Capital punishment

[ChristineCB]

I wish I believed fear-of-punishment was a crime deterent. I wonder if the cloistered punishment - all done in secrecy and oh-so conscious of every political nicety - isn't undermining every "deterent" argument because the public only reads about some execution. Or they wait until the DVD comes out, all sanitized. I do wonder about hanging them from the town square's tree for all the mommies to bring out their little boys and say, "If you don't obey, this is where we'll see you".



Scarlet letters. Something like that. I wonder about the impact of cloistered politically-correct observations of privacy aren't counter-productive IF punishment is a true deterent.



Over the past few years, we've see websites publicly display sex-offenders and sex-predators names, faces and addresses, and while some have decried this 'invasion of privacy', that protest is fairly mocked down. But is it stopping the predators and perverts?



The only laugh I get on this subject is wondering why Lorraine Bobbitt told the police where she'd thrown "it" after she'd lopped it off.

[smiffy]

name='ChristineCB']I wish I believed fear-of-punishment was a crime deterent. I wonder if the cloistered punishment - all done in secrecy and oh-so conscious of every political nicety - isn't undermining every "deterent" argument because the public only reads about some execution. Or they wait until the DVD comes out, all sanitized. I do wonder about hanging them from the town square's tree for all the mommies to bring out their little boys and say, "If you don't obey, this is where we'll see you".



Scarlet letters. Something like that. I wonder about the impact of cloistered politically-correct observations of privacy aren't counter-productive IF punishment is a true deterent.



Over the past few years, we've see websites publicly display sex-offenders and sex-predators names, faces and addresses, and while some have decried this 'invasion of privacy', that protest is fairly mocked down. But is it stopping the predators and perverts?



The only laugh I get on this subject is wondering why Lorraine Bobbitt told the police where she'd thrown "it" after she'd lopped it off.

OUCH! come on christine surely the punishment should fit the crime,does infidelity justify mutilation?but I must admit I think this fear of crime punishment would be a deterrent to those who fly the flag of independence in the absence of their spouse.



Personally i've been faithfully married for 26 years and always done all the cooking so If ever I was ( unfairly ) under suspicion at least I know where the knives are.



You raise some interesting points such as web sites outing sex offenders,does it stop the perverts?

It makes me think there's no such thing as bad publicity,It's an advertisement.

As much as punching somebody in the face brings instant gratification,will it stop them doing it again ?

In medieavel times we put people in the stocks and pelted them with rotten fruit, did it work?

Christine,In your opinion does the death penalty work,and is there ever any doubt ( from a judicial point of view) that the sentence was wrong?



Society won't change overnight but with more input we can influence it,



all the best, Smiffy



PS With regard to the thread womens sexuality in film if you post an avatar of a 23 stone woman birthing a calf you might stop wolfie getting so hot.



PPS just curious as to what you majored in at college ?

[ChristineCB]

I think fear is a deterent. I believe pain is. I don't know a lot of us that touch a hot stove twice, but I think all of us have burned ourselves. And probably will again, but I don't think any of us enjoy the pain, and use our fear to usually temper our excitement of what's cooking under that steel lid by reaching for a pot-holder.



I don't know that sanitizing away our Fears of Pain & Punishment behind politically correct privacy concepts is such a good thing - I really do wonder about public punishment and whether criminals have enough self-respect to fear public humiliations as a deterent, or a reason for their behavioral change.



Which makes me wonder if the Outings Websites affect the predators and if that threat of being publicly identified and humiliated would stop someone. I'm a far stronger support for victims' rights than criminals', and I do wonder if our sanitized privacy hasn't given the criminals enough darkness to continue their scurrying about.



As for death penalties and deterence, you'd have to ask the kajillions of people who've never killed anyone yet have probably had wishes that someone in their face wasn't on this planet any longer. I've crushed the existence out of some creatures before - beheaded one, in fact. I've slit their guts and spilled their innards out. And when I stomp a cockroach, it's true that I don't fear his radioative 50-foot Harryhausen-esque brethren will come after me but I also don't believe he can be rehabilitated. So I kill the bugger.

[Carmel]

Im sorry if all you do gooder's feel that people deserve chance after chance because that's what its comeing to, how many have had chances to reoffend again and again, i had a terrible experiance to and i wont go into details but it makes me mad that some scum bag can go on with their lives after recking someone else's.

[Steve Crook]

name='ChristineCB']I think fear is a deterent. I believe pain is. I don't know a lot of us that touch a hot stove twice, but I think all of us have burned ourselves. And probably will again, but I don't think any of us enjoy the pain, and use our fear to usually temper our excitement of what's cooking under that steel lid by reaching for a pot-holder.



I don't know that sanitizing away our Fears of Pain & Punishment behind politically correct privacy concepts is such a good thing - I really do wonder about public punishment and whether criminals have enough self-respect to fear public humiliations as a deterent, or a reason for their behavioral change.



Which makes me wonder if the Outings Websites affect the predators and if that threat of being publicly identified and humiliated would stop someone. I'm a far stronger support for victims' rights than criminals', and I do wonder if our sanitized privacy hasn't given the criminals enough darkness to continue their scurrying about.



As for death penalties and deterence, you'd have to ask the kajillions of people who've never killed anyone yet have probably had wishes that someone in their face wasn't on this planet any longer. I've crushed the existence out of some creatures before - beheaded one, in fact. I've slit their guts and spilled their innards out. And when I stomp a cockroach, it's true that I don't fear his radioative 50-foot Harryhausen-esque brethren will come after me but I also don't believe he can be rehabilitated. So I kill the bugger.

Fear of punishment is rarely a deterrent. Which criminal commits their criminal act thinking that they will be caught?



What's the Outings website? Does it offer people a day out?



So you can act as judge, jury and executioner over a cockroach. Can you do the same over a human being?



Steve

[Steve Crook]

name='ChristineCB']Over the past few years, we've see websites publicly display sex-offenders and sex-predators names, faces and addresses, and while some have decried this 'invasion of privacy', that protest is fairly mocked down. But is it stopping the predators and perverts?

How accurate is it in accusing people?

There was a famous situation here in the UK where a newspaper started doing the same thing - except that one of the people targeted was a pediatrician, not a pedeophile as they claimed.



In any case it was a terrible idea leading to justice by lynch mobs. There is a good reason why the present system of justice, with all of its flaws, has replaced that.



Steve

[Carmel]

Steve are you rambling again

[JamesM]

My main consideration is the right of people not to become a victim.



Some of the ideas the 'do badders' have would risk the released prisoner going underground and might give rise to a few former prisoners offending again. Unfortunately there are too many 'do badders' around who would try and make marked people's lives a misery and so such 'marking' cwould not be able to work. The chances are that some people might fear for trheir own safety they might not see the punishment to come from re-offending to be that bad.



It's not that I care for the perpetrator, I am concerned that more people do not become victims. I also find it unsettling when I see people relish so much the opportunity to see anyone suffer. I see some of these people being much closer to the people they wish to punish than me. I could not get any pleasure out of an event that ultimately came from somethimg that caused great misery.



I truly believe that many of the people that decry the worst of society the most probably have faults themselves and are quietly relived that such people exist as it deflects what they do. I do, however, also accept that the most considerate in society, who are unfortunate enough to have been victims or know victims of such people, will also have strong feelings on the subject, because any such bad behaviour is so far removed from anything they would do. I would appeal to the people that fall in the latter category, to sacrifice the relish from some of the punishments as described above in order to decrease the likelihood of someone else becomming another victim. Sadly such a notion would just fall on deaf ears for the people whop fit into the latter category.



When you follow a murder trial in the US where the killer does not know there victim, you hear that someone has been charged, then you hear that someone has been convicted, then you hear that someone has been executed. The news that I find worth celebrating is the news that person who had committed the crime has most likely been caught and the news that the person who was charged turned out to be guilty. These two events prevent that crime from happening again. Whether or not the person will be killed does not impact upon the safety of other people at all, unlike the first two events, yet it is only when a death penalty is reached or served that most expressions of joy occur. I personally do not think that bodes well for society.

[Wee Sonny MacGregor]

Not "hung" but hanged. It's game and venison that is hung.

[Hackett]

The law and justice have nothing to do with each other.

[D Cairns]

It's interesting that this began as a discussion of a case of miscarriage of justice where an innecent, illiterate man was hanged for the murder of his wife and child, and has devolved into a call for the torture and public execution of offenders. Has the point been lost that some of those mutilated, abused and killed under such a system would be innocent? It seems to me obvious that if we behave in a civilized way towards uncivilized people, at least we won't be guilty of murder ourselves, especially the murder of innocents.

It's also worth noting that the reason none of the above suggestions would work as deterrents, and have never, in recorded history, worked as deterents, is that the offenders don't intend to get caught. They are either of the opinion that they're too smart, or they're so incapacitated mentally by drink or drugs, or just stupid or lacking impulse control, that they don't consdier the consequences at all. Rehabilitation might be an option, keeping them locked up might be an option, but it's abundantly clear that deterrence through severe punishment has no effect on the crime rate, it just satisfies public sadism.

[smiffy]

name='D Cairns']It's interesting that this began as a discussion of a case of miscarriage of justice where an innecent, illiterate man was hanged for the murder of his wife and child, and has devolved into a call for the torture and public execution of offenders. Has the point been lost that some of those mutilated, abused and killed under such a system would be innocent? It seems to me obvious that if we behave in a civilized way towards uncivilized people, at least we won't be guilty of murder ourselves, especially the murder of innocents.

It's also worth noting that the reason none of the above suggestions would work as deterrents, and have never, in recorded history, worked as deterents, is that the offenders don't intend to get caught. They are either of the opinion that they're too smart, or they're so incapacitated mentally by drink or drugs, or just stupid or lacking impulse control, that they don't consdier the consequences at all. Rehabilitation might be an option, keeping them locked up might be an option, but it's abundantly clear that deterrence through severe punishment has no effect on the crime rate, it just satisfies public sadism.

Actually D the thread started with a query regarding the location of the film 10 rillington place,and whether it was filmed in the house where the murder was commited.It has evolved into the Justice,Detterent, punishment ,debate of which a few of us have shared our views but as yet nobody has come up with any answers

[Carmel]

And nobody will

[Hackett]

We allegedly live in a democracy with a goverment that say it has spent a fortune on education. Could we not then as educated people put this capital punishment issue to bed with a national referendum?. Even though if we are honest we all no what the answer would be.

[Wee Sonny MacGregor]

Timothy Evans's last job before he was arrested was "van driver for a firm of confectioners in Lancaster Road, London W11" - from the 1966 Official Enquiry.

[christoph404]

name='PS68060']I thought that recent DNA tests had confirmed the verdict. I don't

know the details but I suppose whatever they tested could have been

contaminated.

Iwatched a very moving documentary about the Hanraty case, it was on TV about two years ago. The lady who was shot by Hanraty is still alive and has been confined to a wheelchair the remainder her life due to the gunshot wound, her male companion was shot dead, after which she was sexually assulted. The documentary showed how the victim never forgot the murderers face even to this day, and correctly picked him from an identity parade, Hanraty himself. What is shocking about this case is how the victim was mis quoted , mis represented and villified in the press at the time and to some extent ever since, while she is absolutley sure that the right man was punished for the crime. A recent DNA test from the preserved crime scene items ( semen from the victims underclothing) matched Hanratys DNA profile beyond any doubt, proving that he was indeed guilty of the crime. The advance of DNA has had a phenomenal impact on solving previously doubtful judgements both for and against.

[Carmel]

We are all getting too political in this debate, this is Brit movies not crime and punishment the question started out about the film and ended up with the dabate of the century please put it to rest now.

[christoph404]

name='Carmel']We are all getting too political in this debate, this is Brit movies not crime and punishment the question started out about the film and ended up with the dabate of the century please put it to rest now.

surely the idea of a discussion forum is that an original thread can lead to all sorts of topics and avenues of discussion, and if it is political.(which it isn't)...so what? sureley members can discuss whatever they like providing it is generated by an interest in film and its subject matter. So who are you to demand that contributers cease a certain train of thought? 10 Rillingtom Place is a very powerfull film and deals with some very powerfull issues many of which are being discussed here and yes the original question related to the location of the house but so what if it has also promoted discussion about other aspects of the film....such as crime and punishment? this was an important theme in the film and I dont think there is anything wrong with discussing this topic in relation to other films such as "Let Him Have It" etc. They are all perfectly valid points and all related to films, I personnaly think it is very healthy for an original thread to generate valid discussion about other aspects of a film other than the original question which has already been answered,is that not the point of this discussion forum or have i missed something somewhere? Your attitude astounds me Ihave to say.

[Steve Crook]

name='Carmel']We are all getting too political in this debate, this is Brit movies not crime and punishment the question started out about the film and ended up with the dabate of the century please put it to rest now.

Threads often drift away from their original point into other discussions.



And many British movies are about politics and about crime and punishment so it's hard to avoiud those topics - and I don't think they should be avoided.



As long as it doesn't get into a personal slanging match then it's usually acceptable here.



Steve

[D Cairns]

Victim's rights and criminals rights are the same rights. Everybody has the same rights. Everybody is supposed to obey the same laws, and face the same punishments if they break them.

It's legitimate to be afraid of violent criminals, but we must also be afraid of the state and not grant it the right to execute us or torture us or publicly humiliate us.

Of course it's unfair that a bad person can wreck an innocent life and no amount of punishment can truly balance that out. That's not the purpose of punishment. If it has no intention to reform the guilty party or protect society, punishment is just sadism. Sometimes life is just horribly unfair. Human justice can't truly make everything OK after a terrible crime, any more than it can take care of cancer.

It's been demonstrated time and again that execution doesn't deter, and that innocent people wind up executed. Why do people keep calling for it? "We know it doesn't work but we like it."