The two killers of Lee Rigby have been justly sentenced, though I’m not up to speed as to why one should have received ‘whole life’ and the other, a finite term.
I have a suggestion for a perhaps more merciful solution. More merciful that is, than that which they meted out to their victim.
Any one convicted and sentenced to more than say, thirty years or, to whole life, should have, in their cell, a small – 18 inches by 12 inches, glass doored wall safe. In the locked safe, floodlit from within, should be a bottle of water – changed at suitable intervals – and a lethal pill.
The key to the safe should be in the possession of the convict and available for personal use at any time. The idea is that the State makes the means available and the convict makes the choice. That should be acceptable to the EU provided we’re still members. It will save the taxpayer a whole heap of cash and rid the Earth of those who by their actions have forfeited the right to existence.
I’m just stuffed full of good ideas !
By: John Green - 28th February 2014 at 19:07
Re 13
I’m not too concerned with your liberal left exculpatory tosh. I expected plenty of that from some of the ‘hand wringers’ on this Forum.
It was really too much to expect that you would grasp the central point that I was makng with, I add, some extreme simplicity. If prison doesn’t work, it is because it is not seen as a deterrent by criminals. So, criminals will continue to offend. Those that offend, particularly barbarously, should be offered the choice I’ve outlined, for the reasons I’ve given. The alternative is a prison system that could, eventually, comprise thousands of ‘whole lifers’ who, merely from the taxpayers point of view, should be offered not a lifeline but a deathline.
They the criminals put themselves in this position. They can exercise choice. Their victims usually couldn’t.
I desperately want to take notice and listen to what the liberal left have to say. The reason why I can’t is because of their constant pre-occupation with the rights and welfare of the perpetrator. Because of that I have to ‘display my right wing based ignorance very freely’. Because it is the warped and twisted beliefs of you and other like minded liberals that have been so wickedly irresponsible in promoting the breakdown of a once disciplined and law abiding nation.
By: snafu - 28th February 2014 at 18:31
John. John, John, John. Please don’t display your right-wing biased ignorance quite so freely.
Can you imagine the screams of anguish from our friends at the NCCL – although they are rather busy it appears with paedophiles – and the likes of Liberty?
You don’t have any friends in the NCCL, even if that wasn’t a silly but sarcastic comment on your part.
In 1989 the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) changed its name to Liberty, so mentioning both as ongoing concerns together is a bit like saying that both the RFC and the RAF are separate entities within military aviation.
As I understand it the NCCL was formed in 1934 to protect civil liberties and promote human rights – through the courts, in Parliament and in the wider community. This meant that many self or one interest groups were incorporated – including a group advocating that children’s civil liberty to experience love through sex by reducing or eliminating the minimum age for sexual relations with the claim that if both parties are in favour of the action then why make it illegal. And before you start painting the messenger through familiarity with the subject no, I am not in favour of it: it is what I understand through familiarising myself with such current news events.
Anyway.
The NCCL was involved – and Liberty since – in lots of campaigning work against racial discrimination, women’s rights, gay rights, political freewill, reform of the mental health system, high lighting miscarriages of justice, detention without charge, you get the drift. These are things that will have touched on some aspect of your own life (possibly quite a few, maybe?) so I’m sure you can see the futility in your making a joke out of just a small part of the group from 1976, quite a long time ago.
Or maybe not.
Votes for women?
By: trumper - 28th February 2014 at 17:16
While individual cases are clearly tragic, the violent crime rate and the murder rate are decreasing and have done so for a few years now.
Perhaps something is working after all.
But that probably has nothing to do with the prison sentences.Criminals who go out and perform these atrocities i doubt take much notice of the punishment if any.I would guess the crime figures falling are a combination of things before it reaches the point of crime and prosecution.It may come down to reporting and and the way figures are recorded.
CCTV is a great deterrent i feel and not to mention most people now have some sort of videoing photographic portable device so getting away with anything is much less likely.
I daresay you have a few major categories,
1,Pre meditated and planned regardless of sentence, i e terrorist attack ,murder of a particular target,
2,On the spur of the moment-hotheaded not thinking any further ahead than that instant of impact– like the guy punched on the pavement.
3,A slow build up i e a festering argument building up to flash point.
I would think most crimes are now solved,even ones from the distant past are being solved through DNA and technology.
By: Derekf - 28th February 2014 at 16:28
While individual cases are clearly tragic, the violent crime rate and the murder rate are decreasing and have done so for a few years now.
Perhaps something is working after all.
By: John Green - 28th February 2014 at 16:13
Judged by readers letters in the Press and what we write on these Forums, a harsher prison regime is what we all want and have wanted for many years. What has happened? What has happened, is what we see to-day. Numbers of Home Secretaries have apparently fallen over themselves – perhaps at the behest of the EU – to administer so-called ‘soft justice’.
EELightning mentions the case of the victim suffering from Asperger’s who was without any provocation or warning punched, fell, hit his head and died as a consequence – the villain was convicted and sentenced to four years which means that he could be out of prison in two or even less.
Such is the strength and influence of the liberal left elite in this country that I do not think that soft option justice and sentencing will ever now change. It has now been that way for thirty years or more. Prisoners are now called inmates or if face to face, by their title and second name eg. Mr. Smith. They wear their own clothes.
If most of us agree that change, away from this description of prison life, while desirable is not at all likely to happen then, the price for acceptance must be something along my idea of offering choice. Choice in this context will work like prison does. If they’re inside, they’re not wreaking havoc outside. If they’ve chosen death, they are never again going to wreak any kind of havoc. That should suit most of us.
By: trumper - 28th February 2014 at 16:04
Liking your thinking! May I introduce using the subjects for testing, squirting Fragrances, Shampoos, house hold Chemicals etc. into their sensitive parts of the body? It saves testing on Animals, which I love with a passion and it breaks my heart seeing them treated like this, and it stops Cruelty to Animals. I quite like that idea.
Absolutely.
If i was a member of the victims family i wouldn’t want to give the perpetrators a choice of a easy way out,i e Johns suicide option,i would feel cheated.
Having said that maybe the choice SHOULD ultimately be down to the victims family,IF they want the choice.
By: charliehunt - 28th February 2014 at 15:40
The only drawback about your first paragraph, applying John’s proposal, is that the locked cupboard would be opened and poison drunk, thus avoiding the myseries of chemical testing.
You could apply your proposal without John’s!;)
By: EELightning - 28th February 2014 at 14:07
Liking your thinking! May I introduce using the subjects for testing, squirting Fragrances, Shampoos, house hold Chemicals etc. into their sensitive parts of the body? It saves testing on Animals, which I love with a passion and it breaks my heart seeing them treated like this, and it stops Cruelty to Animals. I quite like that idea.
On a separate note regarding the killers of Lee Rigby, as we all know one got a definite life sentence, the other 45 years…
…On a separate incident not so long a go. Two coloured guys were hanging about, one was riding a Bicycle on the pathway when an innocent man had a go at him for it, and rightly so, paths are for pedestrians. The Bicycle lad’s friend that was with him approached the Gentleman, took a vicious swing at him, punched him full on in the side of his face, fell over a banged his head off the road. The lad that assaulted him casually walked off without a care in the world. The Gentleman died of his injuries a short time later… The 24(?) year old got sentenced 4 and a half years.
There’s something not correct there, is there.
By: charliehunt - 28th February 2014 at 13:57
But surely, John, that’s part of the problem. Prisoners shouldn’t have choices, they should be deprived and obliged to abide by a rigid regime. Punished in other words. Life in prison should be unpleasant and not one to which they willingly return. Otherwise prison is just a restrictive hotel.
As I said some would achieve martyrdom quickly and why should we enable them to achieve their highest aspiration? Most would sit out the term in relative comfort for 15 years or less.
I realise you are playing devil’s advocate to encourage an interesting debate but the stumbling block, however appealing it might be to some, would be the matter of its illegality here and elsewhere in the EU.
But I will join you in letters to the Home Secretary for less liberty, fewer rights and more deprivation in prison and for sentencing to mean what is says.
By: John Green - 28th February 2014 at 13:42
The simple beauty of this proposal is that it isn’t prescriptive. Rather more, it gives choice. It might be as Charlie writes that we would, for example, be giving certain religious fanatics what they apprently want – what is wrong with that !
At a time when we are under pressure to give convicts the right to vote – their choice, what is wrong, in a parallel way, with giving them the right to die – their choice? They don’t have to take it !
If there was any realistic chance of a reversion to the concept of ‘hard labour’ I’d be all for it. But, a regime of prison deprivation and hardship ? Can you imagine the screams of anguish from our friends at the NCCL – although they are rather busy it appears with paedophiles – and the likes of Liberty? No. The militant libertarian wing of the EU would be on our backs before Baroness Ashton could put her lippy on.
I commend this idea. Let us all write letters of support to the Home Secretary. Victims of the kind of scum we’re talking about could obtain some kind of redemptive satisfaction writing frequent letters urging the key holder to do us all a favour.
It has a rather appealing symmetry. All we have to do is provide the means.
By: charliehunt - 28th February 2014 at 13:02
Now you are talking – some form of PUNISHMENT, perhaps by deprivation? Have you chatted to the human rights people about it…..?:D
By: trumper - 28th February 2014 at 12:55
I like the idea in principle BUT it takes away the punishment side of things.I would go down the road of minimum food[preferably something they shouldn’t eat on religious grounds],manky water in minimal doses,no medical care and minimal light,not enough to read by .
By: charliehunt - 28th February 2014 at 12:43
State assisted suicide…the Dutch might go for it!! And any convicted Jihadist would use it within the first 10 minutes and so become the martyr they so crave to be. For the rest they know they will be out in about 15 years, so probably worth enduring the comforts of life “all found” at the taxpayer’s expense.
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February 28, 2014 at 11:41 am