Once proven 100% guilty [by todays investgative and forensic abilities]
Bullet to the back of the head job done no re offending.

For the record

Rapists Death

I beleive [however naively ] that more rightly convicted would die than wrongly convicted given todays forensic science.

What are we talking about here 51/49, 60/40, 80/20? :rolleyes: Are you serious?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/13/rape-convictions-low

“The government estimates that as many as 95% of rapes are never reported to the police at all. Of the rapes that were reported from 2007 to 2008, only 6.5% resulted in a conviction…”

Yes, that’s less than one in every three-hundred alleged ‘rapists’ getting convicted.

How is a death penalty going to improve conviction rates in any case that ultimately relies on the word of one person against another?

In cold mathematical/statistical terms I see and totally agree your point.
The underlying time bomb is that such crimes are a barometer of “Feck it, they won’t even put me inside” attitude which is rife.
It’s probably 3 generations deep now, there is no hope for the growing Pikey Chav scumbag class. They learn it from Parents who were schooled by their parents – no moral standing or respect whatsoever. In the scheme of things, such crimes are important because they disturb the feelings of decent people in as much as having ones wallet lifted.

But was there ever a ‘golden era’ when this sort of crime didn’t happen?

I’m not condoning it but the theft of a dozen poppy-appeal collection-boxes is surely going to be way down on anybody’s priority list; as a comparison 200,000 cars were reported stolen in the UK in 2005.

And if they are caught how can they be punished (birching aside)? The courts have already been instructed not to bother prosecuting much more serious offences on grounds of costs.

The prisons are full and this forum is well-known for its ‘life should mean life’ stance so where does that leave us?

And thats a bad storyline how?
Compared to Dambusters it was a more heroic story,having the crews manouver the lancs while under attack at low level by the Me109,s in daylight has always been a more vivid picture.

I never said that it was a bad storyline…

…I just wondered why every film made in the last forty years about a British military operation had to feature it as a heroic failure?

Was the Augsburg raid a failure? I know it was costly but I thought that the target was (well) hit?

Yes, in my opinion it was a total failure.

The slight damage to the MAN U-boat engine factory had a negligible effect on production and seven out of twelve Lancasters and their crews were lost (although mercifully twelve men survived as POW). Few, if any, of the surviving Lancasters were fit for operations the next day and the effect on crew moral of such losses can only be imagined. In short operations of that type were unsustainable and certainly did more harm to the British than the Germans.

However I say that with the benefit of hindsight and of course I acknowledge the near suicidal courage of the crews involved.

What about something to do with the Allied missions to support the Warsaw Uprising?

At least you wouldn’t need too many Russian aircraft to film that one! :diablo:

I don’t think anyone suggested it was, did they? It was “just a crime” that’s all!:confused:

Let me make my position clear.

Yes, all thefts of poppy-appeal collection-boxes are crimes, and those responsible should be ashamed of themselves. I do not condone them in any way whatsoever, it is not something I have done, nor would I ever do so but…

…these crimes must be seen in the proper perspective.

That was the reason for my sarcastic (:rolleyes:) ‘hardly the disintegration of civilised society’ comment.

There is a worrying trend here from some posters. Perhaps it’s age but I was brought up to understand that stealing is stealing and the circumstances are irrelevant. Perhaps this cavalier attitude that some have expressed here is a symptom of the age in which we now live. I find it rather depressing but perhaps unsurprising.:(

So what exactly are you proposing be done about this situation that ‘some posters’ are being cavalier about?

I’m not just arguing for the sake of it here, I’m genuinely interested in how you would go about it, what resources you would allocate, how much money you would be prepared to spend and how this money would be raised from the taxpayer?

Would you propose educating the population in general, and those responsible for these crimes in particular, to show them the error of their ways and hope to prevent this crime ever occurring?

Would you improve security of the collection-boxes themselves to deter crime? What would this cost?

Would you allocate police resources to track-down those responsible for these crimes, arrest them, charge them with theft and bring them to court? How much would that cost? Would they get legal aid?

What punishment do you think would be appropriate (apart from the slow birching already suggested)? Would they go to prison? What would that cost?

Why is it a ‘cop out’? I’m not defending the actions of these people; they should be ashamed of themselves.

All I’m saying is, that of the sixty-odd million people in Britain, so far we have five people implicated in grand-theft poppy-tin (if you count the kid in the push-chair)…

…it’s hardly the disintegration of civilised society is it? :rolleyes: