Is 22 Years a fitting sentence for Rhys Killer.

[Hymer C 9.]

The news has just reported that Sean Mercer ha been sentenced to 22 years before parole for shooting Rhys Jones, I hope this will act as a deterrent for this gang culture we have do you think it will. Carol.

[Brian Kirby]

In truth, no.  It may make the odd one or two think twice, but the track record of severe penalties as deterrents to crimes is not encouraging.  If public hangings, drawings and quarterings, transportations, ducking stools, the stocks, leg irons, and a host of other draconian penalties haven't prevented crimes, it is unlikely prison will.

We either have to kill the convicts, and accept that is what we will be doing, just to eliminate them and their genes or, if we have qualms about that on grounds that we may occasionally "top" the wrong person - and, from history, I would regard that possibility as the most powerful argument against, we have to come up with a prison system that actually reforms them, rather than merely locking them up.  The proviso would be that they don't get out until they are judged to have reformed their attitudes, if necessary, ever.

[Guest Tracker]

I doubt 22 years will be 22 years - more like 11 years and a probable annonymity reward- what price a life in today's UK?

[chatterdog]

I agree life should be life but no doubt within a couple of years some lawyer will have it up for retrial/appeal on some ground or other. Eons ago we used to send them to Australia - job done they either did or didnt survive the journey and then they had to work hard to survive if they got there. Aussies arent a bad lot these days. If this country wasnt so PC maybe there would be a chance that the prisons would be able to reform some criminals but as a society as a whole we have allowed things to get out of hand and there is no such thing as punishment to fit the crime. Now the criminal is treated more like a victim than his/her victim is, rather than the criminal he/she is.

 

 

[Guest Tracker]

On the other hand one life has already been lost and is there any benefit from destroying another life by imprisonment as, whilst we were not as extreme or stupid, many people did some pretty silly things as teenagers which most of them got away with and then went on to grow up to become decent citizens?

[Bazza454]

Tracker - 2008-12-16 5:01 PM I doubt 22 years will be 22 years - more like 11 years and a probable annonymity reward- what price a life in today's UK?

I think that in this case the Judge has indicated that this individual will serve a MINIMUM of 22 years in jail before being considered for parole.

[howie]

Tracker - 2008-12-16 5:21 PM

 

On the other hand one life has already been lost and is there any benefit from destroying another life by imprisonment as, whilst we were not as extreme or stupid, many people did some pretty silly things as teenagers which most of them got away with and then went on to grow up to become decent citizens?

A minimum 22 years was my understanding of the sentence as well which fits the crime, but does seem out of place with all the more lenient sentences for similar crimes we've come to expect.

Another one of your 'gotcha's I presume Richard. Done some 'pretty silly things' myself as a youngster, but a premeditated killing in cold blood was not one of them, and as for destroying another life by making them pay for their crime, well, that really is a wind up.

[michele]

22 aint enough poor little fella would be 31 ? prob have a family of his own and a good career no chance now .

[maggyd]

No 22 years isnt enough and no doubt the do gooders will try to get him released before then :-S but its about time something was done to get these thugs off the street! why cant the police do gun raids like they do drug raids and punish anyone found with them But they wont!

[GJH]

I would love to think that the exposure of so called "gang culture" during the trial would so shame the people involved - youths and their parents and grandparents who have allowed it to happen - that they would change their ways.

 

Sadly, I don't think that will be the case.

 

Graham

[bob b]

When you look at the violent films, computer 'games', awful Rap music on the market, its hardly surprising that a minority of todays youth is out of touch with reality.

I've been to a few prisons.....on a professional basis !.....and I'll never understand why people keep going back. If I was in trouble and served in time prison, I'd never re-offend !  The young offenders institutions are the worst of the lot.

I certainly don't view prison as a 'soft' option.

[BGD]

To answer the OP:

 

No.

 

22 years in prison is not the right sentence.

 

At an average cost to the UK taxpayer of £2,000 per person in prison per week (at todays costs, and even ignoring inflation in the years ahead), that sentence will amount to £2,288,000 in costs to the law abiding taxpayers of the UK.

 

That's well over £2 million that you all will now have to contribute to his bed and board and TV and healthcare and counselling and hobbies, etc etc etc, over the next 22 years.

 

Let's think of that another way: at the same rate of tax-take by future Governments, that's £2.28 million pounds less for cancer reseach, for the NHS, for education, for old people, just to keep this one murdering criminal warm, fed, watered and healthy.

 

How many old and frail people could you help for £2.28 million pounds?

 

 

 

My vote, and I am absolutely serious about this, would be to spend £0.73 on him.

The cost of one .38mm bullet.

 

 

And if you want someone to fire it, I volunteer.

 

 

 

I would spend ALL the other £2.28 million pounds on law-abiding, aged, disabled, sick and deserving people in our society.

 

It turns my stomach when as a society we idly spend so much on vile, murderous criminal inhuman scum, and yet wring our hands and plead poverty when thousands of law abiding good people are dying for lack of care.

 

We have twisted, bit by bit, in the most grotesque and now macabre way, our valuation of what the State should do in our names for such scum, versus what they should do for our needy.

 

[Rapido-lass]

The punishment for a crime like this is never equal to the crime in the first place, even if it was I doubt it would ever stop these sad events.

 

What I personally do find so annoying is the fact that we have to pick up the bill and pay for these ****'s to be kept in a standard far better than many people of this country, and in all honesty with the number of people being made redundant at the moment it will increase.

 

Prison in it's self is a reward to those people who have no consciencious. To know that you are going to have 3 meals a day, be warm, no financial worries, warm bed, tv and films, gym membership, education, someone to do your washing etc - prison seems a good option, you only loose our freedom temporarily. It doesn't hold the stigma of yester-year, in fact to many people, prison is a badge of honour.

 

In our circles we would ask another which countries have you visited this year?, they no doubt ask which HMP's have you visited this year without batting an eye lid.

 

It is an age old problem that has no correct answer, but I do believe that violence in games, films etc is far too commonplace and have been wrongly accepted as the norm in reality. Perhaps these companies should offer some financial support to the rehabiliation of violent offenders.

 

Perhaps we just need to go back to a society with standards and morals -

where people are aware that any of their actions have consequences for both themselves and others and therefore are accountable.

 

I can't see Sean Mercer's sentance of 22 years will act as a deterrent to gang culture - he will no doubt, in a twisted way that you or I can't comprehend, will be seen as a martyr to the cause in the gangs eyes.

[michele]

maggyd - 2008-12-16 9:28 PM

 

No 22 years isnt enough and no doubt the do gooders will try to get him released before then :-S but its about time something was done to get these thugs off the street! why cant the police do gun raids like they do drug raids and punish anyone found with them But they wont!

 

Bit unfair, as I know they do ,trouble is there isnt anywhere for our system to put them ..now that leads on to why have we got no jails detention places and so on. Politics

[michele]

Rapido lass

 

Perhaps we just need to go back to a society with standards and morals -

where people are aware that any of their actions have consequences for both themselves and others and therefore are accountable.

 

I really agree with this .I have a problem with schools the soft option also.

What i mean is I am not hard on any child but they have to learn their is a consiquence to their actions.

Most schools these days take the easy option let the child do what they like because its the easy option and they wont have to deal with it .

 

trouble is where does that help the child for later life. sad we have lost all the manners, values

[michele]

Bruce

 

My vote, and I am absolutely serious about this, would be to spend £0.73 on him.

The cost of one .38mm bullet.

 

 

And if you want someone to fire it, I volunteer.

 

 

 

I would spend ALL the other £2.28 million pounds on law-abiding, aged, disabled, sick and deserving people in our society.

 

It turns my stomach when as a society we idly spend so much on vile, murderous criminal inhuman scum, and yet wring our hands and plead poverty when thousands of law abiding good people are dying for lack of care.

 

We have twisted, bit by bit, in the most grotesque and now macabre way, our valuation of what the State should do in our names for such scum, versus what they should do for our needy.

 

 

Well said Now as I agree with you thats why I would like to have a guy like that guy in Amercia who runs that prison dresses the prisoners in pink and feeds them slops . Brilliant !! I would vote him in anyday of the week .

Tent City .

-----

 

[spospe]

There are several problems with killing people as a punishment.

 

1) All too often the wrong person is killed. When this happens, this puts the killing society in a poor moral position.

 

2) We all die eventually, if you want to punnish someone, lock them up forever. Let them have TV, let them see other people having a good life whilst they will never get out. I think that this is a more fitting punnishment. If after 25 years it is found that the wrong person has been jailed, they can be let out and compensated.

 

3) Some of you have said that you would willingly kill the killer. Prersumably the killer would be on his knees before you and you would walk round behind him and press the gun to his head and pull the trigger. Naturally you would first have put on an apron and be wearing long rubber gloves so as to protect yourself from the splatter of blood, bone and bits of brain. Personally I do not think that I like you at all.

 

If we are to be better than these killers, we have to treat them better than they treat us. Lock them up for good yes, kill them (which demeans us) no.

[Guest Tracker]

Revenge and vindictiveness should have no part in any sentence or in society and I would like to see Mercer given the chance of an education and training in any profession or trade of his choice as soon as he shows some remorse.

 

When educated and qualified and IF he continues to show remorse he could be then and only then allowed out on license in a new area of the country to make a life for himself.

 

What's done is done and you can't undo it but at least that way young Rhys's death would not have been a complete and utter waste because a little good could eventually come from it.

 

If Mercer shows no remorse and refuses to cooperate he should then spend his entire life behind bars as he will still be a potential danger to the public as indeed he should if he reoffends in any way whilst out.

 

Surely a better use of public money as everyone deserves the chance for a decent life and prison could be the best thing that ever happened to him, but only if he is given and he choose to take the opportunity.

 

[BGD]

Hi Michael –

 

I’ll try to respond to each of your points you made:-

 

 

“There are several problems with killing people as a punishment.

1) All too often the wrong person is killed. When this happens, this puts the killing society in a poor moral position.”

 

 

 

I don’t accept for a moment that “all too often” the wrong person is killed.

In fact I totally refute it.

Perhaps you could quote any statistical research findings to support your argument.

In practice, with all the legal checks and balances in the Criminal Courts system, the advances in scientific (eg DNA) and forensic examination make such a prospect extremely unlikely.

I suggest that if perhaps 1,000 people found guilty of (say) cold-blooded murder, or of (say) a second offence of paedophilia, or of (say) a second offence of violent rape, maybe there would be one “mistake”.

Now, that one mistake is terrible (obviously) for the person wrongly killed.

But we have to balance that risk, against the very real benefit to all of law-abiding society when the other 999 people are never able to murder any of them again, or rape any of them again, or abuse their small children ever again.

And of the benefit to society of being able to use the money thus saved (by not feeding/watering/pampering those criminals for decades) in (say) the NHS system instead to save lives, to research cancer cures.

Average cost of keeping someone in prison is a little over £2,000. But that includes the relatively lower cost of low security prisoners. All the categories of prisoner that I would propose capital punishment for would be high-security inmates.

So let’s assume that the cost to the taxpayer for each of these inmates is £3,000 per week. So that’s a cost to us of £156,000 per year, per inmate. Assume 1,000 of them in any proposed Capital punishment category, and we have a total annual cost to taxpayers of £156,000,000.

How many old people could we help, how many children with cancer could we help (etc) if we spent that £156 million each year on them instead.

Let’s put it another way. Which would you choose: to build an extra fully equipped new NHS hospital EACH and every year for the next 20 years; or keep those 1,000 convicted murderers, terrorists, serial rapists, serial paedophiles fed, watered, warm, comfortable, and entertained for 20 years?

I suggest that our society is in a far poorer moral position when we allow our old people to die through lack of care, allowing people to die from cancer, whilst we squander hundreds of millions of pounds a year on keeping terrorists, murderers, serial rapists, serial paedophiles; than we would ever be if we re-implemented capital punishment and subsequently discovered that 1 in 1,000 of those criminals put to death had in fact been not guilty.

Each of the old, the sick, who we allow to die because we’ve mis-directed such huge amounts of money away from helping them and towards the absolute worst “people” in the country are in practice currently being killed by our society.

I can’t understand how any rational person could find that situation preferable to doing more to help them, at the expense of maintaining indefinitely the lives and comfort and health of murderers, terrorists, rapists, paedophiles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“2) We all die eventually, if you want to punnish someone, lock them up forever. Let them have TV, let them see other people having a good life whilst they will never get out. I think that this is a more fitting punnishment. If after 25 years it is found that the wrong person has been jailed, they can be let out and compensated.”

 

Of course we all die eventually.

You (I think) believe there is some “sacrosanct” right to continue living in our society, and being supported by everyone else in our society, regardless of having committed the most sick, twisted, repugnant actions against other law-abiding members of that society.

I guess we’ll have to agree to differ on this.

I think that each of us has responsibilities to society in exchange for the benefits that we receive from living within it.

I also think we need to radically change our approach and consider the victims, the murdered, the raped, the abused, and their families, and everyone else who doesn’t commit the foulest crimes against others; rather than sparing more than a passing thought for the continued existence and welfare of those who do those things to other humans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“3) Some of you have said that you would willingly kill the killer. Prersumably the killer would be on his knees before you and you would walk round behind him and press the gun to his head and pull the trigger. Naturally you would first have put on an apron and be wearing long rubber gloves so as to protect yourself from the splatter of blood, bone and bits of brain. Personally I do not think that I like you at all.”

 

 

No. I would suggest that the cold-blooded murderer, the terrorist, the serial rapist, the serial paedophile, would be strapped to a bed, and be injected with a massive, lethal dose of some painkiller type of drug. They would drift off to sleep, painlessly, and then die.

It is of no consequence if you decide that you do not like me for the sole and simple reason that I advocate such a form of capital punishment.

I suspect that those law-abiding people who’s lives are saved, whose health is improved, whose quality of care is improved by our diverting those uge sums of money towards them; and who do not become future victims of additional rape/abuse/murder by the criminals who’ve been put to death, might take a different view. Everyone is entitled to their own view on such an issue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“If we are to be better than these killers, we have to treat them better than they treat us. Lock them up for good yes, kill them (which demeans us) no.”

 

I agree.

We should treat these killers, rapists, terrorists, paedophiles better than they treated us.

When they murdered their victim in cold blood, when they planted the bomb that killed people, when they violently raped their victims, when they groomed and then revoltingly ruined the lives of their child-victims, they didn’t first hold a trial, or allow the victim to present defence evidence, or keep them warm and well-fed and healthy for a further (say) couple of years whilst awaiting and being given an appeal hearing; or even allow their victims to die painlessly.

I would advocate all of those things for them, each and every one of which is treating them a million miles better than they treated their victims and their victims families.

 

The State (the Government) in the UK already kills people every day. Always has, always will.

It kills them in the UK through neglect, via a repulsive mis-direction of funds/rescources towards murderers, terrorists, rapists, paedophiles, and away from the old, the sick, the disabled.

And it kills them currently in Iraq and Afghanistan by shooting them, dropping bombs on them and blowing them up. And it deliberately sends British, law abiding citizens to those countries, knowing that hundreds of them each year will be killed.

In my mind those other State-sponsored killings are far more demeaning to our society than killing the worst criminals and instead investing in the saving the lives of innocent citizens.

 

 

[spospe]

Dear BDG

 

1) If you are the person who is going to be judicially killed (in error) then I think that you will find that it is indeed far too many.

 

2) You have totally misinterpreted my point (for which I accept full responsibility), my point is simply that it is a much worse punnishment to cage someone for the rest of their life than it is to put them to sleep.

 

3) My dramatic representation of the method of killing was of course based entirely on your own words ............

 

"My vote, and I am absolutely serious about this, would be to spend £0.73 on him.

The cost of one .38mm bullet.

 

 

And if you want someone to fire it, I volunteer."

 

........ which does seem at odds with what you are now suggesting, namely that they ..........................

 

"would be strapped to a bed, and be injected with a massive, lethal dose of some painkiller type of drug. They would drift off to sleep, painlessly, and then die."

 

Michael

 

 

[BGD]

Michael - I'm perfectly comfortable with the suggestions in my post, for the reasons beneficial to society that I included within it.

 

Yes, if I was the one person out of each thousand waiting to be put to sleep who was, not actually guilty, I'd be distressed.

But I think, nowhere near as distressed as the combined distress of the old, the sick, the weak, who we currently allow to die by diverting funds away from them in order to keep those other 999 murderers, terrorists, rapists, paedophiles warm and safe and fed and healthy.

And that's the point. The needs of the many have always, and should always, outweigh the needs of the one: that is a core principle of a society.

This is the real world, not some social utopian state where everything can be warm and fluffy.

Real choices, with very limited resources.

 

 

 

I'll ask you again as you have not answered the question that I posed for you: which would you choose for the people of Britain?

A new fully equipped NHS hospital each and every year for the next 20 years (with all the hundreds of thousands of lives that they would save/improve, the deseases and disabilities and illnesses they would cure; or instead keep 1,000 murderers, terrorists, serial rapists and serial paedophiles warm, dry, well fed, healthy, entertained for 20 years with that money?

 

[Guest Tracker]

If only reality were that simple Bruce and whilst I do have sympathy for your views, I'm glad I don't live in a country where Bruce is the Prime Minister or a Judge!

[BGD]

Tracker - 2008-12-17 3:47 PM

 

If only reality were that simple Bruce and whilst I do have sympathy for your views, I'm glad I don't live in a country where Bruce is the Prime Minister or a Judge!

 

Rich - but I think to be honest, it is that simple (or that stark) if we actually have the balls to face up to it.

It's the avoiding of this stark choice, the bobbing and weaving, and confusing of priorities that makes it appear to those who don't go beyond those mealy-mouthed politicians words.

 

You already live in a country that kills people every single day. That kills old people, sick people, weak people through neglect.

I can't understand why you'd rather carry on killing them instead of killing murderers, rapists, terrorists and paedophiles, and keep our innocent sick, old and weak people alive/warm/cured instead.

 

And you live in a country that orders thousands of it's citizens to invade and occupay other countries, and lets hundreds of them be killed.

 

And you live in a country that makes and sells weaponry to dozens of other countries and regimes, to be used to kill people.

 

Why, all of a sudden, in such a country, do some people pretend an attack of moral high ground only when defending the "rights" of cold-blooded murderers, serial rapists, serial paedophiles, terrorists?

 

[Guest Tracker]

I can assure you that it is not moral high ground and I understand all of your points, but more wrongs don't make anything right.

 

To link one teenage killer to the inadequacies of British society or government or healthcare or foreign policy is something of a smoke screen and is not realistic.

 

Whatever happens to Mercer will have no effect on anything else whatsoever and all I suggest is trying to turn one, at best misguided youth and, at worst beyond hope killer, into a decent citizen if at all possible as an alternative to 22 years incarceration, which will in all probability, make him unfit for life 'outside' so he will be a burden on state resources all of his life.

 

Is that such a bad idea?

[Brian Kirby]

As I said at the top, killing is an option, but not one I would support, because the risk of a miscarriage would rule it out for me.  Yes, there have been instances of miscarriages that resulted, and if capital punishment (i.e. killing the guilty) had not been abolished would have resulted, in an innocent person being hanged.  Not many, but how many do you need?  One is too many for me, so I do not favour capital punishment.

However, I do not favour keeping people in prisons indefinitely either.  As Bruce says, it is a ridiculous waste of money.  The missing ingredient, it seems to me, is reform while in prison.  With our present prison population (and why do we British have more people in prison that any other European country?) introducing reform measures would be impractical.  However, new prisons are being built all the time so, instead of using them as mere people parks, and then letting the unreformed loose among us to wreak havoc again on release, why do we not introduce facilities to reform their behaviour?  I don't mean just educational programmes, though those may have their place in the overall package, but really working on them psychologically to erase their acquired anti-social value systems, and replace them with socially responsive value systems.  Under that regime, they would get out when judged fit, in the same way the inmates of secure mental hospitals are released when judged "safe".  There would be failures, of course, but my hunch is that by aggressively reforming the inmates, the prison population, and hence its cost, would be reduced over time to a level substantially below that of today.  It would also highlight the repeat offenders who resist reform, who would find it harder to gain release each time they returned.  Eventually, maybe, the penny would drop even for these.

This has never been tried, and it should be, before we descend to the final barbarity of knocking off anyone who becomes a bit of a social nuisance.  I know that is not quite what Bruce is proposing, but I have a vision of a long, slippery, slope, along which additional miscreants become added from time to time until we wake up one morning to realise we have become the most murderous state in the world.  Whether that is just taking the moral high ground, or applying common sense tempered with humanity, you must judge.  I hope it is the latter, because I do not wish to inhabit a society that lacks humanity.

The points about invasions and arms sales are fair points, though I have to say for me, irrelevant as to how we should deal with criminals in our own country.  Lets get that bit right for now, we can deal with the rest of the world tomorrow.  :-)