An eye for an eye...

[Dog]

Went to bed last night listening to BBC Radio 4 - woke up at 4am to hear an interview with this unfortunate woman,

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110517/wl_mideast_afp/irancourtjusticeislam_20110517125112

In the interview the attacker had so far been spared being blinded under anesthetic as a doctor was not available - chilling.

[Rabbie]

Just shows how a rigid belief can lead to terrible things. People forget that the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" law was originally setting maximum penalties to avoid escalating blood feuds.

[nomoss]

The argument behind actually carrying out the sentence this time is to try to put a stop to the growth of this increasingly common attack on women.

What do you think?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43029928/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/blinded-woman-gets-put-acid-attackers-eyes/

Her arms and the rest of her body were burned by the acid when she put her hands to her eyes.

Isn't the whole of the Western world getting too soft on crime?

 

Edit: Maybe she's lucky she can't see herself?

[Quillan]

Its a bit out of date, the sentence has not been carried out and has been dropped and the guy is going to prison (well stay in prison). It was on the BBC World News (BBC4) last night.

[Iceni]

[quote user="Dog"]

 In the interview the attacker had so far been spared being blinded under anesthetic as a doctor was not available - chilling.

[/quote]

The East is getting soft as well - surely there was no doctor present when the original attack took place?

Matthew 26:52 seems about right.

John

[Quillan]

I think the whole thing is barbaric and takes the law down to the level of the criminal. There are other ways of making a point when sentencing like an incredibly long prison sentence.

[Iceni]

[quote user="Quillan"]

I think the whole thing is barbaric and takes the law down to the level of the criminal.

[/quote]

I suspect that you are granting a level of decency to people who neither understand nor even aspire to it. Such punishments are easy for the criminal to understand, easy to administer and cheap - a win, win, win surely? And I favour hanging, flogging, the stocks and transportation (at least until Scotland and Wales are full) but not necessarily all for the same offence.

Perhaps we should agree to disagree?

John

[Mac]

Gandhi said 'an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind'

[Rabbie]

[quote user="Iceni"]

[quote user="Quillan"]

I think the whole thing is barbaric and takes the law down to the level of the criminal.

[/quote]

I suspect that you are granting a level of decency to people who neither understand nor even aspire to it. Such punishments are easy for the criminal to understand, easy to administer and cheap - a win, win, win surely? And I favour hanging, flogging, the stocks and transportation (at least until Scotland and Wales are full) but not necessarily all for the same offence.

Perhaps we should agree to disagree?

John

[/quote]I think you will findthat Scotland and Wales have already been exporting their undesirables eg G Brown and N Kinnock  [:D]

[Iceni]

[quote user="Mac"]Gandhi said 'an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind'[/quote]

But what did he achieve (other than martyrdom, of course)?

John

[breizh]

I never understood "eye for an eye" as a punishment method.

You did something bad, which we as a society totally abhor. SO, we're going actually the same thing to you as a punishment[8-)]

Punishment never works as a deterent to criminals. It only works in the minds of the lawabiding.

[idun]

I have heard it said by older people that when there was still capitol punishment in the UK then there were less murders.

I see and hear of terrible crimes these days, and yet there seems no punishment to fit the crime. I have nothing against people being rehabilitated, BUT, they should have some sort of punishment first. What this should be, I don't really know. Cleverer minds than mine could surely think of something.

[Iceni]

[quote user="idun"]

I have heard it said by older people that when there was still capitol punishment in the UK then there were less murders.

[/quote]

Not sure about that but it certainly prevented re-offending.

Or perhaps the police were more concerned about catching real criminals or were more efficient or both?

John

[Iceni]

[quote user="breizh"]

Punishment never works as a deterent to criminals. It only works in the minds of the lawabiding.

[/quote]

You imply that that is a "Bad Thing". If punishment doesn't work and non-punishment certainly doesn't there is no solution.

John

[Rabbie]

[quote user="idun"]

I have heard it said by older people that when there was still capitol punishment in the UK then there were less murders.

I see and hear of terrible crimes these days, and yet there seems no punishment to fit the crime. I have nothing against people being rehabilitated, BUT, they should have some sort of punishment first. What this should be, I don't really know. Cleverer minds than mine could surely think of something.

[/quote]Not actually true. The murder rate remained constant after the abolishment of Capital punishment. There has been a rise but only in the context of the increase of violent crimes in general. The only real deterrent is the certainty of being caught and convicted. Unfortunately too many get away without being caught.

[Hoddy]

I think I count as an 'older person' and my memory is that people who were not guilty were hung.

I am completely opposed to its reintroduction for that reason if no other.

I wonder if the increased crime rate is due to the growing gulf between the rich and the poor ?

Could it be to do with population increase ? When communities were smaller there was more informal social control.

Hoddy

[Clarkkent]

[quote user="idun"]

I have heard it said by older people that when there was still capitol punishment in the UK then there were less murders. [/quote]

And on what did they base this conclusion? Reliable statistics or the sort of reasoning that said that summers were longer and hotter when they were young? I think that public awareness of murder is greater now than it used to be, but that is due to greater media coverage today. The following link may be of interest, I don't think that it supports the folk memory. The incidence of murder for England and Wales is less than half that for Scotland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate_to_1999

[quote]

I see and hear of terrible crimes these days, and yet there seems no punishment to fit the crime. I have nothing against people being rehabilitated, BUT, they should have some sort of punishment first. What this should be, I don't really know. Cleverer minds than mine could surely think of something. [/quote]

I heard someone on the radio during the week talking about prison. I do not recall that it described a very pleasant environment. There was mention of intimidation, bullying, violence and rape. Doesn't sound like a holiday camp to me. Removal from the community is the punishment, not the savageness and hostility of prison life. The American model appears to be based on the warehousing of criminals at an enormous cost to the community - there are places where more is spent on imprisonment than on education - and Clarke appears to want to avoid that situation (hence foot in mouth incident last week).

The same programme also gave an astonishingly high figure for the percentage of prisoners who are illiterate. The recidivist rate is, apparently, quite high - the same people are going to prison repeatedly. One argument is that some people resort to crime because they lack the skills required to survive in the community.

 

 

[breizh]

Anyone who has been through the legal education system in recent years gets a thorough grounding in the crime/punishment relationship. It is the fear of being caught that deters criminals in most cases, in some cases such as intra-family murder, that doesn't work either. Punishment makes society feel a sense of revenge and fulfilment. It doesn't actually deter future offenders.

A silly example. Would you park on a double yellow line if you knew you weren't going to get caught? Most people would. Any punishment is irrelevant.

Criminals never think they are going to get caught. Therefore the potential punishment is not relevant.

We digress from the OP, and I am moving into areas which I try to avoid discussing.

 

 

[idun]

Thankyou for those figures about the murder rate. So it went up in the 1980's and has remained steady, still a lot of murders though, far more than I imagined.

Yes, my MIL used to tell me about the hot summers they had every year when she was a girl.

 

I really do not know how we could punish people. And I would bring back the death penalty for some crimes. Has anyone not seen the recent reports about child sex abuse including babies. Should we be feeding clothing and looking after these people for the rest of their days, they are not 'human' in the sense I understand 'human' so they would have no 'human rights'. I'd prefer them not to be polluting the planet.

 

[Quillan]

[quote user="idun"]

Thankyou for those figures about the murder rate. So it went up in the 1980's and has remained steady, still a lot of murders though, far more than I imagined.

Yes, my MIL used to tell me about the hot summers they had every year when she was a girl.

I really do not know how we could punish people. And I would bring back the death penalty for some crimes. Has anyone not seen the recent reports about child sex abuse including babies. Should we be feeding clothing and looking after these people for the rest of their days, they are not 'human' in the sense I understand 'human' so they would have no 'human rights'. I'd prefer them not to be polluting the planet.

[/quote]

I am in general agreement with you about capital punishment in this modern day and age with DNA, video surveillance, forensic science etc it is quite possible to be 200% certain you have caught the killer and therefore I see not point in keeping them alive at the tax payers expense. For those where there is any possibility they are innocent (like 0.01%) then lock them away for life which gives plenty of time for new evidence to come to light. Without further evidence I believe life should mean life, like to end of their natural life.

I also agree with you about human rights. If a person breaks in to your house or worse then you or the victims human rights have been violated. Suspect's in the time up to and including their trial should have their human rights protected (innocent till found guilty and all that). However in the event of them being found guilty then any human rights they had from the moment they set out to do whatever are removed just as they should be removed during the length of their sentence. Indeed part of their sentence should be the removal of their human rights and only by serving their sentence, repenting and apologising to the victim can they earn their human rights back.

As to the 'do gooders' well I bet they will be the first to shout if it were one of 'theirs' that gets killed or worse, bet they won't be so keen on the perpetrator having his/her human rights protected in prison.

I have seen the reports on the TV and in the papers about the alleged 40,000 plus alleged sexual offences carried out against children. It does appear however that although there are no exact figures on sex offences against children there is a figure for those found guilty of sex offences in general apparently and for 2010 there were just over 5,000 men and 100 women found guilty. So either the police are not very good, the justice system is not very good or there is something we are not being told. Perhaps out of the 40,000 there were 34,000 that were not real, I don't know. It's obviously a very complex subject and child sex abuse, well any abuse of children come to that, will always be in the minds of those that have children and grand children in as much as they hope it won't happen to theirs. Perhaps the figure was really about offenses against children in general like physical and mental abuse lumped in with the sexual abuse cases which got them to this number. It would be nice to see a break down of these figures so we can all make a better judgement.

[breizh]

When they tested the DNA found after the Omagh bombings, the 2 matches were a 14 year old Nottinghamshire boy, and an 86 year old great-grandmother from Glasgow. No measure of variance was recorded. They were guilty!

Now convince me that DNA testing 200% accurate.

Also bear in mind that it was Gary Gilmor, a convicted murderer, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, that overturned the US moratorium on the death penalty. He want to die, rather than spend life in prison. If you are going to go the "cost cutting" route, maybe you should consider that the vast majority of people sentenced to life imprisonment, would choose the death penalty if offered. They consider it a LESSER punishment. Society may not think that, but criminals do think that. Do you want to punish the purpetrator, or save a few quid?

I would also suggest that you should reconsider imposing the death penalty for certain types of murder. Police, children. You either do it 100% or not at all. Otherwise society is making a statement that the lives of certain people are less valuable, and therefore when convicted of taking that life, then society will impose what it deems is a lesser punishment. I consider my life just as valuable as anyone elses, so don't include me, in this scheme!

[breizh]

Now I'm ging to shut up, and hope SNCF manage, for the first time in their miserable, overcharging lives, to run a train on time. Hasta lluego.

[idun]

I would sort of like to agree, only I can't.

Am I capable of murder, in the right circumstances, yes, I reckon I am.  I am also pretty sure that most humans could and would murder in certain circumstances. I even suspect that if circumstances were that dire I would be capable of stealing to feed myself and my family. I don't commit crime, but some crimes are not things that I could never say 'never' too, if the world ever goes to xxxt.

HOWEVER, I would  NEVER EVER molest a child and I don't expect any human being to.

 

So no, not every crime is the same, cannot be the same.

 

[Rabbie]

Quillan, I agree with much of what you say but I must disagree with part of what you say about human rights. If a person is wrongly convicted and sent to prison is it really reasonable for them to repent  and to apologise for something they didn't do. It seems that they would in fact suffer a double injustice under your proposals. Until we can guarantee that there will be no wrongful convictions I fear we must put your idea on hold.  Some people might feel this is a risk worth taking but personally  would rather suffer a robbery than be wrongfully imprisoned for a crme I didn't commit with a future loss of my civil rights