AT this moment, a young Australian is in jail in SIngapore, awaiting the death penalty.

He was caught smuggling Heroin. He will be hanged.

There is a lot of talk here in Australia regarding this sentence, some agree, some disagree, but, as the offence took place in a foreign country, there is little this country can do about it.

As the penalty for drug smuggling in Singapore is well known, and indeed, advertised at the airport, nobody can claim ignotrance regarding this, they get involved knowing full well the possible repercussions if caught.

SO, my question: the death penalty, right or wrong?

I don’t know about putting drug smugglers to death. Well, I suppose you could argue the social impacts of the substances they traffic. So it is not unreasonable I suppose but had it been for something more minor like pot I would think it was kind of extreme. In western countries we spend a great deal of effort and cost to try to make sure mistakes aren’t made in the death penalty. To me it seems more like a ritually then right or wrong. I don’t buy it acts as a determinant and I think some people might prefer the death penalty to life in prison. I also find it odd that we even discuss how humane some methods are like lethal injection. Do I really care if some mass murder or serial killer goes quietly or screaming. I don’t care if they fry or rot in prison. The most important part is the answer for there crime. Everything else is just details.

As punishment for crimes, I really don't get it. It's actually the easy way out; with life in prison, the person will have to think about what they've done for the rest of their life. Much worse.

I suppose it is subjective which a person considers worse. The prison environment could be tailored to make sure it is worse but not without human rights issues. Execution allows us to pretend we are not being barbaric.

Here in America, our big problem with the judicial system is that many criminals don't take it seriously. Nor should they: you can get away with all sorts of insane stuff if it's your first or even third or fourth offense because our jails and prisons are overcrowded (severely) and judges/other officials have no choice but to let a lot of people off even if they *are* dangerous and totally unwilling to become halfway decent citizens.

I don't think that it's really fair to execute a drug smuggler. That's harsh in my opinion. Everyone deserves another chance ... even if it's twenty, forty years in a prison.

At the same time, I'm not crying for the guy. He knew what could happen to him, but he did it anyway. The law might be way too harsh in many peoples' views, but one can still *not commit crimes*

At the same time... I wish the American judicial system actually, you know, *punished* criminals. We used to have work camps: every prisoner, unless sick or otherwise incapable of physical labor, had to actually earn his keep (or hers - we've had our share of female criminals too). When they were paroled, they had several job skills and a little self-worth because they'd spent x years farming, sewing, cooking and otherwise contributing (and learning how to work with other people to get things done).

Are the prisons really overcrowded because criminals don’t take it seriously or is it because a of poverty?



I partly agree with you here. I agree that it is not worth crying for this guy. However, I disagree with the whole attitude, “but one can still *not commit crimes*”. What if a law is unjust?



I agree that it is better if prisoners earn their keep. Be careful with your wording. When I here the word work camp I can’t but help think NAZI Germany.

I agree with you all - however, while I won't cry for this guy, I do think that death penalty for this is a little too harsh. In other words - whatever substance he might be trafficking, if you think logically, it's upto the end-users to buy it OR NOT. In a way we too are responsible for indulging in such substances and letting this kind of business thrive. If all of us (invariably everyone knows about the "benefits" of drug usage these days) - were to exercise a good bit of self-restraint, such substances would find no market and flop down as lucrative business makers.

On the other hand, I strongly feel that death penalty should be awarded to psycopathic murderers. These guys are nothing short of cold-hearted butchers. While I'm aware that some murders occur under exceptional circumstances, such as self-defense & out of burning desire for revenge due to some harm that came to a loved one, but how do you explain terribly heinous acts where such psycopaths rape teenage girls and them chop them up to pieces to hide the evidence ??? To me, such offenses are completely unpardonable - I don't believe there exists even the least vestige of sanity & rationale in such people. They cannot and will never be converted through whatever form of jail sentence you might put them through. They are simply unfit to live in a normal soceity.

In my opinion the death penalty is wrong. This form of legal murder shouldn't be allowed.

If you were a serial killer don't you think that you'd have something wrong with you? In this day an age we should be helping these ill people rather than wiping them off the face off the earth.



Therefore they should be put into a care home or let them be confined to a building. They should be given the opportunity of LIFE and not be murdered. People who suffer from disabilites such as dyslexia are unfit to live in today's society without help but we don't go and kill them.

What kind of message does it send Hi I'm your president. If you kill someone, I'll appoint someone to kill you.

Don't you think comparing dyslexic people with serial killers a bit too extreme?

Actually, I kind of agree with m^e's point of view. I know lots of people who dope almost every week. It's not that difficult to get hold of drugs ... but I don't do it. Because I chose not to. The drug dealer isn't pushing it on you... you have to go, seek him out and pay him what he asks for. There are a whole lot of things in the market that thrive inspite of being harmful. For example, booze and smoking ... now, these aren't as harmful as drugs, but they still shorten your life line by a large amount. Maybe they ought to ban them as well. Seriously, anyone who really wants to dope will always do it ... there's nothing you can do to stop him/her. It's an addiction and if someone is to be blamed, IMO, it's your peer group and not the drug dealer.

Now, serial killers are real psychopaths. They are the kind of people who have no sense of what is right or wrong ... they just don't realise that what they are doing is wrong. They kill just because they feel like it. Such people can never be convinced nor converted. They're like a wounded tiger running amuck in a huge city. The tiger isn't hungry, it's angry ... and it just wants to kill everything it comes across.



Of course, one way of looking at this is ... No one has a right to take anybody's life, including the government. To a certain extent this can be true. There have been cases where an innocent person has been executed basing on evidence found at that time. It is a very shady situation because, one can never be 100% sure that someone has committed a murder unless there are a number of witnesses. My opinion is that, death penalty should be given only in extreme cases of homocide which are 'open and shut' and not for frivolous things such as carrying drugs around.

Well, here is my opinion and it may not be popular but it is what it is.

More than likely, the accussed knew what the penalty was in the country he or she commited the crime. Do not participate in the activity unless you are prepared to accept the penalty for that activity if you are caught. "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time".

Death penalty for drug smuggling is a little harsh I think. I prefer to reserve the death penalty for violent crimes. The overwhelming majority of the World does not view the death penalty as a crime deterant. I agree with that, it isn't a deterant at all and shouldn't be viewed as such. The death penalty is a solution to a problem. Some people can not be rehabilitated into decent human beings.

Here is my list of death penalty crimes.

• Most crimes involving the death of a human. Few exceptions here like vehicle "accidents" for whatever reason.
• Nearly all forms of rape. (I would exclude "date rape" because there is a lot of room for false accussations and misunderstandings {change of heart after the fact}) - "Date Rape" involving the use of an illeagal drug or other physical abuse should still get the death penalty.
• Any and all forms of child molestation and violent child abuse. (I distinguise a difference in child abuse because everyday children are taken from their parents because someone didn't agree with the form of punishment use on a child by the parent such as smacking a hand or spanking. Kids need to be disaplined to prevent more crime.)

There are a few others but those are on a case by case basis. The above should be automatic.

Statistic:
Ted Bundy has commited 0 murders since 1989 when he was executed. Prior to being caught, he kill dozens of people and the exact count is still unknown but is somewhere around 100.

In the United States the justice system is so lame. Prison is not any real deterant to crime because all of the human rights activist have ruined the prison system. What about the human rights of the victims of the criminals. Don't the victims rights need to be satisfied first? Prison is simply not harsh enough in the U.S.

The only real problem with the death penalty in the U.S. is that it takes too long. We store these dead prisoners for years before we actually put them to death. What is the point of that. The seemingly endless appeals process in the U.S. is ridiculus. We keep them alive for years and sometimes decades prior to execution. It cost like a million dollars a year to keep an inmate on death row.

So you'll argure that with my system a few innocent people may be executed. Yeah, that is a tiny possibility and even tinier problem. The justice systm isn't perfect and a few innocents may die in the process but I think it is worth it and here is why. Rarely are saints accussed, procecuted, found guilty, and sentenced. If you don't want to suffer the death penalty, I highly reccomend not putting yourself in a situation to be falsely accused of a crime. What I mean to say is that those persons that have been wrongly executed have in most cases done something else for which they deserve such a punishment. It is the law of averages and average people don't participate in the activities that lead to violent crimes.

For more information about the topic, please feel free to ask my. If you feel that my opinion is faulty, please reply to this post.

Remember, the death penalty is NOT a crime deterant, it is a solution.

Dead people don't rape, murder, molest, or abuse anyone and they don't commit any other crimes as well.

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