Death penalty

[TheBurningRed]

13 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

You gave it up when 'Hard-Fi!' became your new catchphrase.

Yeah, I can accept that. That was embarrassing.

Speaking of embarrassing, you’re having a mare Doom Spoon. 

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

32 minutes ago, deathrey said:

I think starting with the battle of getting sexual abuse taken and punished seriously by courts would be the first battle.

Also, in the case outlined above, allowing the person to die means they are essentially completely absolved of what they have done. I'd much rather they have to sit in prison for the rest of their life living with the consequences of their actions and hopefully it will mentally tear them apart. I think that's more of a punishment than an injection which they will spend the rest of their time thinking about rather than the crime they committed and then off they go in to the abyss having (in my eyes) never actually had to think/pay for the emotional pain they laid out.

I know that is a much deeper question but if we pass in to nothingness, a big sleep, whatever, the murderer never has to actually face what they did which I think is more of a punishment.

Yeah ummmm ummmm I've got nothing really back against this. Well put argument 

 

@Carbomb I will look that up. Thank you. 

 

@RedTwoster frankly no I wouldn't do it myself, however I'd imagine there is quite a few who would do it. To a lesser extent its like a friend of mine who's a police officer and he was asked about becoming a firearms officer and was like 'absolutely not'

[stumobir]

52 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Its interesting reading the replies and quite a few have merit and have made me think and look further into things. I fully accept I'm in the minority on here based on replies, and always will be, but its a debate that I think will gather momentum in years to come, however I dont think it will ever come back.

 

I'll put an example scenario out there, and I apologise now for anyone that gets upset or brings back bad memories or experiences. It's a difficult thing to navigate and everyone has difficulties in their backgrounds and the last thing I want is to cause any sadness or pain of past experiences, but I'm just putting this forward as a possible scenario.

 

 

'A man kidnaps a child and of say 4yrs old and takes her to a new area. He keeps her locked in a shed for weeks with minimal nourishment and little to no hygiene utilities. In the process of this imprisonment he carries out severe sexual abuse of the child, taking pictures and filming it and sharing it online. After a few weeks the man decides enough is enough and bludgeons the poor girl to death after brutally raping and abusing her. He is eventually caught, arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to a whole life term. The man admits in court he did it all. The DNA is absolute certain it is him. The images shared online prove it was him. There is simply no room to suggest that there was any possibility of a mistaken conviction'.

Yhe prison service are now tasked with protecting this man for the remainder of his life from the other inmates. Society has to feed and clothe this man, as well as providing stimulation, accommodation, security, payment, etc for potentially 60yrs or so costing however many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of £s. I cannot think of a reason after such a heinous and sadistic scenario where society should allow this man to exist. I also look to the likes of Levi Bellfield, Peter Sutcliffe, Beverly Allitt, Harold Shipman, Roy Whiting, the Wests, Victoria Climbie's killers and others of that ilk who we as a society have/had a duty to now protect, despite the horrid things they did.

I do not feel that we should use all those resources on people who have zero remorse or care for what they did. However I wouldn't leave it simply in the hands of one or two people and it would need the unanimous agreement of multiple judges, not politicians, to confirm the conviction.

 

Apologies for not wording it clearly regarding secret trials. I meant secretly carried out but fully recorded and revealed in full straight afterwards so no possibility of cover ups or redactions, etc. Also secret as in they cannot be reported on in the way that Brand's trial is at the moment with daily podcasts and the like. 

 

Im no rabid right wing 'string em all up' types, far from it, but in a careful considered and correctly safeguarded way I believe capital punishment is a possible deterrent. I'm not convinced its the only way, but how do we know it isnt a deterrent? Yes murders and sexual abuse and the like still goes on, and always will in the society we live in, but we need to root out the repeat offenders and those that get sadistic pleasure out of suffering and torturing others and not just a 'fight that got out of hand scenario'. If that means they are removed from society by the government then so be it. 

 

It won't change and almost certainly will never come back into our society, but there, like others alluded to further up, who wouldn't shed tears over the worst dregs of society dying for their crimes, such as @LaGoosh post. 

 

 

Mate, wtf. Are you alright?

[wordsfromlee]

1 hour ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Im no rabid right wing 'string em all up' types, far from it, but in a careful considered and correctly safeguarded way I believe capital punishment is a possible deterrent. I'm not convinced its the only way, but how do we know it isnt a deterrent? Yes murders and sexual abuse and the like still goes on, and always will in the society we live in, but we need to root out the repeat offenders and those that get sadistic pleasure out of suffering and torturing others and not just a 'fight that got out of hand scenario'. If that means they are removed from society by the government then so be it. 

 

On 10/15/2026 at 6:57 PM, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwdr8grnykrlo

Well this will be interesting to see how long it is before someone takes a pop at him. 

15yrs is a long time these days for that sort of offence, so it must be pretty bad. Personally he should hang, as should all child abusers.

Make your mind up.

[RedTwoster]

10 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

frankly no I wouldn't do it myself, however I'd imagine there is quite a few who would do it.

And that's my point - the people who would actually want to do this job are not the kind of people you would want to be doing it in the first place. But even then, there's saying you'd do it and the mental toll the reality of it would take. 

You're letting emotion overrule logic here. There's no real way of preventing an innocent person from being executed - and we know for sure that not only does this happen, but it happens at an alarming rate. There's no financial argument in favour of it. We know for sure it's not a deterrent. 

And even then, you're assuming that perpetrators of the most grave of all crimes would prefer to spend the rest of their lives in prison than be put to death - a case could quite easily be made for it actually being the lesser punishment. 

[TheBurningRed]

I'm being serious when I ask this @Tim Healys Chutney Spoon, but do you have a death fetish? Or like Mrs Doyle, you just love the misery?

[Chris B]

What a weird 'mare this thread is, eh chums?

Two points around this. Weirdly, I know the guy in charge of the secure young offender facility where one of the kids that killed James Bulger was kept. My dad worked in child care for years, including around young offenders and was the guy's mentor. As a result of hearing his thought processes after dealing with kids that did absolutely heinous things, I've got a strong belief in the power of change and rehabilitation. I believe in society. And while the kid that grew up to have more problems has tended to dominate headlines, the other hasn't. And I kind of see the work involved in that rehabilitation as incredibly valuable - and part of that is not writing people (especially kids) off.

The other point is around Leslie Van Houten, who took part in the Manson murders. After half a century in jail, she was released on parole. The idea that members of the Manson Family could become part of society again was unthinkable for so long. But that's the power of rehabilitation. And comparing that to Manson himself, becoming less and less relevant over the decades feels far more potent than a swift death would have been.

Society can be an incredible thing. The idea that we can rehabilitate people who have done the worst things is, to me, as close to a miracle as we can see. And I think that's far, far more powerful than society killing people, no matter how sordid a fantasy we can put together to justify it.

[LaGoosh]

1 hour ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

who wouldn't shed tears over the worst dregs of society dying for their crimes, such as @LaGoosh post. 

Woah, that's not what I said at all. I don't appreciate being misquoted.

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

19 minutes ago, TheBurningRed said:

I'm being serious when I ask this @Tim Healys Chutney Spoon, but do you have a death fetish? Or like Mrs Doyle, you just love the misery?

Nothing of the sort at all. 

Maybe got a little overzealous with posts on the 2024/2025 dying thread and not ones people were overly familiar with, much like some of the ones recently who I dont know or arent familiar with. Then the 'reputation' seemed to stick

I did believe there should be capital punishment for the most heinous of crimes, but @deathreys post has made me think a lot harder about my position on that. Society perhaps would feel better in so much as the worst are dead....but would it really feel like justice?

 

@wordsfromlee you can be in favour of something but not necessarily for all situations. There's a broad range of things under one heading of sexual abuse and capital punishment. The things Donaldson did, that he's been convicted of that we know about, deserves a much more severe punishment as it was repeated and premeditated than something that maybe could be construed as a one-off drunken fumble that wasn't asked for but still is horrible for the victim.

 

 

Having read the room and tried to explain my position, maybe not in the best of ways, I'm bowing out as I am accepting I'm in the minority but have taken on board what others have said and will research further the links provided and have listened to the arguments put forward. Maybe emotion overruled logic at times, but an interesting eye opener for me. Thanks all 😀

[JLM]

String em up and throw away the key, lock’em up and throw away their heads. Classic Goosh. 

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

6 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

Do some people deserve to die for the crimes they have committed? Yeah, almost definitely. 

But I think the state having the power to put people to death is one of the most fascist things a state can do. Therefore I could never support it.

Apologies if i misunderstood this quote, but I thought that the first part was a different way of saying what I had said. Apologies for getting it wrong.

[deathrey]

My job has led me to work with an unfortunate amount of perpetrators of child abuse of every nature, along with tens of thousands of young people. I can honestly say that in my experience, true sociopaths - those whom have no capacity for guilt, shame or rehabilitation - are incredibly low in number. In 20 years I can only really think of 2 that I have come across for who I don't think redemption/rehabilitation is a possibility. 

 @Chris B has really hit the nail on the head in regards to how a society should function and why it's so important that people should get a second chance. And for those who don't deserve a second chance, the vast majority will eventually be overwhelmed by their own emotion.

Also I do feel the need to add here that many perpetrators of violence to others were at one point victims themselves, childhood trauma completely rewires the brain, most deserve a chance at redemption.

Edited 2 hours ago by deathrey

[Chris B]

On 9/22/2026 at 4:29 PM, tiger_rick said:

Devastated to find out we have 7 tories. Obviously SuperBacon is one but, who are the other 6?

At least we're getting a bit more clarity on this mystery from the survey thread.

[WyattSheepMask]

First off, let me just put my cards on the table and say that I’m absolutely opposed to the Death Pentaly. Someone mentioned earlier that it was “medieval”, and they’re absolutely right. It’s barbaric shit that belongs back in the dark ages, and the fact that it was permanently abolished only 57 years ago is disgusting.

If someone was executed by the state and it turned out that they were wrongly convicted, that’s a shitstorm, both legally and morally, that would be difficult to come back from, and that’s reason enough to put the debate to bed.

Not to sound all Tim McManus about things, but the people who commit the worst kinds of crime as discussed here are sick and need psychiatric help, they need to be given the chance to understand the horrific nature of their crime. Putting them to death doesn’t do that and solve anything , it’s just senseless and macabre 

Edited 2 hours ago by WyattSheepMask

[ReturnOfTheMack]

Im learning why some people dont understand that Warhammer 40k is satire.