants have serious balls.
    yeah, because
    ultra draconian laws and executing people means you have balls. uncivilised and ferrile is more like it i say.
    sixtynine2 wrote: »
    They don't put up with law breakers, unlike here.
    we can't afford to deal with every single law breaker. change the justice system and bring in longer sentences for serious crimes and life for the likes of murder and we will then be dealing with them properly.
    sixtynine2 wrote: »
    We could learn a few things from that country imo.
    not from that country we couldn't, were not that desperate, rather we do our own things our way then look to the likes of singapore for answers.

    shut down alcohol action ireland now! end MUP today!



  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18 sixtynine2


    seamus wrote: »
    This is why it works in Singapore - crime of relatively low reward (like littering or mugging) carries a very high risk, which most sane people consider too high for the reward.

    But in terms of increasing the risk for the criminal, there is a tipping point where the 99.9% will not take the high risk for any reward, but the 0.1% will go for the reward regardless of the risk.

    Are you seriously trying to suggest that supreme high risk indictable offences are less likely to be prosecuted, that they won't be investigated to the fullest extent of the law? All indictable offences have no statute of limitations, whereas your "high risk" offences as you state do. What are you talking about? Do you have any evidence to back up your arguments?


  • Registered Users Posts: 28,928 ✭✭✭✭end of the road


    sixtynine2 wrote: »
    If someone broke into your house wielding a gun or knife at somebody you personally knew, I am sure you would not be long changing your opinion

    nice try, but no.

    shut down alcohol action ireland now! end MUP today!



  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18 sixtynine2


    nice try, but no.


    Would you sit it out and ring the police instead? I reckon that would be the "polite" response, especially if there is no immediate threat, but you could be dead before you even dial the number if the criminal is carrying say, and automatic weapon. In those situations, the difference between life and death can be a matter of seconds.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18 sixtynine2


    seamus wrote: »
    Anyone who acts with complete disregard and emotional disconnection from their victim, such as violent rape, murder, etc, is mentally ill.

    Proof? There are no currently proven biomarkers for any claimed biological "mental illness". Not to say important medical problems like Depression aren't serious, but they haven't been proven to be of a purely pathological disease process, at least not yet. There is no evidence to support this claim I am afraid. Your theory hasn't been proven in the natural world I am afraid.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    sixtynine2 wrote: »
    Are you seriously trying to suggest that supreme high risk indictable offences are less likely to be prosecuted,
    No. Read my post again, you've drawn a conclusion which doesn't match up to anything whatsoever in my post.
    sixtynine2 wrote: »
    Proof? There are no currently proven biomarkers for any claimed biological "mental illness". Not to say important medical problems like Depression aren't serious, but they haven't been proven to be of a purely pathological disease process, at least not yet. There is no evidence to support this claim I am afraid. Your theory hasn't been proven in the natural world I am afraid.
    I never theorised that mental illness had any pathological factor. It's implicit in the name, it's an illness in cognitive behaviour, not biology.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,269 ✭✭✭GalwayGuy2


    But in terms of increasing the risk for the criminal, there is a tipping point where the 99.9% will not take the high risk for any reward, but the 0.1% will go for the reward regardless of the risk.

    I'm going to compare that situation to the Night Watch:P If they're dead anyway, what's to stop them from committing worse crimes, or even band together to the big criminal gangs.
    Not to punish them, but to protect the rest of us.

    But wouldn't it be better to just kill them? In all honesty it would be a kindness, and if you lock anybody up for life it would just excasberate their symptoms. And in all honesty, what wouldn't someone do to get out of life imprisonment (especially in the hell holes that are our prisons. )


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,269 ✭✭✭GalwayGuy2


    Proof? There are no currently proven biomarkers for any claimed biological "mental illness". Not to say important medical problems like Depression aren't serious, but they haven't been proven to be of a purely pathological disease process

    There is actually a gene that is associated with psychopaths, I think. Although, there's a debate whether environmental or biological matter more


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,441 ✭✭✭old hippy


    Nobody has the right to murder anyone else. Crims or the state.

    However, if the convicted criminal seeks euthanasia, I might be more favourable. Maybe.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18 sixtynine2


    seamus wrote: »
    No. Read my post again, you've drawn a conclusion which doesn't match up to anything whatsoever in my post.
    I never theorised that mental illness had any pathological factor. It's implicit in the name, it's an illness in cognitive behaviour, not biology.

    No idea what your point is. Sorry, you will have to explain it to me like i'm 10. Illness isn't used in reference to behaviour in any medical or authority dictionary as far as I know. Therefore, it isn't correct to state a behaviour represents any form of illness. It does not. Behaviour without relevant pathological changes is a behaviour, not an illness. Just want to clear that up.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18 sixtynine2


    old hippy wrote: »
    Nobody has the right to murder anyone else. Crims or the state.

    However, if the convicted criminal seeks euthanasia, I might be more favourable. Maybe.


    These two statments contradict each other.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,117 ✭✭✭AnnyHallsal


    Over my dead body :pac:


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18 sixtynine2


    GalwayGuy2 wrote: »
    There is actually a gene that is associated with psychopaths, I think. Although, there's a debate whether environmental or biological matter more

    A mere Association does not prove Causation. There is no debate, because it hasn't been shown scientifically yet that "psychopathy" is the result of any genetic disease, it's simply a choice somebody makes. The OMIM database lists nothing on "psychopathy". I call BS.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,441 ✭✭✭old hippy


    sixtynine2 wrote: »
    These two statments contradict each other.

    How so? If a person choses to end their own life, that's a different thing altogether. Not murder, in my book.

    I'm all in favour of euthanasia when a person is too ill to go on - I'm kinda in favour if the person is a convicted criminal with no chance of rehabilitation. But if they wanted it - it's still their choice. Anything else if murder.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18 sixtynine2


    old hippy wrote: »
    How so? If a person choses to end their own life, that's a different thing altogether. Not murder, in my book.

    I'm all in favour of euthanasia when a person is too ill to go on - I'm kinda in favour if the person is a convicted criminal with no chance of rehabilitation. But if they wanted it - it's still their choice. Anything else if murder.

    No you are right. I didn't read your question properly. You are correct.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 500 ✭✭✭parrai


    The death penalty will never return to this country. I see this as progress. two wrongs don't make a right.

    The sentences, on the other hand, need to be upgraded. The more serious the crime, the longer time served.

    Denying a criminal the basic freedom to decide what they will do with their future, is, imo, the best way to punish them for their crime.

    In the long run, maybe they will see the error of their ways, maybe they won't, but at least, if the sentences given were proportionate to the crime they commited, they will have been justly punished.

    In my opinion, this is a fair way of dealing with the situation.

    Murdering them solves nothing.


  • Registered Users Posts: 138 ✭✭CillianL


    We should introduce the death penalty as a way of making savings to keep the troika happy.We should convert an ESB power station over from burning fossil fuels to burning junkies and wasters, which would save us both fuel and long term welfare bills. It would be deadweight of the country's back!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,097 ✭✭✭shadowcomplex


    I dont agree with the death penalty but I do agree the law here in ireland is much too leniant

    I would be in favour of setting up something like in the movie no escape with ray liotta and just let the scum get on with it amongst themselves

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7IZDKk89M0


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,079 ✭✭✭Reindeer


    http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/28/justice/louisiana-inmate-exonerated/index.html?hpt=hp_c4

    A Louisiana man who spent 15 years on death row for a murder he did not commit was released Friday from prison in an exoneration brought about by the Innocence Project.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,171 ✭✭✭af_thefragile


    I don't say anyone who commits a serious crime should get the death penalty. It should only be reserved for the very few who are absolutely sick in the head and from whom there is no doubt towards their guilt.

    Like for people like the Fritzl guy or people who head gangs, drug lords etc. whose actions and crimes have serious impact on the well being of the society.

    I don't see the point of life imprisonment. Probably the only thing about it is you're giving the person hope that maybe somewhere down the line he'll get his act together and will eventually be able to live a normal life. And life in prison is just not going to be pretty for serious criminals anyway. Paedophiles and sick people live in a constant fear of being assaulted and killed by fellow inmates, gang/drug lords either get assaulted and/or killed by inmates of rival gangs or end up trying to figure out ways to continue their crimes while in prison.

    And then there's the whole cost to the state of looking after a person in prison for the rest of his life and then there's no space in prison for inmates because they're full and they become over crowded which leads to further tensions among the inmates.


    In a way it is more humane and possibly better for the state and the society if serious criminals whose guilt has been established without any matter of doubt are just simply executed.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,441 ✭✭✭old hippy


    CillianL wrote: »
    We should introduce the death penalty as a way of making savings to keep the troika happy.We should convert an ESB power station over from burning fossil fuels to burning junkies and wasters, which would save us both fuel and long term welfare bills. It would be deadweight of the country's back!

    Resists temptation to do a Godwin's... :rolleyes:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,131 ✭✭✭Azure_sky


    Wow look at all the economically and socially advanced nations who have the death penalty.

    deathpenaltymaplarge.jpg




  • Registered Users Posts: 28,928 ✭✭✭✭end of the road


    It should only be reserved for the very few who are absolutely sick in the head.
    we have mental institutions for them.
    whom there is no doubt towards their guilt.
    which is nobody really. when it comes to the death penalty, doesn't matter how sure, theirs no need for it, its backward and outdated, end of, and it would be more costly then life in prison.
    people who head gangs, drug lords etc. whose actions and crimes have serious impact on the well being of the society.
    well having drugs illegal has a more serious impact on the well being of society, if we legalised them not only would the drug gangs have nothing to deal in (apart from bootleg ciggarettes) but we could control them and set standards.
    I don't see the point of life imprisonment. Probably the only thing about it is you're giving the person hope that maybe somewhere down the line he'll get his act together and will eventually be able to live a normal life.
    and if he/she is innocent, your giving one hope that maybe one day they will be released, if their executed they can't be brought back.
    there's the whole cost to the state of looking after a person in prison for the rest of his life
    worth every penny compared to a backward outdated uncivilised punishment.
    there's no space in prison for inmates because they're full and they become over crowded which leads to further tensions among the inmates.your giving one hope
    so build more.
    In a way it is more humane
    no, either taking a life is wrong or it isn't, you can't on the one hand say what he did was wrong but then say oh but we can do the exact same thing, it means the state and the society which supports it has no credibility.
    possibly better for the state and the society if serious criminals whose guilt has been established without any matter of doubt are just simply executed.

    yeah, for an uncivilised society maybe, not for a supposibly forward thinking modern society like ireland, no guilt could be established without any matter of doubt to satisfy the use of the death penalty.

    shut down alcohol action ireland now! end MUP today!



  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,441 ✭✭✭old hippy


    It's my belief that there's some very archaic Victorian attitudes on display here. I do hope we'll move on. I was reading an old medical journal from the 19th century once; it recommended these 3 "cures" for epilepsy - castration, lobotomy, committed to an asylum. If I'd been around then, I'd be balls free and brainless in bedlam :(


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  • Registered Users Posts: 3,405 ✭✭✭Lone Stone


    I think the death penalty should be implemented for people who when in government or former government positions are found to have been corrupt for personal gain etc.


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