The Death Sentence in Britain

2: Economics. Believe it or not, it actually costs more to kill someone than to keep them in prison for life. I don’t have any actual numbers on me right now though (I may need to go find some). My only argument for this is one for Britain. It may cost more to kill someone but what about the problem of overcrowding prisons? This will need the government to build more prisons, therefore forcing them to hire more staff which will cost them a pretty penny. By introducing the death penalty prison numbers will decrease by a fair amount (sorry don’t have statistics) and some may even be closed. This will save the government money and will probably even out the cost of killing them.

3: Criminal psychology- if someone is driven to a point where they’ll kill someone, then they’re going to do it regardless of the consequences. Canada has considerably lower crime rates than the US, but the US supports the death penalty while Canada doesn’t. Well if a person is driven to a point when someone is not bothered by life in prison then they will not care about life. They will do nothing constructive and, like you said, they will be at such a state that nothing can help them. Therefore I feel that the death penalty would be a mercy killing for said person. Comparing the US to Canada is also not the greatest as they are considerably different society’s. The US has certain areas that have been given up on and allowed to thrive in their law breaking lifestyle. Canada on the other hand will try and look after all places in it and has a tradition of being very sophisticated people. This is a case of the society and not the penalty. That is as I understand it anyway, if this is not the case please correct me.

4: Is ending their lives a suitable punishment? You did mention that they have “good lives” in prison, but is just suddenly ending their lives really fitting the crime? You could just simply restrict the luxuries in prison (which also lowers the costs). As well, you should remember that the increase in crime can be correlated to the increase in population (and to heavy metal… just kidding). Hm well the problem is that restricting the luxuries probably would not get anything done. People manage to thrive in prison because they have control. They organise people, sneak in drugs because of powers on the outside and even if let them have little to no freedom life for the majority of murderers would still be improved on the inside. The population may be a factor but you will also have to put across the fact that the economy was (before quite recently) booming and people were richer and generally happier. This would surely make crime rates go down. Also I blame rap music you damn young people. That is my argument and I hoped it will cause some discussion.