Death penalty for Saddam Hussein

[Gecko]

Saddam Hussein has been convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging.

The former Iraqi president was convicted by a Baghdad court for his role in the killing of 148 people in the mainly Shia town of Dujail in 1982.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6117910.stm

Was bound to happen :wtf:

[pud]

Meh

[Beanyboy]

Was the only right verdict tbh. The world has no place for dictators.

[pud]

no doubt the correct verdict, but i find it a bit ironic that the first well-publicised action of a new flagship democracy is to string up their old leader.

awful, awful guy but i'm yet to be convinced that anyone should be put to death by fellow human beings

[donkeyhumper]

I'm sure it was the right verdict. He's clearly guilty but I'm never that comfortable with the death penalty. For pragmatic reasons of local tradition and wiping the slate clean, I guess it is probably the right thing to do but I'd rather it was simply unacceptable everywhere for the state to kill.

edit: gah pud! beat me :P

[the_lag_monster]

I'm all for capitol punishment, but in this case I wonder if a life of torture and degradation for the evil ******* might be better for democracy.
After all, death at the hands of a democratic state can only make him a martyr and encourage rebellious groups in Iraq to retaliate.

[play_boy_2000]

imo, he should have been tossed in some prision outside of iraq (not in guantanimo) and have to spend 21 hours a day in solitary.

Ulltimately, should have had the balls to stand up and meet his maker in a hail of gunfire and avoided this whole mess. On that note, i say he should face a firing squad of 200+ people who deserve the oppertunity to turn him into swiss cheese.

[Idiophreak]

I'm pretty much in favour of the death penalty.

Although, to be honest, I don't have strong feelings either way - my only real feeling on the matter is that I don't see why all the tax my whole family will ever pay should be used to keep some serial rapist/killer alive.

The idea of directing the money there rather than toward schools, NHS etc is just stupid. They're gonna die in prison anyway, so get it over with, and save the country a bunch of money.

When I'm prime minister (any day now, surely) - I'll bring in the death penalty, but allow people to buy their way out of it - they can stay alive as long as someone's funding their jail time - so if humanitarian groups want to club together and pay to keep Sutcliffe etc alive, they're welcome to, but leave the tax payer out of it.

That said, however, I think that Hussein should probably have been kept alive. Just for the new adminstration to be seen taking the moral high ground really, but again, no strong feelings either way. I really don't think I know anywhere near enough about what he did etc to make an informed decision.

[pud]

Although, to be honest, I don't have strong feelings either way - my only real feeling on the matter is that I don't see why all the tax my whole family will ever pay should be used to keep some serial rapist/killer alive.

Fair point, but I was researching an essay on this years ago at school. Turns out that (in America at least) it's cheaper to keep people in jail for the rest of their lives as people tend to a bit happier with a life sentence than with the death penalty. If they are sentenced to death then there is often an automatic appeals process where they are entitled to go through many increasing levels of court, losing every step of the way.

Lawyers' and court fees far outweigh the cost of one extra prisoner, it would seem.

No I don't have a reference for all this, it was years ago :(

[donkeyhumper]

I'm not trying to have a go at you Idiophreak but I hate how ill informed many people are about things. Capital punishment is a great example but there are many others like GM crops and stem cells.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS NOT CHEAP!

Here's an interesting link that might be work a skim read. http://www.mindspring.com/~phporter/econ.html

Florida calculated that each execution there costs some $3.18 million. If incarceration is estimated to cost $17000/year, a comparable statistic for life in prison of 40 years would be $680,000."

By your logic Idio, you'd have to be paying people about $2.5 million to opt not to have the death penalty.

I personally am against capital punishment on idealistic principles and think that the idea of having different standards for the rich is repugnant. (Although something similar is practised in a jail somewhere in south America where you can buy a better cell etc... hmm, maybe plow will know.)

edit: god dammit! beaten by Pud again!

[Idiophreak]

Just because that's the case elsewhere doesn't mean it has to be the case here.

To get a list of all the prisoners who're *without a doubt* guilty and who're never going to be released and just have them killed wouldn't cost much at all.

In any case, the value of American executions isn't as straightforward as your maths makes it. Say each person that gets the chair deters 100 people from commiting murder, you're saving a lot of money right there.

Also, as I hinted at before, the whole math is based on the American system of complicated legal processes for execution. I don't see the need for that. If you're happy to put someone away for life based on X number of trials, you should be happy to put them to death in the same number. So, if you assume that legal costs are the same for either punishment, the numbers are heavily in favour of the death penalty.

Also, the $680k is not really applicable to the UK - our prisoners are kept far better than their american chums. A prisoner in the UK costs over £25kpa to keep. That's £1m over 40 years, or $1.9m. (although, of course, the total for an execution would be higher in this country if the same process were used, everythings more expensive here).

Finally, the average life expectancy is longer, it's not unthinkable that some lifers may serve 50 or 60 years (especially with their good diet, regular exercise etc)

It's not a question of being ill informed, it's a question of how you look at the numbers. And I think it should go without saying that if someone's in favour of the death penalty for the sake of reducing the burden on the taxpayer, they're also going to be in favour of streamlining legal process.

edit: It's worthy of note, that as I said previously, I really don't care either way on this one. What I will say is that 25k to keep someone in jail is just stupid. £13/week food (£1.87 per day at current), £5/week utilities, that's £940pa. Say one guard for every 10 prisoners, pay them 30k each, that means each prisoner needs to contribute 3k, so you're looking at £3940pa. And thats with 1 guard per 10 prisoners, fairly sure current ratios aren't that high. Assume that each 100 prisoners have a "SUPERGUARD" bloke being paid 100k, take 1k from each of the 100 prisoners, you've still got change from £5k. I just can't think what the government finds to squander the other 20k on (well, besides gyms, ps2s, free degrees and all the other hardships modern prison entails)

Anyway, I digress...End rant.

[the_lag_monster]

Or simply that they deserve to die, rather than live in a prison that, when compared to many of the more desolate parts of the world, isn't all that bad...

[pud]

JSay each person that gets the chair deters 100 people from commiting murder

It won't.

(well, besides gyms, ps2s, free degrees and all the other hardships modern prison entails)

*yawn* if you think prisoners should be left to rot then you might as well put all of them to death. Putting people away is as much about reform as it is about punishment.

a prison that, when compared to many of the more desolate parts of the world, isn't all that bad...

But surely this is a good thing. I'd like to think that as a reasonably advanced state that we treat our prisoners fairly and don't throw the key away.

[Idiophreak]

*yawn* if you think prisoners should be left to rot then you might as well put all of them to death. Putting people away is as much about reform as it is about punishment.


Sod that.

If someone takes another life, the state should take theirs, if not through the death penalty then through keeping them in jail for the rest of their days.

That being the case, the only person helped by "reform" is the prisoner - and, frankly, they don't deserve it.

As for more minor offences, perhaps if prison was made a little more unpleasant we wouldn't see such high rates of re-offending? Perhaps jail time should be spent thinking about the crime you committed rather than becoming a world champion in Virtua Tennis?

I'm not talking about making prisons dungeons, but when I was a kid I couldn't afford a games console, certainly not a gym membership and I'm fairly sure I had to pay for my degree. When prisoners get better conditions than working class kids something's gone wrong.

[donkeyhumper]

Lets be honest. Prisoners don't really have good conditions. You're buying into the Daily Mail hysteria. Yes its not always hell but you need to have good rewards in prison as incentives to keep them under control.

I'm not going to defend specifics of the criminal justice system (apart from principles such as the death penalty) but I think instead of using hatred toward criminals, we should look at what offers the best outcome in terms of reform etc.

Also, death penalty is surely a bad idea given the many examples of miscarriages of justice.

[Idiophreak]

Yes its not always hell but you need to have good rewards in prison as incentives to keep them under control.

No, you see, that's doing things the wrong way round. It's this whole idea of rewarding good behaviour, not punishing bad behaviour.

When do I, as a well behaved tax payer ever get rewarded? I don't.

Prisoners should be expected to behave.

It's the same with parole. The whole idea of getting time off your sentence for "good behaviour" is absolute mongoose! If they don't behave, add time to their sentence. There's your incentive right there and all without the need for a weekly pro-evo round robin.

Also, maybe that would teach them that if they misbehave they get punished, not that if they're good they're going to be magically rewarded. People don't get magically rewarded in the real world, so in the spirit of "reform" rewarding prisoners' good behaviour is somewhat counterproductive.


Also, death penalty is surely a bad idea given the many examples of miscarriages of justice.


That's a concern for sure, but you do get the odd nutter that's proud of their 77 rapes etc. There are some (albeit few) cases where there's no doubt at all.

[pud]

That's a concern for sure, but you do get the odd nutter that's proud of their 77 rapes etc.

In which case it sounds fairly like they're mentally ill, and needing psychiatric treatment rather than hanging

[Idiophreak]

So you don't think there are people who're just fundamentally evil?

[pud]

So you don't think there are people who're just fundamentally evil?

Na, just misunderstood :p

[the_lag_monster]

Completely in agreement with Idio here.
People who've committed serious crimes like murder/rape shouldn't be let out in the first place - far as I'm concerned, they can be mentally unstable or whatever, and I don't care. If they kill/rape people, they need to be disposed of. We're talking about the safety of good, law-abiding citizens, and I'm tired of offenders getting more benefits/rights than victims - it needs to ******* change.

[mrplow]

Much as it pains me, I'm siding with the idio and lag monster camp rather than donk and puds.

I'm sorry donk, I know you've never steered me wrong before :frown:

[play_boy_2000]

Instead of prision, i think non violent offenders should be put to work on public works projects (roads, bridges, parks, etc.) and they work for free till their debt to socity is paid. Let them work a second job for some basic stuff (but confinscate anything over £6 per hour). At night, they can come back to the prision, get a meal and a place to sleep.
With a tracking system imbedded in their body that automaticly incapasitated them if they left the job site, it could probabably work.

It's like, imposeing communisim on them as punishment :lol:

If they are violent, put them in the 'shoe' for their entire sentence.

[Idiophreak]

Instead of prision, i think non violent offenders should be put to work on public works projects (roads, bridges, parks, etc.) and they work for free till their debt to socity is paid.

That's not a bad idea, actually.

I have a similar plan for when I'm prime minister.
We have two problems
1) loads of litter, gum on the pavements, uncut hedges etc
2) loads of people getting job seekers / income support without doing much for it.

So, we give them all 20 hours of work a week at minimum wage (making their 106 quid or whatever it is) tidying the place up etc - they can work the mornings, then have a couple of hours at the job centre looking for jobs in the afternoon.

If we put an infrastructure in place for supervising these folks, no reason why a few white-collar crimers shouldn't join them to pay for their nights in the slammer :)

[Beanyboy]

Great ideas guys, I'll make a note of them for when I'm lord master of earth. Mwuahahahaha
*ahem*

[9point9]

So coming back to the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain (that was the point yeah?) most people seem to want him to hang. That is the way things are done in many countries, we shouldn't stop them, particularly when they're going to hang the person who decided what things you could hang for.