The Death Penalty

My last post pointed out how out of touch Members of our Parliament are by spending vast amounts over the retail price for items.  At the end of this week, in an attempt to connect with the public, the government launches it’s e-petition website, where petitions with 100,000 voters signing up will be discussed in the Commons.

Political blogger Guido Fawkes has used this opportunity to petition the Government on restoring the Death Penalty, “the Ministry of Justice should map out the necessary legislative steps which will be required to restore the death penalty for the murder of children and police officers when killed in the line of duty.”

The death penalty in the UK was abolished in 1969, with the last execution by hanging taking place a few years earlier in 1964.  However, since then polls have consistently shown that there is majority public support for reinstating it, while in Parliament the issue has always been heavily defeated when it has been voted on.  The most recent polls done in September and November 2010 by YouGov show strong that there is still strong support for its reintroduction.  The September poll found 51% supported the death penalty for murder, while the November poll found 74% supported it for murder in ‘certain circumstances’.

Since launching his campaign Guido has received widespread support amongst his readers and also from MPs.  Currently MPs Philip Davis, Priti Patel, Andrew Turner, David Nuttall, Chris Kelly, Roger Gale and Julian Brazier have all shown their support for Guido and his campaign.  David Cameron however, in a past statement in Cameron on Cameron by Dylan Jones says:

“If someone murdered one of my children then emotionally, obviously I would want to kill them. How could you not? But there have been too many cases of things going wrong, of the wrong people being executed, of evidence coming to light after the execution, and sometimes there is just too much of an element of doubt. And I just don’t honestly think that in a civilised society like ours that you can have the death penalty any more.”

One of the strongest supporters of capital punishment was Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.  According to Richard Vinen in his book, Thatcher’s Britain, Mrs Thatcher favoured the restoration of the death penalty and regretted corporal punishment for young offenders was no longer realistic.  Mrs Thatcher was so strong on her support for its reinstatement, he goes on to say, “her Liberal opponent in Finchley believed it was her only strong conviction.”  Most recently, David Davis in 2003, while Shadow Home Secretary said he would bring back capital punishment for serial killers, due to the premeditated nature of these crimes.  However, despite strong public support and backing from a small number of influential politicians, the death penalty remains off the statute books, the last attempt at repealing this decision was in 1994 where it was solidly defeated in Parliament.

Reintroducing the death penalty in the UK is a very serious road to take, and one which should not be taken lightly, you are after all handing the state the right to kill someone, all be it in exceptional circumstances.  But this should not put us off, we are not living in an abusive dictatorial state like those experiencing uprisings at the moment, we are as pointed out by David Cameron, a mature and civilised society.  The benefit of being such a society is that we can administer such strong policies properly, being able to handle something as potent as the death penalty shows we have moved on greatly.

David Cameron is also right when he says there have been too many cases where things have gone wrong.  Again, that maybe the case in less advanced countries, but I reiterate, the United Kingdom is an advanced country.  The science behind evidence has improved greatly due to technologies such as DNA, meaning evidence is becoming more and more reliable and unquestionable.  As the quality of evidence improves, so does the justification for the death penalty.

The idea of prison is to punish and reform.  However, crimes such as child murder and serial murder are so abhorrent, these people cannot be reformed and keeping them locked away is simply not a heavy enough punishment.  Very often in these criminals are locked away to protect them from the victims and the public, as well as the public from them, who would carry out vigilante justice because of the nature of the crimes they have committed.  No sentence for such crimes should offer any benefit to the convicted.

There is of course an emotional element in such sentencing, but there is nothing wrong with this, such punishment would at least offer some closure to victims of these crimes, these after all are extremely serious crimes and a different approach needs to be taken.  It would also send out a clear message that such crimes are not tolerated, and that the state will severely punish those who commit such atrocities.  Reintroducing the death penalty would of course need a complete overhaul of the justice system to deal with such a powerful sentence, as the current system is, as those who oppose it point out, not up to the job.

RightBlueView backs and supports Guido Fawkes’ campaign to restore the death penalty.  This does need a serious approach and there are a lot of unanswered questions and issues, and a lot would need to be changed, but this should not be used as an argument to oppose it.

You can sign the petition here:  http://order-order.com/restore-justice/