Grow Your Own Magazine

What depressing news today. Steve Wright and Mark Dixie, both sentenced to life today for killing women.
More debate/hysteria to come about capital punishment, DNA databasing ...

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

...and I think I just heard on the news that Wright has now been linked to Susie Lamplugh?

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http://www.weltaf.co.uk/
Why keep a dog when you can bark yourself !

Probably not Suzy Lamplugh (different MO) but more likely Natalie Pearman and others: there are at least 5 unsolved murders of prostitutes from the Norwich/Ipswich, when he was working in Norwich.

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

When I was young(er!) I was an advocate of capital punishment - but in the hindsight of youth and the acquired wisdom of a few years I have come to the conclusion that a life sentence should be EXACTLY that. Certain DNA profiling has been proven to be unreliable so should not alone convict.

This would eliminate the possibility of the few innocents being wrongly dispatched at the State's behest and would give those wrongly convicted a 'lifetime' to investigate, prove and appeal conviction. I would be in favour of something like Devils Island to consign the very worst criminals to what remains of their lives to something of the misery they have inflicted upon their vitctims. The guilty may rot in this kind of living/earthly hell for as long as its takes for them to shift their mortal coil as far as I'm concerned.

Perhaps one of the most recently wrongly convicted people that I can remember was Stephen Kisko who spent many years behind bars for raping and killing a young girl - it was proved years later that he was physically incapable of the rape and, on appeal, of the crime of killing. Sadly he lived only months before he died.

The State should never reduce itself to a lower level of cruelty that those it seeks to punish and must remain above in order to have the respect of the people it seeks to protect. But punishments must be more approprite to the crime wherever and whatever it might be and judges must be more in tounch with public outrage.

Just the 'umble opinion of this grumpy old woman!

And now from a grumpy old man:
I was always an advocate of capital punishment and still am. Not to be used as a deterrent as that clearly doesnt work, but to stop the criminal doing the same thing again.

I am against the "Devils Island" scenario, incarceration away from the eye of the public can lead to horrific abuses, (read Papillon by Henri Charriere for the proof) or even life imprisonment as its still the tax payer that foots the bill.

The argument that wins out every time in the capital punishment debate is "what happens if its the wrong person?"
Although scientific processes are improving constantly, and there are less innocent people in prison today than maybe 30 years ago, there is still room for error.

In a clear cut (cctv, photographs etc) murder case, I would have no compunction about sending someone to meet their maker, and I also, in a clear cut case, wouldnt bother with the 30 years on death row that currently happens in the USA.

Judges certainly need to be more in touch with public sympathies, I am not decrying them, but they generally come from the same social strata, and thus do not see the driving poverty that causes crime, or the drug dependant's who steal to feed their habit and eventually go on to bigger crime.

If there is ever a modicum of doubt, then, IMO, the death penalty shouldnt be used, but, on the rare occasion that there is NO doubt whatsoever, then for killing a child, a policeman or serial killing, then capital punishment should be applied.
Wont happen though, doesnt win votes at an election.

Here endeth the lesson

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Bob Leponge
I dont live in a pineapple but I am trying to grow one

I think that they should put all the evil people on an island as far away from any humans, and leave them to live like animals, because that is what they are!!
they have no human rights if they take a human life, so let them all rot in hell ..
with DNA testing now days it would be vary rare to make a mistake.

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Live life to the full and you'll never regret not living !!

They did, didn't they - it's called Australia!

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You know you're a hard nosed gardener when you pull the weeds from others plots!

now they have a better life and all the sun ?? haha

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Live life to the full and you'll never regret not living !!

And, worst of all, they bl**dy beat us at cricket.

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Bob Leponge
I dont live in a pineapple but I am trying to grow one

i'll second that
too many paedophiles rapists and murderers have been let out to reoffend

i don't like life meaning life either - i don't want to pay to house, feed and clothe those scumbags

but before we hang them, we should remove all usable organs for compulsory donation to anyone who wants or needs them - lungs, heart, kidneys, corneas etc - we can put the dodgy organs back into the scumbags so they stay alive a bit longer - and then we can use them for all the testing that's currenltly done on animals - real live humans to use should get better results than on cats and dogs and mice

and at this point i bow out of this discussion as this is the sort of thing that leads to heated arguments and people falling out with each other

I think there are two big, practical reasons the death penalty doesn't work (leaving aside moral issues for a moment). The first is that if it's a case of sentencing followed by swift execution, there's too much risk of the wrong person being killed. The second is that if it's *not* a quick system, the public money spent on appeals far outweighs the cost of keeping a prisoner incarcerated for the rest of his life.

I do think a life sentence should be for life though.

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http://thankyouforthedays.blogspot.com/

In the woods there grew a tree
And a fine fine tree was he

Was listening to this very issue being discussed on the TV the other day, somebody made the very valid point that if we had put the Moors Murderers to death then the location of some of the bodies would never have come to light as they wouldn't have been able to lead the police to the right spot - whilst in no way making their crimes any the less horrific it must have been some comfort to the families to be able to put their child to rest.

Personally I don't believe the death penalty has any place in a civilised society but am expecting this thread to get pretty heated so will leave it to the rest of you to argue out and go and comment on something gardening related!

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Some of us live in the past, always talking about back then. Some of us live in the future, always planning what we are going to do. And, then there are those, who neither look behind or ahead, but just enjoy the moment of right now.

Which one are you and is it how you want to be?

I've seen more dead bodies in my life than I care to think about, first suicide when I was 15, gunshot wound to the mouth, WW1 pistol which exploded. Plus I've seen films of judicial executions including fillms of people being hanged and how long that takes, it's absolutely stomach turning.

All the people who say - not a problem, I could do that, all murderers should be topped - get a life. The majority of murders are domestics, they always have been and always will be and to quickly execute a person who kills their partner because they have been abused looses the plot completely.

Most people never have to deal with the consequences of sudden and violent death. I did for many years, I've seen people blown apart, hanged themselves with wire, people that have died in accidents, murders and suicides across the board.

I've never advocated capital punishment and still don't. Should we have executed any of the suicide bombers in London, had any of them survived, I don't know, I have some sympathy for the death penalty in that instance. The Chinese shoot their people within 24 hours, no real appeals process. The American states with the death sentence drag out the system for many years and then they still gas - which was banned in war after WW1 - people, electrocute them or kill them by lethal injection. To me it's all equally barbaric and brings the state down to the level of the killer - and guys like those sentenced today are sick, in both senses of the word so, as a State, do we start to bump off those who are sick - if they're not sick, they're normal and remember, many serial killers are just like everybody else in most areas of their lives.

Serial killers are few and far between, thank goodness but to execute people following the hysteria both these cases have generated would be wholly wrong to me.

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TonyF, Dordogne 24220

Not fair to compare evil people to animals. Animals fight to the death quite openly and in pursuit of the survival of the fittest. There is no underhanded killing in the animal world - except maybe when the fox gets in the chicken run.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

I'm sorry, but I just can't agree with capital punishment, I really don't want to sink to their level. How can a society claim that murder is wrong, but then go ahead and do it? As far as I'm aware the 'do as I say, not as I do' school of child rearing never worked and I really can't see that it would be any different in a wider context. Life, however, should mean life. By coincidence my OH and I were discussing the case of Peter Sutcliffe with no 2 daughter this lunchtime, she was born the year after he was finally caught and even though he killed 13 women his sentence was only to be a minimum of 30 years - which means that technically he could be out in 4 years time, still young enough to be a menace to society. I don't mind paying taxes to keep him there, they're used for worse things, but I would object to judicial murder in my name.

I have to say I'm a bit worried about capital punishment - usual feelings of "oh heck, what if it's not the right person". However, in cases where there is a totally proven case, then I go with the "eye for an eye" scenario - including "a life for a life". However, I would expect this verdict to be backed up by indisputable evidence.

As for Steve Wright (Ipswich), I feel the case against him has been proved, but possibly not the absolute 100% which would justify the capital punishment.

However, I now hear that they are going to put him in a high security prison and put him on suicide watch!!! Why!!! If he's guilty and decides to take his own life, then let him.

Years ago I had the misfortune to watch that infamous 'Execution' video before it was banned. One thing it brought sharply in to focus is that capital punishment is totally barbaric, no matter which country it occurs in.

I'm with Blue Moon on this - if we condone murder by murdering murderers, how do we explain that logic to our children?

Also, when you think about how traumatised train drivers are when they run over suicide victims, it makes you wonder about the mental strain on the prison staff who have to deal with people on death row. Isn't it more logical to just ensure that people who could reoffend are kept locked up?

Maybe I've been watching too much Prison Break...

Whilst I am not 100% anti capital punishment, I do have a problem with the current prison sentencing regime whereby, in the majority of cases, the sentence served is half (or less) of the tarriff imposed by the judiciary. If someone is sentenced to ten years for a violent crime, they should serve ten years, not a day less. Forget good behaviour. Anyone can "repent" when they are banged up for 23 hrs a day, if they think it'll earn them time off their sentence. And while we're at it, ban TV'S, pool tables etc from prisons. One hour supervised exercise a day - that's it. Bring back chain gang style work programmes - not this soppy community service, which half the offenders just don't turn up for.
Too many prisons are nowe holiday camps - especially open prisons - what the f... is that all about. Open prisons should only be populated by those who have perpetrated white collar crimes, and not those who have committed violent crimes, regardless of how close to the end of their sentence they are. I'm not right wing but if that what it takes.

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Rat

British by birth
Scottish by the Grace of God

Blog updated Wednesday November 13th

Edited: Sorry folks, couldn't leave that on here, far too personal and traumatic.

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TonyF, Dordogne 24220

I don't really see why it should cost us thousands of pounds to keep them in prison for the rest of their lives... a bullet is so much cheaper.

janeyo

have read the posts and really didn't want to reply, but, i understand what everyone says, i don't like the thought of capital punishment, but when you hear the evidence and what happened to the victims (from the murderers themselves) you begin to wonder why these people should be allowed to have everything in prison (they have a lot more than some honest hardworking people) and are allowed to carry on breathing, IMHO