Killers' life terms 'breached their human rights'

Soldato
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I think Nitefly is simply noting that whilst on the one hand it may be argued that there is too much emphasis on human rights of those guilty of serious crimes, on the other hand we still have disproportionate sentencing for less trivial crimes. e.g. making an example of riot-looters, or locking people up for making jokes on facebook.

I may be wrong.

e:- Yup, completely wrong. This hot weather has gotten to me. Ah well, I've raised some sort of point. (I think)
 
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Caporegime
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I think it is the fact that they have labelled the life sentences "inhumane and degrading". Being locked away for any amount of time could be deemed inhumane and degrading. If the crime is so bad that it warrants them spending the rest of their lives locked up, then so be it. Boo hoo for the criminal.

If you ask me, more degrading punishments should be introduced. If i ran the country, everyone involved in those stupid, thoughtless riots would be rounded up and put in stocks. Then members of the public could have payed to throw rotten fruit/hilarious things at them. That money ( and i bet a LOT of money would be made...) would then go towards fixing the mess the rioters made. For most of the those young adults and teenagers involved their image and credibilty ("Street cred") is everything, might be a bit of a deterent if they had to spend a week in the stocks...

I suppose that is a bit too medieval for waste of space liberal nut jobs though...:p
 
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Permabanned
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... but that's not what I said :p

But that is who is affected by the thread topic...even in a more general sense, Punitive doesn't equal Revenge.

Revenge implies a state of retaliation whether warranted or not that may be dispropprtionate to the offence, whereas Retribution implies a state of punitive justice that is proportionate to the offence.

You could argue that a crime is trivial and that the punitive aspect of a sentence is too harsh or inappropiate, but that is highly subjective and open to interpretation, particularly to the victims.
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Aug 2006
Posts
3,779
Location
Wales
I think it is the fact that they have labelled the life sentences "inhumane and degrading". Being locked away for any amount of time could be deemed inhumane and degrading. If the crime is so bad that it warrants them spending the rest of their lives locked up, then so be it. Boo hoo for the criminal.

If you ask me, more degrading punishments should be introduced. If i ran the country, everyone involved in those stupid, thoughtless riots would be rounded up and put in stocks. Then members of the public could have payed to throw rotten fruit/hilarious things at them. That money ( and i bet a LOT of money would be made...) would then go towards fixing the mess the rioters made. For most of the those young adults and teenagers involved their image and credibilty ("Street cred") is everything, might be a bit of a deterent if they had to spend a week in the stocks...

I suppose that is a bit too medieval for waste of space liberal nut jobs though...:p

In my opinion the mess that needs to be fixed is the one that gives rise to such behaviour in the first place - namely corrupt police, and the anti-socialism that capitalism breeds. But hey ho, much easier to point the finger and blame the hoodies for pinching a TV worth about £500. (Although admittedly fire is bad, mmkay?)
 
Man of Honour
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You could argue that a crime is trivial and that the punitive aspect of a sentence is too harsh or inappropiate, but that is highly subjective and open to interpretation, particularly to the victims.

I think it's obvious that some crimes don't deserve the punishments they get. Sometimes it less about retribution and more about asserting power and control.
 
Soldato
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Rotherham.
Are you suggesting some lives are worth more than others? Whose? Is a child's life worth more than an adults? Why? What about a bad child and a good adult? How old do they have to be before their life becomes less valuable?

Eh:confused: Please point out where I said anything of the sort? I said killing families as it's relevant to the OP and obviously a mutliple muder.

Now how about you address the rest of my post?
 
Associate
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In my opinion the mess that needs to be fixed is the one that gives rise to such behaviour in the first place - namely corrupt police, and the anti-socialism that capitalism breeds. But hey ho, much easier to point the finger and blame the hoodies for pinching a TV worth about £500. (Although admittedly fire is bad, mmkay?)

Are you seriously blaming police and capitalism for riots?

I'm subject to those same things and I have never rioted, neither have the majority of people. People are to blame for their own actions.

And it's merely the opinion of a bunch of pointless lefties that capitalism is to blame for Western society's ills. Nothing will change because it's simply childish idealism.
 
Associate
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I disagree with this judgment (albeit I am Scottish and we don't have whole life tariffs).

Our justice system isn't really geared up to rehabilitate at all. It isn't popular with the mob justice desired by most of the electorate.

What our system did say is that for life sentences you must be punished by serving a certain amount of time (your tariff) at which point you can be released on licence if you are rehabilitated. Some crimes are considered so heinous that the punishment part must last for the rest of your life and therefore there is no scope for review.

What the ECHR are saying is that no crime warrants a whole life tariff and therefore the punishment element must be capped at an undefined level. Whether whole life tariffs are appropriate in every case they have been used, I don't know, but I do think they need to be available to judges. The whole life tariff is a sentencing option available to the judiciary, I don't see that other judges should remove that option. It is a whole lot better system than when a politician decided on whole life tariffs!
 
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