Rulers are not given their power to shed blood so that they can use it to make themselves feel good, or seek to raise their poll ratings. They are given it so that they can protect their own citizens from peril and subjugation. (Quoted in The Daily Express 5 April 1999)

Should Saddam have been executed in public or at all? 03 January 2007 11:44 AM – Quite often, the police marksmen get the right people. Occasionally, as Jean Charles de Menezes found, they don't. Those who argue that the danger of hanging the wrong man is a total and unanswerable objection to the death penalty ought surely to take the same view of police killings, and insist on the disarming of the police. But, funnily enough, they don't take this view. This is because the risk of killing innocents isn't really their reason for objecting to capital punishment. It's a pretext that avoids the real question.

I thought hard about the claim that the danger of an innocent person being executed is a complete argument against the death penalty. I think it's false and evasive. Those who advance this argument do not accept such a stringent condition on many other policies of which they approve, and which can be absolutely guaranteed to cause the deaths of innocents. For example, the release of convicted murderers from prison can be reliably statistically predicted to lead to the deaths of innocents. It has this effect in Britain at the rate of roughly two homicides every three years. But it is not ruled out for that reason. (Some responses to correspondents 09 January 2007 4:03 PM) 

I accept that an absolute pacifist can consistently oppose the death penalty. If you really believe that there are no circumstances in which killing is justified, then you can honestly say that you are against execution on principle. But be careful here. If you believe this, then you presumably believe that resistance, even against the most evil powers on earth, must be non-violent. You would have to say that the RAF Battle of Britain pilots of the late summer of 1940 were wrong to shoot down their Luftwaffe opponents. (Some responses to correspondents 09 January 2007 4:03 PM)

The same distinction needs to be made when we consider the strange way in which many (there are honorable exceptions) modern left-wingers are unmoved by mass abortion, dehumanizing the unborn baby as a 'fetus', a Latin word employed (as usual) to hide the truth of what is going on. The difference lies in the nature of the person being killed. All unborn babies are innocent. None gets a trial, or the chance to argue its case before it is killed - killed, by the way, in circumstances much grislier than any execution. You will never be allowed to see an abortion on British TV. Its individual life is not even admitted to exist, as lawyers insist that the only 'right to choose' belongs to the baby's mother. The fierce, homicidal influence often exerted on these "free to choose" mothers by husbands and boyfriends is never even mentioned. There is no chance at all of killing a guilty person by this method. (Some responses to correspondents 09 January 2007 4:03 PM)

Now, if they were consistently against the killing of anybody, surely they'd have to be against this ganging up of adults on innocent children? But they're often not. You ask them why. Try as I may to put myself in the position of the pro-abortion anti-hanger, I can't get the argument to work. It can only be done by insisting that a baby is not human until a certain (or rather, uncertain) date, set to suit the abortionist rather than the baby, which is understandably not asked if it considers itself human at this stage, or would have considered itself human at this stage if it had survived a little longer and been allowed a say. If you're against hanging, you must also be against abortion. But you can be for hanging murderers and against abortion. The key is innocence or guilt, and beneath that lies the ideal of lawful justice, which is what we are actually talking about. (Some responses to correspondents 09 January 2007 4:03 PM)

A very simple point - on executing the wrong person - still seems not to have got across. I'm not saying innocent deaths are all right, or even trying to justify them. I'm just saying that human organization is imperfect and that shouldn't be a reason against having any organization at all. Such deaths happen in this and many other areas of public policy, and are not generally judged to be a reason for abandoning any other policies widely thought to be beneficial. In fact, if we took this view, much government would be paralyzed. (Ripostes, retorts and responses 17 January 2007 1:52 PM) 

Nobody wants innocents to die. Every possible effort should be made to avoid it, though in the knowledge that perfection is unattainable. It is terrible to kill an innocent. However, those who advance this risk as an absolute reason for not using the death penalty are dishonest with themselves, and inconsistent in their own minds. For in many other fields of life, they support - for utilitarian reasons - other policies, which are certain to result in the killing of innocent people. Now, if you believe that the danger of an unintended innocent death, however small, is itself a reason for rejecting the death penalty, then you must -in logic - take the same view about the other policies that carry a similar (or larger) risk. And if you don't take that view on any other policy, you cannot take it on the death penalty. (Ripostes, retorts and responses 17 January 2007 1:52 PM)

Unrepentant serial killers and soft MPs 24 February 2008 12:10 AM - The political class dislike the death penalty because it makes them directly responsible for protecting the gentle. They make the most pitiful excuses for being against it, which don't stand up to a moment's examination. Absurdly, they claim to be worried about the deaths of innocent people, as if every murder victim was not innocent.

Unrepentant serial killers and soft MPs 24 February 2008 12:10 AM - THE conviction of Steve Wright once again raises the obvious need for a death penalty for unrepentant murderers. Most sensible people can see this without difficulty. But the politicians' trade union stands against it, and you will notice that MPs of all parties claim that this is unthinkable, impossible in the modern world – as if the modern world were somehow kinder than the recent past, which is the reverse of the truth.

26 February 2008 6:23 PM

If it's all right for Cuba to have the death penalty, why can't we have it too?

Read Peter Hitchens only in The Mail on Sunday

Q. Well, I would be in favour of the death penalty, but I am worried about innocent people being hanged. Doesn't that fear make it impossible to have a death penalty?

A. No. It is a perfectly good argument for taking a huge amount of trouble to ensure that innocents are not executed. It is also a good argument for bringing back some sort of property or education qualification for juries, and abolishing majority verdicts. Nobody should be hanged except on a unanimous verdict of mature and educated people. But the world isn't perfect, and we don't let this concern for the innocent stand in the way of lots of other policies, many of them supported by the very people who raise this objection to execution.

For instance, every three years, two people are killed by convicted murderers released early from prison. These victims are innocent. In that case, the liberals who advance this argument would have to accept that every convicted murderer should be locked up for life without the chance of parole so as to avoid the risk to the innocent. But they don't believe this. So where's their concern for innocent death now? Then again, most people supported the Kosovo war and still do (especially liberals). But when we bombed Serbia, we knew that innocents were bound to die, and they duly did die - including the make-up lady at the Belgrade TV station. That didn't stop these liberal leftists, who oppose hanging guilty murderers, from supporting it, and continuing to support it after those deaths had taken place.

Not a liberal leftist? Then there's our mad transport policy which just happens to suit quite a lot of us down to the ground, of relying so heavily on motor cars that we require an incredibly feeble driving test and allow tens of thousands of unskilled people to drive cars at a far too young age. We know from experience that this will result, every year, in at least 3,000 deaths. Yet we do nothing.

Our failure to act, in the knowledge that this failure will lead to those deaths, is deliberate, conscious self-interested negligence, morally equivalent to deliberate proxy killing for personal advantage (as offered by Harry Lime to Holly Martins in the Big Wheel in 'The Third Man'). It is also the reason why the courts don't adequately punish those who kill while driving. We're all conscious that driving isn't really safe, that we impose far too much responsibility on drivers in a fundamentally dangerous system, and that it could so easily have been us who did the killing. Personally I think this intolerable carnage is a much more urgent problem in our society than the faint hypothetical risk of hanging someone for a murder he didn't commit. So is the growing level both of homicide itself, and of violence that would be homicidal were it not for our superb emergency surgeons, who nightly drag back dozens from the lip of the grave.

People dislike being told this because it is absolutely true and very harrowing.  These deaths are all of innocent people. If the fear of killing an innocent person really was an overwhelming veto on a public policy, then the driving test would have to made so difficult that most of us could never pass it, speed limits would have to be lower than they are now, and private car ownership restricted to a tiny few highly-skilled persons.

The truth is that the fear of killing innocents is not a reason to abolish or ban capital punishment.  If it were, we'd have to abolish the armed services and be forced to ride bicycles. It's an excuse for people not to face up to their responsibilities.

26 February 2008 6:23 PM

If it's all right for Cuba to have the death penalty, why can't we have it too?

Read Peter Hitchens only in The Mail on Sunday

Q. How can you express moral disapproval of killing, by killing someone else?

A. It is not killing we are trying to express loathing for.  It is murder. All of us, except absolute pacifists, accept that killing is sometimes justified. In simple self-defence, the case is easy. In defensive war, in which aggressive actions are permitted, less straightforward but still acceptable to most of us. And I think quite a few of us would be ready to forgive and condone in advance an assassination of an aggressive tyrant before he could embark on war. So we license armed forces to shoot back at our attackers, or to attack our attackers in retaliation or deterrence.

What we are disapproving of is murder (the Commandment is not, as so often said 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' but 'Thou Shalt do no Murder'). This remember, is the deliberate, premeditated, merciless (and often prolonged and physically cruel in the extreme) killing of an innocent person, generally for the personal gain of the murderer. There is no comparison between such an action and the lawful, swift execution of a guilty person, after a fair trial with presumption of innocence, the possibility of appeal and of reprieve. 

Absolute pacifists are at least consistent, but if they had their way we'd be in a German empire where innocent people were being executed all the time with gas-chambers, guillotines and piano-wire, and worse. So their consistency doesn't offer much of a way out.

26 February 2008 6:23 PM

If it's all right for Cuba to have the death penalty, why can't we have it too?

Read Peter Hitchens only in The Mail on Sunday

Q. But deterrence doesn't work. Most states in the USA have the death penalty and the murder rate is often higher there than in states that don't have it.

A. First of all, this is not the USA, a country with far higher levels of violence (until recently anyway) than we have had for centuries. Comparisons between the two countries need to be made with great care. Secondly, no US state really has the death penalty. Even Texas, which comes closest, still fails to execute the majority of its convicted murderers, who fester for decades on death row while conscience-stricken liberals drag out their appeals to the crack of doom. Most states which formally have the penalty on their books seldom or never apply it.

The 1949 Royal Commission on Capital Punishment (which was inconclusive on deterrence and most other things) pointed out that deterrence was very hard to establish. Countries which abolish the death penalty usually do so after a long period of suspension, or when it is hardly used, or when the law is unclear. So the murder rates before and after the formal date of abolition often tells us very little. In Britain, this is also the case. The death penalty had its teeth drawn in 1957 and the annual number of executions in the final years of capital punishment was small. So the penalty's official date of abolition, 1965, is misleading. There's another feature of this I'll turn to later.

Then there is the difficulty of classifying murder. The 1957 Act introduced a category of 'manslaughter due to diminished responsibility' which got you off the death penalty. And so, for the eight years after 1957, this category of homicide grew quite sharply. Some suspect that these are cases which would have been murders before 1957. If that is so, as we shall see, then it makes quite a lot of difference.  Since then, it has not been so important, since the difference between a manslaughter sentence and the so-called 'life' sentences given for murder is no longer as stark as the old distinction between a prison sentence or an appointment with Mr Albert Pierrepoint on the scaffold.

Nowadays, it is suspected (especially by the relatives of victims who write to me about this complaining) that quite a lot of cases which would once have been prosecuted as murder are now prosecuted as manslaughter so as to get a quicker, easier conviction.

So the homicide statistics offer a rather wobbly idea of what is going on. Skip this if you want, but it is important. The blurred categories might suggest one thing, while actually saying another. Even so, here are some samples. In 1956, when the death penalty was still pretty serious, there were 94 convictions for homicide in England and Wales (all future figures refer to England and Wales unless otherwise stated). Of these, 11 were for infanticide, 51 for manslaughter and 32 for murder. In 1958, after the softening of the law, there were 113 homicide convictions - 10 infanticides, 48 manslaughters, 25 for manslaughter with 'diminished responsibility' and 30 for murder. By 1964 there were 170 homicide convictions - 12 infanticides, 73 manslaughters, 41 manslaughters due to 'diminished responsibility’, 44 murders. So, in eight years, a rise in homicide from 94 to 170, quite substantial. But those convicted for murder had risen only from 32 to 44, which hardly seems significant at all. What was really going on here could only be established by getting out the trial records. But it is at least possible that, by reclassifying and downgrading certain homicides, the authorities had made things look a good deal better than they were. Remember, these are convictions, not totals of offences committed.

Sorry, more statistics here. In 1966, immediately after formal abolition, there were 254 homicide convictions, 72 of them for murder. In 1975, 377 homicide convictions, 107 for murder. In 1985, 441 manslaughter convictions, 173 for murder. In 2004, there were 648 homicide convictions - including 361 murders, 265 ordinary manslaughters and 22 'diminished responsibilities'. Interestingly, more people were convicted of manslaughter (265) than were charged with it (137) and none of those convicted of 'diminished responsibility' (22) were charged with it. Many murder prosecutions failed (759 were proceeded against).

The increasingly important charge of 'attempted murder' has also run into trouble. In 2004 417 were proceeded against, and 96 convicted. Prosecutions for wounding or other acts endangering life was even more troublesome, with 7,054 proceeded against and 1,897 convicted. These figures, again,. are for charges and convictions rather than instances of the offence, which in both cases is considerably higher. Offences of wounding etc are now close to the 19,000 mark each year, around triple the total for 30 years ago.

And many of these cases would have been murders, if we still had the medical techniques of 1965. Again, this makes direct 'before ' and 'after' comparisons, required for a conclusive case for or against deterrence. Hard. And we must also remember the general moral decline that has accompanied the weakening of the law, and may have been encouraged by it. If you remove the keystone of an arch, many other stones, often quite far away in the structure, will loosen or fall.

Finally, a little historical curiosity which I personally find fascinating. Some American researchers suggest that the sort of murder which has increased since the death penalty in the USA was effectively abolished is so-called 'stranger' murder, for example, the killing of a woman by her rapist, or of a petrol station attendant by the man who has robbed him. The calculation (and criminals do calculate) is simple. "If I leave this person alive, she or he can testify against me, and I could go to jail for a very long time. If I kill him or her, then there will be no witness and I will probably get away with it entirely. And even if I am convicted of murder, all that will happen is jail time." Bang.

So, the death penalty may actually prevent or deter violent crimes which might otherwise end in an opportunist killing. It is said that British bank-robbers, before 1957, would search each other for weapons in case one of them killed, and they all swung - which was then the rule. And Colin Greenwood, a former police officer and expert on Gun Crime, produces the following interesting, in fact gripping fact. In both 1948 and 1956, the death penalty was suspended in this country while Parliament debated its future. During both periods of suspension, armed and violent offences rose sharply. After the 1948 attempt to abolish hanging failed (Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin being among the Labour MPs who voted to keep it), they fell sharply. After 1956, when the law was weakened, they fell back again, but not so sharply. In 1964, they rose again, and have been doing so ever since.

I think this, taken together, is strong evidence for a deterrent effect. I am not talking about total deterrence - some crimes could never be deterred - but partial and significant, potentially lifesaving. How many innocents have died, or been horribly maimed, because those who accept the salaries and perks of office are not prepared to assume its hard duties, and wield the civil sword? And yet opponents of the death penalty whimper on about the minuscule danger of hanging the wrong person.

26 February 2008 6:23 PM

If it's all right for Cuba to have the death penalty, why can't we have it too?

Read Peter Hitchens only in The Mail on Sunday

Q. Surely revenge has no part in a civilised society?

A. How true, and how right. One of the purposes of stern penalties is to prevent revenge by making it clear that the law has real teeth. But a toothless law will lead to the return of revenge among us.  The bargain we strike with our rulers is that we give up the right to personal vengeance, and the endless blood-feuds that follow it.  And in return, we ask our rulers to wield a stern law, dealing with wrongdoing in such a way as to drive home the moral lesson that no evil deed goes unpunished. It's a simple contract   

Civilised, law-governed societies rest on it, but our political class prefer not to fulfil it because they haven't the moral guts to take responsibility for sending a murderer to his death. It is this gutlessness among politicians, more than anything else, that has led to the abolition of the death penalty. They won't take the responsibility. This cannot be said often enough. The result is that responsibility is increasingly handed over to an unofficially armed police force, which shoots people without trial, appeal or the possibility of reprieve, and often gets it wrong. Watch the numbers grow.

But that's only the beginning. If ( as I fear) respect for the criminal justice system continues to dwindle especially among the abandoned honest poor, we can expect to see an increase of vigilante private 'justice', even lynch-mobs. What the left-liberals don't seem to grasp is that if they strangle justice, revenge is what they will get. And then, rather too late, they will be able to tell the difference between the two. I wish there was some other way to explain it to them.

Forgiveness is not incompatible with execution. You cannot forgive your own murderer, because you are dead. Even a deathbed pardon is dubious. Until you know what it is like being dead, how can you be so sure that you have forgiven the person who rendered you dead? It is all very well to forgive the person who bumps into you in the street and says sorry, but much harder when you find out later that he has also taken your wallet, has not said sorry, and is not available to be forgiven for that. And it is presumptuous of us to forgive him on your behalf. Pope John Paul II is a poor example in this dispute, as he survived Agca's attack, and in any case it took place in a country without a death penalty. Had Agca killed him, in a country which did have the death penalty, who would have been doing the forgiving?

If I am asked to love my neighbour as myself, I am happy to do so. That is, not to love him too much to be blind to his faults, or forgiving of unexpiated crimes.  And if I ask to be forgiven , as I  forgive them that trespass against me, then I am perfectly happy with an arrangement that says I don't get forgiven until I have shown genuine repentance for, and understanding of my wrong deeds. I can guarantee I won't forgive anyone who trespasses against me until he has shown repentance.

In any case, justice is not a private transaction between victim and assailant. It is the law that decides if the killer should be executed, not the victim (who, I must keep stressing, is dead) or the victim's family.  They might forgive their relative's killer, which would be nice of them, but the law would still be entitled to execute him whatever they thought, and quite right too, acting on behalf of the victim (opinions unavailable) and of justice, which in civilised countries specifies a special penalty for the deliberate taking of life, not out of revenge, as the abolitionists falsely claim, but out of the need for law.

As for repentance, you'll have to judge whether these various murderers in American jails are the penitent paragons they say they are. Perhaps so. How could one prove it? They gain so much from these performances that there is more than one explanation for their behaviour.  But when it comes to repentance, I am with Samuel Johnson - who remarked that the prospect of being hanged in a fortnight concentrates a man's mind wonderfully well. Penitence under those conditions is more likely to be the real thing.

Of course there are practical differences between armies killing enemies and executioners killing condemned men. But they are practical, not moral. For moral purposes, this is a distinction without a difference. All but pacifists accept that the state has the lawful right to kill. (Bicycles, class, sarcasm, massacres, schools and the gallows. Just another week in the blogosphere 11 March 2008 4:28 PM)

The only argument that remains is the precise circumstance. And if one had to argue between the two, the execution of a murderer convicted after due process would surely be morally preferable to the killing, without any due process, of a kindly family man conscripted into a foreign army or air force against his will. (Bicycles, class, sarcasm, massacres, schools and the gallows. Just another week in the blogosphere 11 March 2008 4:28 PM)

A society that punishes the guilty properly is free to leave the innocent alone to get on with their lives undisturbed by the State. (Too fat for their jeans, but Labour still think like Trots 21 June 2008 7:38 PM)

Why weak justice means the end of freedom 25 June 2008 2:23 PM - I mentioned in my column that there's no contradiction between supporting the gallows and defending English liberty. On the contrary, the two things go together like roast beef and horseradish sauce.  The good old English hanging judge, as George Orwell once unwillingly conceded, was also an incorruptible figure of impartial justice. But I'd go further than that. Feebleness towards wrongdoers will eventually mean the end of freedom.

“I think that hanging would be the only way to carry out capital punishment humanely – if properly conducted,” he tells me. “The straightforward breaking of the neck is a quick, relatively painless way to go about it. In the old days, for example, a hangman could dispatch a criminal within literally seconds of them walking into the room. It was extremely efficient – the door opened, the criminal was sent in, the noose fastened, there was a drop, and then all of a sudden it was over. The victim – I mean, not the victim, the criminal, rather, is dead right away. So it’s much preferable to other methods one might implement.”

“The first execution I witnessed was Nicholas Ingram. Do you know what he did?”

“Why anyone would waste a second’s breath on trying to save that man, I have no idea,” Hitchens sighs. “In 1983, Ingram went into the home of an elderly couple, robbed them, dragged them out to the woods, tied them to a tree, tortured them – while remarking also that he enjoyed torturing people – and then shot the husband in the head, and did the same to the wife. They were tied to the same tree, but the wife survived the wound and testified against him. There was no question of his guilt, and no question that he should have been executed.”

We are often told that we imprison more people than any other European country (though in fact the gap isn't that big, as careful study of the figures shows). But this endlessly repeated liberal whine fails to notice that we also have many more crimes and criminals than any comparable European country.

If we imprisoned at the rate they do, we would have even more people inside. But we do not. We either don't send them to prison in the first place or we let them out as fast as possible.

What happened to produce this enormous increase? Well, the sixties happened. The death penalty was abolished, requiring the growing incarceration of murderers for long periods, and a general inflation of sentencing because there was now no distinction between property crimes and killing, and because serious violence grows more common when murder isn't punished by death. (What's the point of prison? 16 November 2009 3:50 PM)

Even those of them who pretend to believe in the death penalty will say: ‘But what if an innocent person got killed by mistake?’

Yet when it comes to Libya the same people suddenly lose all their doubts.

They’ll protect Libyan civilians by dropping tons of high explosive on anyone who attacks them. If innocent people are killed by mistake, and they have been and will be, that is ‘collateral damage’, sad but acceptable. (We can protect a mob in Benghazi, so why not a little girl in Stockwell? 02 April 2011 11:55 PM)

On the question of the Commandment 'Thou Shalt do no Murder', it is so rendered by Christ himself (Gospel according to St Matthew, Chapter 19, 18th verse, Authorised or 'King James' version).

This is why it is also so rendered in the service of The Lord's Supper in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. (Killing no murder? 11 April 2011 12:02 PM)

I might add that Christ himself was subject to the death penalty, and his sayings were recorded when sentence was passed on him and while it was being carried out, and He did not take the opportunities offered to condemn it in principle. I agree that arguments from silence are not always reliable. But in this case, the silence is pretty eloquent. He did say much on other subjects during this event. What is more, one of the two thieves stated from his cross that they were justly punished for their crimes, and Christ did not contradict him. (Killing no murder? 11 April 2011 12:02 PM)

I might add that both the 39 Articles of the Church of England (Article 37), and the Roman Catholic Catechism, both conclude that the death penalty is justified in certain circumstances. Those who compile these documents do not do so without much study of scriptural texts, or without much thought. (Killing no murder? 11 April 2011 12:02 PM)

Non-religious persons trying to make trouble will just have to accept that mainstream Christianity somehow manages to distinguish between lawless murder and lawful execution - even if Atheists appear to be unable to do so. Likewise it manages to observe that the destruction of a baby in the womb is the wrongful taking of life, which atheists also seem unable to perceive. (Killing no murder? 11 April 2011 12:02 PM)

That so many who are squeamish about the swift and humane execution of justly convicted killers are so relaxed about the mass murder, often by tearing them to pieces with metal instruments, of unborn babies, the bombing of Belgrade, Baghdad and Afghanistan (and now of Libya). (The Civil Sword 14 April 2011 2:58 PM)

But the many more-or-less liberal politicians and commentators who now exult at this death have a problem that I don't have. I believe in the death penalty, as deterrent and retribution. They don't. Had he fallen into the hands of some EU tribunal, bin Laden would have faced life imprisonment in some Dutch celebrity jail, doing his basket-making alongside various Serbs, and a few Croats for good measure, while the kitchens toiled to provide him with halal meals. This refusal to execute murderers is supposed to be a principle, so wouldn't be affected by the huge numbers of murders involved in this case. Shouldn't they then be condemning this execution too? On what morality or legality is it based, if we do not accept the death penalty? (The execution of Osama bin Laden: A few thoughts 02 May 2011 3:43 PM)

To be justly executed, you have to be found guilty of a particularly heinous murder by an impartial jury, to fail in repeated appeals and to be refused a reprieve by the Home Secretary after careful individual consideration of all aspects of your case. To be aborted or euthanized, you just have to be weak and inconvenient. (More angry people 21 June 2011 8:26 AM) 

I am saying that those who advance the danger of innocent deaths as a sole argument against capital punishment (and there are many Tory and other politicians who do so, while claiming to accept arguments about deterrence) are not restrained from other policies by similar or greater dangers of innocent deaths. Therefore this cannot be their real objection.  Either they have another objection, which they conceal because they are ashamed of it or know it to be feeble. Or they have not thought about it. Or they are avoiding the responsibility which falls on any government, to protect the people from harm. (The Barmy Logic of the Drug Legalisers 26 October 2011 11:28 AM)

I sought to explain the simple point (to me it’s simple) that a weak justice system means that wrongdoers grow in strength. So if we do not swiftly and severely punish crimes, evil grows in our society. The kind and the good suffer and are forced into retreat. Justice dies. (Wake up, judge! We've been letting everyone in for years 22 January 2012 1:23 AM) 

And I sought to explain that this meant that trying to be nice to men of violence, and to thieves, was actually cruel. It is cruel to those who will suffer at their hands. And in the end, from a Christian point of view, it is cruel to the malefactors. If they are not properly punished, they will not understand that what they do is wrong. They will not regret what they have done and they will not be sorry for anyone but themselves. (Wake up, judge! We've been letting everyone in for years 22 January 2012 1:23 AM) 

As the execution of Timothy McVeigh draws nearer, some in Britain will seek to mock or to undermine its purpose, to suggest that it is excessive, barbaric, brutal and needless. They will sneer at the circus which surrounds it and suggest that we handle these things better on our side of the Atlantic.

Before you accept this, it is worth wondering which is actually more barbaric - the lawful execution of a proven murderer after a fair trial before an independent jury, observed by a free Press, or the feeble surrender of authority in the face of violence and dishonesty. I think I know where the moral high ground is to be found.' (Reflections on how to punish mass murderers 18 April 2012 12:08 PM)  

Opponents of the death penalty claim to be worried about the execution of innocents. They aren't really. It is just a rhetorical point. Innocents die for all kinds of reasons (millions in abortions, to which the anti-execution lobby seem to have no objection) Many innocents are murdered, far more than used to be in the days of the death penalty, sometimes by convicted murderers who have been released. Convicted killers go free after a few years in non-punitive prisons. Innocents are also shot by armed police. Homicide and homicidal violence (which would have resulted in hundreds of deaths a year if we still had the hospitals of 1964) have increased enormously, as has the carrying of lethal weapons by criminals. (Loss and Gain, Past and Present, and who talked of a Golden Age? 04 June 2012 3:21 PM)

How can you favour execution when the Ten Commandments say ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’? Well, because most Christians read the Commandment as ‘Thou Shalt do no Murder’ (this is how Christ himself expresses the Commandment at Matthew, 19, 18, Authorized Version, and how it is rendered in those Anglican churches which still display the Ten Commandments at the east end of the Church). Is this a get-out? I believe the original Hebrew of Exodus is ambiguous, but could any moral system survive which did not distinguish between defensive and offensive violence, or between the guilty and the innocent?  I don’t think so. Even the Roman Catholic Catechism, which became more hostile to the death penalty under John Paul II, is not wholly hostile to it. And the 37th of the Church of England’s 39 articles famously says: ‘The Laws of a Realm may punish Christian men with death for heinous and grievous offences’ and further ‘ It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the Magistrate, to wear weapons and serve in the wars’. This is why I am particularly baffled by those who write in and ask how I can be against the killing in the womb of tiny children who are by definition innocent, while I favour the execution of (some) convicted murderers. Surely the contradiction is the other way? How can those who blithely accept this daily massacre of the innocents in misnamed ‘clinics’ not also be in favour of executing the guilty, since their view of the value of life appears purely utilitarian? (General Conversation Resumed 13 September 2012 12:21 PM)

…the danger of executing an innocent person must be reduced by all possible precautions. But it is absurd to imagine that it will never happen. Is this an absolute argument against the death penalty? Only in the way that it is an absolute argument against defending yourself militarily from an aggressor (innocents are also bound to die in this process, though the aim of the violence is good, however hard you seek to avoid it) and (in my view) by basing your transport policy on motor vehicles, which is certain to lead to a large slaughter of innocents. Many forms of medical treatment, particularly major surgery, also seem to me to be hedged about with this difficulty. But perhaps above all there is the fact that all murder victims are innocent deaths, many of them preventable by the death penalty; and that convicted murderers quite frequently kill again after being released from prison. So the argument that ‘we can’t execute in case innocents die’ suffers in two ways. First, if generally applied, it prevents many other actions we would normally regard as good, therefore if you cannot show that the death penalty is not in itself a valuable good, then the fear of innocent deaths is a hard argument to rely on. Next, that if the arguer’s concern for the deaths of innocents is so great, why does it not manifest itself in preventing the murders of innocents? (General Conversation Resumed 13 September 2012 12:21 PM) 

Parliament sentenced hundreds of innocent people to death when it arrogantly abolished hanging in 1965. Many of those innocent people have yet to meet their killers, but that meeting will inevitably come. (Of course hanging won't end all murders - but it will make criminals afraid to carry guns 22 September 2012 10:00 PM)  

Will those who oppose the death penalty,  because they are on principle unwilling to risk using it because there are a small number of wrongful executions, abide by the same principle, and also oppose the release of any convicted killers, lest they kill again? No, I thought not. Understandable, but in that case their objection is not a principle, it’s an excuse behind which they hide their real beliefs. (Should We Trust Official Crime Figures? 03 January 2013 4:26 PM)

I favour hanging because of its extreme swiftness when efficiently carried out, combined with its huge moral force.  There are many arguments for the death penalty beginning with the placing a special value on human life, moving on to deterrence.  Beneath all those arguments lies a religious question (this is the case with most major issues of our time). If man has an immortal soul,  the death penalty, by giving him the chance of real repentance before death, is far preferable to years rotting in a cell, during which ( as Myra Hindley plainly did) he forgets what it was that he did, and starts campaigning for his release.   

If man has no soul, and this is the only life we have, and there is no eternity nor any divine justice, then the only arguments for the death penalty are utilitarian ones. In an age of unbelief, I tend to concentrate on the utilitarian ones. (Hang it! Here we go again 29 April 2013 11:28 AM)

The main reason for the abolition of the death penalty is the squeamishness of politicians, who enjoy office but do not like all the duties which power loads on to their (often rather narrow) shoulders. Far easier to them to leave the matter to some trembling constable with a gun in a dark street, who can be disavowed if it all goes wrong later.

The use of medical-seeming methods also tends to support the idea that crime is a disease rather than a wilful act of conscious evil.  I formed this view when I witnessed an execution by lethal injection. (Hang it! Here we go again 29 April 2013 11:28 AM)

“Those who demand the abolition of the death penalty for murderers and criminals, in both the East and the West, forget the feelings of the victim’s family, and the magnitude of their loss. The role of the death penalty is to offer a form of just retribution, whilst it also serves as a deterrent, and supports the security of societies. Even states that adopt the principle of ‘blood money’ should not allow profiteering from the millions paid by good-hearted humanitarians, since this might lead to a dangerous increase of the rate of murders or a desensitization towards the act of killing. Yet, it is necessary for the concerned authorities to distinguish between a killer and another in terms of the nature of the crime, its motives and its surrounding conditions.” - Living on Death Row 4 October 2010

Instead of locking up offenders, the Government wastes a fortune of taxpayers' money on non-judgmental propaganda like the useless television adverts from the £2.2million Frank campaign.

Public funds are lavished on rehabilitation schemes, all of which have failed to prevent a dramatic rise in abuse.

Unlike China with its firing squads, the only 'shooting galleries' we have in Britain are state-run needle exchanges for junkies.

Outrageously, self-inflicted drug addiction is now regarded by the welfare state as a disability, entitling claimants to generous payouts of at least £110 a week. In effect, the Government requires taxpayers to subsidise criminal drug habits. It's estimated no fewer than 267,000 serious drug users live on social security.

In contrast to China, our criminal justice system no longer treats offending seriously. Criminals walk free, community punishments are meaningless, jail sentences, even for murder, are derisory.

Ordinary citizens are constantly bullied through a plethora of bureaucratic regulations, yet violence, burglary, theft and drug abuse carry no consequences.

One key factor behind modern Britain's reluctance to uphold the law is the belief that criminals are really victims of society, motivated only by social disadvantage or mental health problems and that they need support not punishment.

We can see this clearly in the case of Akmal Shaikh. Campaigners on his behalf claim he was suffering from mental illness at the time of his visit to China and so should be let off.

Such excuse-making is absurd. His record of infidelity, sexual harassment and dubious business conduct suggest he was amoral, selfish, and irresponsible.

He was once fined £10,000 for hounding a woman he had recruited as his secretary, while it is telling that his former first wife refused to join the campaign for a reprieve.

The British government, with its prattle about human rights, likes to think a refusal to use capital punishment is a badge of a civilised society. The truth is the willingness to execute dangerous criminals is a sign of compassion. It means a government is determined to protect the vulnerable and maintain morality.

It is no coincidence Britain was at its most peaceful and crime-free in the Forties and Fifties, when we still had the death penalty. [Sorry not to join the liberal wailing: heroin traffickers deserve to die By Leo Mckinstry Last updated at 1:46 AM on 1st January 2010 on THE DAILY MAIL]

Between 1950 and 1957, the number of murders in Britain never rose above 180. The annual average in recent years is over 900.

Overall crime has also shot up since we abolished capital punishment. Since the Fifties, the number of recorded crimes has increased more than tenfold, up from 438,000 in 1955 to 4.8 million in 2008.

This is because the removal of the death penalty has had a downward ratchet effect.

Since murderers could no longer be hanged, sentences for all other crimes had to be lowered commensurately. The result is the near-anarchy we see today, where serial offenders continually escape custody and rates of violent crime soar.

There is nothing barbaric about the death penalty. The real barbarism lies in refusing to punish criminals.

The drug-fuelled, crime-ridden, welfare-dependent, fear-filled inner city housing estate in modern Britain is far more savage than any place of execution in China for a trafficker of human misery. [Sorry not to join the liberal wailing: heroin traffickers deserve to die By Leo Mckinstry Last updated at 1:46 AM on 1st January 2010 on THE DAILY MAIL]

The hypocrisy is at its most glaring over the British state’s willingness to kill its enemies abroad, in contrast to its squeamishness over the death penalty at home. Last weekend Defence Secretary Liam Fox suggested that Gaddafi himself is “a legitimate target”. This stance was backed up not only by Foreign Secretary William Hague but also by the No 10 machine, which stated that Gaddafi could be taken out if he continues to orchestrate assaults on his own people. - THE DEATH PENALTY SHOULD BE USED AT HOME AND ABROAD Wednesday March 23, 2011

But this prompts the question: if it is acceptable to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi because of his record then why on earth is it wrong to execute Ian Huntley, the cold-blooded murderer of two young girls in Soham? Effectively the Government is using the weapon of capital punishment abroad but denies the same tool of justice for the British people at home. If our politicians think it is morally right to kill genocidal maniacs and tyrants overseas then why do they not apply this logic to British mass murderers such as Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe or the monstrous Dennis Nilsen, who butchered at least 15 boys and young men in gruesome circumstances between 1978 and 1983? - THE DEATH PENALTY SHOULD BE USED AT HOME AND ABROAD Wednesday March 23, 2011

Air strikes are far more lethal than a single noose around the neck of a convicted murderer yet the former is celebrated as a modern instrument of humanitarianism and the latter derided as an outdated symbol of savagery. Even more than Cameron today, Tony Blair was the supreme champion of this double standard. - THE DEATH PENALTY SHOULD BE USED AT HOME AND ABROAD Wednesday March 23, 2011

Opponents of the death penalty always smugly declare that the state should never take a human life. In reality, whenever the British state is involved in any sort of military action, killing will happen on a scale far greater than anything that would occur through the reintroduction of capital punishment. During Blair’s Yugoslav mission NATO air forces accidently bombed a convoy carrying Kosovan refugees. At least 70 innocent civilians were killed in the process. - THE DEATH PENALTY SHOULD BE USED AT HOME AND ABROAD Wednesday March 23, 2011

Equally wrong-headed is the fashionable idea that the death penalty is unusually cruel. What is truly cruel is the ideological refusal to protect society by making murderers pay the ultimate price for their crimes. Far from being “barbaric”, to use Blair’s phrase, the death penalty is actually driven by respect for the sanctity of innocent life. By downgrading the punishment for murder from execution to a prison sentence usually no longer than 12 years the state is signalling that it places only limited value on human life. - THE DEATH PENALTY SHOULD BE USED AT HOME AND ABROAD Wednesday March 23, 2011

It is little wonder that since the abolition of the death penalty in 1965 Britain has become a more violent, less well-ordered place. Overall crime has shot up tenfold, while the murder rate has quadrupled. So much of the Government’s international posturing arises from our politicians’ desire to feel self-important. They seek adulation as the world’s policemen but if they really want to fight criminality and oppression they should concentrate more of their efforts on protecting the British public. Moral courage, like charity, should begin at home. - THE DEATH PENALTY SHOULD BE USED AT HOME AND ABROAD Wednesday March 23, 2011

We should also bring back the death penalty for the most serious murders. The return of the ultimate sanction would reinforce the moral authority of the state, act as a deterrent for the most dangerous brutes and provide real justice for victims’ families. - A HOLIDAY PERIOD THAT WAS SCARRED BY CASUAL VIOLENCE Thursday January 5, 2012

The abolition of capital punishment in 1965 ultimately had an insidious effect on all sentencing. With even cold-blooded killers now serving little more than a decade inside, all other jail terms were commensurately downgraded. - A HOLIDAY PERIOD THAT WAS SCARRED BY CASUAL VIOLENCE Thursday January 5, 2012

Already, even before a payout is agreed, it seems certain that Huntley will receive legal aid to fight his case, so as taxpayers we will all be forced to support the legal antics of this brute. Blood money down a moral sewer is the only way to describe the farce. All this could have been avoided if Huntley had been executed in 2002. That is the punishment his terrible crimes merited. - HUNTLEY’S LAWSUIT INSULTS HIS VICTIMS AND THE NATION Monday August 2, 2010

Hanging would not have been barbarous, as opponents of the death penalty would no doubt argue. It would, in truth, have been an act of the highest morality, providing closure for his victims’ families and justice for our society. - HUNTLEY’S LAWSUIT INSULTS HIS VICTIMS AND THE NATION Monday August 2, 2010

His execution would have ended all this expensive nonsense of lawsuits. Far too often infamous lifers use our misnamed human rights culture to create a drama around themselves. We saw it with the nonstop, self-pitying campaign by Myra Hindley for early release and in mass murderer Dennis Nilsen’s vile demand, predictably funded by legal aid, to be provided with hard-core gay porn in his cell.

The gallows would have ended such absurdities, just as they would have prevented other inmates trying to act as lynch mobs. - HUNTLEY’S LAWSUIT INSULTS HIS VICTIMS AND THE NATION Monday August 2, 2010

The prison system is forced to spend more than £1million a year protecting Huntley from other convicts, giving him a constant watch by three teams of two officers. Many would, understandably, say attacks from other inmates are no more than Huntley deserves.

But doesn’t that undermine the argument that the death penalty is more barbaric than a life sentence? The truth is that capital punishment is the badge of a civilised society. England was a far gentler, more well-ordered and cohesive place in the Fifties when we executed monsters like Huntley. - HUNTLEY’S LAWSUIT INSULTS HIS VICTIMS AND THE NATION Monday August 2, 2010

Most urban dwellers that I have encountered do not perceive this act of retribution as inhumane if the crime in itself was ghastly in nature.  The kidnapping and molestation of a child, or the rape and murder of a defenseless woman, or a greed-motivated and premeditated murder would not elicit any form of sympathy for the assailant in any form. - Deterrent punishment helps control crime By TARIQ A. AL-MAEENA | ARAB NEWS Fri 13 May 2011

Although they may quote verses from the Holy Qur'an in the form that forgiveness is divine, few would march in defense of a proven criminal of gruesome deeds or against his execution. - Deterrent punishment helps control crime By TARIQ A. AL-MAEENA | ARAB NEWS Fri 13 May 2011

Others may point out to the relative safety from bodily harm prevalent in the Kingdom to further their conviction that capital punishment does indeed serve as a deterrent in keeping heinous crimes low in numbers. In that people can for the most part walk freely without fear of being accosted by an armed robber, there is no question in their minds that such executions play a big role. - Deterrent punishment helps control crime By TARIQ A. AL-MAEENA | ARAB NEWS Fri 13 May 2011

Whereas in some countries, the innocent have been reportedly put to their deaths through flawed investigations, raising public indignation over the role of such state-sponsored executions, such errors are minimized here through self-admission or witnesses. And testimonies are usually scrutinized in several tiers of the legal system before a final verdict is issued. - Deterrent punishment helps control crime By TARIQ A. AL-MAEENA | ARAB NEWS Fri 13 May 2011

Despite western criticism, most urban dwellers in Saudi Arabia do not see this act of retribution as inhumane if the crime is ghastly in nature. - Endless debate over death penalty By Tariq A. Al Maeena, Special to Gulf News Published: 00:00 December 25, 2011

I am more than sympathetic to the view of those who say Olson should have been hanged. [Of forgotten victims, dying psychopaths and the death penalty By PAUL SCHNEIDEREIT Published: Tuesday 27 September 2011]

I do know I’ve long felt that Olson forfeited his own right to life when he killed those kids. [Of forgotten victims, dying psychopaths and the death penalty By PAUL SCHNEIDEREIT Published: Tuesday 27 September 2011]

Restore capital punishment and exit the ECHR – or the EU

By Gerald Warner Politics Last updated: June 20th, 2008

Is the life of such a monster the best cause Amnesty International can espouse? Should it not be defending political prisoners, rather than serial child killers? For too long credence has been given to sanctimonious opponents of capital punishment. In 1965, the year hanging was abolished in this country, homicides in England and Wales amounted to 6.8 per million people; by 2005 it had more than doubled to 15 per million.

Even if capital punishment were not a deterrent (though these figures show it is), society has a duty to exact proper retribution from those who break the ultimate taboo. So far from disrespecting human life, capital punishment asserts the sacred character of innocent, as distinct from guilty, life.

The objections of whey-faced liberals are infantile, in the context of grim reality. Capital punishment is not “un-Christian”: Saint Paul awarded the “jus gladii” to Christian princes. It is not “barbaric”: perfectly civilised people endorse it, as has always been the case, as well as many distinguished philosophers the true barbarism is sanctioning the collapse of society. When no judge has at his disposal the supreme penalty which every thug carries in his pocket, then power has departed from legitimate authority and resides with the forces of anarchy.

It does not “make us the same” as the murderers: we shall only become the same if we mutilate and eat children. Abolitionists display unthinking callousness towards the victims of murder to whom they deny protection. Whingeing about the sanctity of the lives of serial killers comes unconvincingly from liberals who endorse the seven million abortions since 1968. That was the elegant congruency of 1960s morality: innocent life was made forfeit, guilty life was rendered inviolate.

Abolition was imposed by Parliament against the known wishes of the public so no change there. We can only bring back hanging by repudiating the sixth protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights, or by leaving the European Union. That is an almost irresistible incentive what a double whammy.

That is illuminating because both these most recent polls record very high support for the position that actually obtained pre-abolition in 1965. By that period the chequered history of capital punishment in Britain, a progression from hanging offenders for petty theft to limited application to murderers, had reached its most balanced and just position: death for brutal, premeditated murder, etc, clemency in cases of provocation, and so on. That equitable settlement was bulldozed by a bleeding-heart liberal House of Commons. MPs' lying assurances that "life would mean life" were exposed as worthless during the next 30 years when more than 70 murders were committed by killers released on parole. By 2006 the Home Office confirmed that only 35 murderers were serving genuine "whole life" terms. (Scrapping corporal punishment was death penalty for democracy Sunday 7 August 2011)

Last year Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, serving 20 life sentences for 13 murders and seven attempted murders, was considered for release on licence after serving 29 years. He is still behind bars, but even the appeal procedure was an affront to justice.

The weasel claim of abolitionists that executing murderers makes society "as bad as they are" is mawkish nonsense. The same decade that saw murderers' lives made sacrosanct in Britain also saw the passing of the Abortion Act under which seven million unborn children have died. Honourable members displayed no queasiness when they initiated that carnage. (Scrapping corporal punishment was death penalty for democracy Sunday 7 August 2011)

The assertion that fear of executing an innocent person should deter us from restoring capital punishment is regularly backed up with hysterical claims about widespread miscarriages of justice in America. The most cited study, by Bedau and Radelet, claimed 350 wrongful convictions in the United States during the 20th century. When anecdotal evidence from early in the century was set aside and the more scientifically recorded period 1977 to 1986 analysed, out of 50,000 murder convictions the authors could only find five errors, none of which resulted in execution. (Scrapping corporal punishment was death penalty for democracy Sunday 7 August 2011)

Since abolition, homicides have more than doubled. Curiously, the issue of capital punishment is a devolved power in Scotland, though lesser matters are reserved. However, the public is even less likely to obtain satisfaction from the administration that freed the Lockerbie bomber than from the liberal narcissists at Westminster. (Scrapping corporal punishment was death penalty for democracy Sunday 7 August 2011)

The punishment for murder is becoming shorter and easier. A judge could sentence a man to life in prison, but after 15 years, that same man could be out of jail already. In this case, criminals do not fear the punishment anymore, because of this inadequate punishment by the legal system, thus they would commit crime over and over again. Punishment is meant to give justice to the wrongdoer and to keep him from doing it again. But how can we entrust the murderers to a judicial system that will either let the criminals out in fifteen years or have us take care of them for twenty - five years, and then let them go? This kind of judicial system is sick, in other words this is not actually effective. [There is Justice in Capital Punishment Tuesday 18 January 2011]

I believe some improvements are necessary to focus attention. I would say that capital punishment should remain in use and delivered more frequently. Implementing the death penalty is really hard to penetrate. It may be easy for us to understand the act of execution but it is usually beyond us to understand the emotions that a criminal is feeling on death row. I know it must feel painful and inhumane. However, this kind of punishment is sometimes necessary to carry out in order for us to gain respect and impose discipline, especially with people who are not rational thinkers. [There is Justice in Capital Punishment Tuesday 18 January 2011]

During the Roman and Babylonian Empires, the death penalty was effective. If we apply it in today’s society, it will be more efficient than using government tax money for the harmful criminals to stay in prison. I am not suggesting killing or executing all prisoners. All I am saying is we should have the death penalty as an option of punishment so that serious criminals will be afraid of breaking the law. [There is Justice in Capital Punishment Tuesday 18 January 2011]

This penalty would serve as a deterrent of violent crimes and help restore justice.  Using this kind of punishment would motivate people to stay away from any violent crimes.  Capital punishment would make people think first before committing an offense punishable by death. Therefore, both public security and morals would be improved. [There is Justice in Capital Punishment Tuesday 18 January 2011]

Forms of execution used today are lethal injection, electrocution, hanging, the gas chamber and the firing squad. Several arguments against the death sentence need to be addressed. Some people believe that there is a possibility of wrongly executing an innocent man.  And yes, there is also a possibility of wrongly sending an innocent man to prison, but they postulate that because of the irrevocable nature of the death penalty, the consequences of wrongly executing an innocent person are far worse.  There has never been conclusive proof yet of an innocent man being executed, but still the judicial system must take many precautions to ensure that the rights of the innocent are protected. In a complex  process, every reasonable precaution is taken to ensure that no innocent man is executed. The sentencing process for capital punishment cases is long and thorough. [There is Justice in Capital Punishment Tuesday 18 January 2011]

If we abolish the death penalty, do you think the crime rate will decline? No. Do you think innocent people will be more secure, including the victim’s family? No. Do you think criminals will be more confident inflicting violence that would destroy the life of other people? Yes. In the making of our law, we have to make sure that mercy for the guilty does not take precedence over the rights of victims and future potential victims. [There is Justice in Capital Punishment Tuesday 18 January 2011]

Then something happened which changed my mind. In December 2006 Saddam Hussein was hanged in Iraq. Try as I might, I couldn’t think of a single reason why anyone could disagree with his execution. There was no doubt about his guilt. He had murdered hundreds of thousands by deliberate actions, some in cold blood.  He expressed no remorse. He was as close to pure evil as any man can get. To me the question wasn’t whether he should have been executed. It was whether there were any valid reasons not to kill him. And there were none. (WHY BRINGING BACK HANGING IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO Saturday 25 June 2011 Daily Express)

But from what we know about the criminal justice system the idea of life meaning life is unlikely. Who would bet against some human rights organisation campaigning for his release in 20 years’ time? As for the idea that it is better that 99 guilty men go free than one innocent man is hanged: better for whom? (WHY BRINGING BACK HANGING IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO Saturday 25 June 2011 Daily Express)

Abolition of death penalty is just a call for giving immunity for criminals to commit more crimes under the cover of human rights which change recently to the rights of European human. [Truth waves: Death Penalty Will Remain Forever Thursday 13 October 2011]

I will let you know that why Islam stipulated the penalties firstly that idea aims to reform the doer or a person who committed such a sin but not revenge from him as the narrow-minded vision the European based their call to stop one major pillar of Sharia law depending on their illusion. [Truth waves: Death Penalty Will Remain Forever Thursday 13 October 2011]

Death penalty is also aims to preserve the society from revengeful acts which happen in western countries due to leaving criminals at large and in front of the families’ victims. [Truth waves: Death Penalty Will Remain Forever Thursday 13 October 2011]

The rule of law has to stand, and the rule of law is established by the democratically elected members of a national parliament. The Norwegian people themselves had their representatives do away with the death penalty; a foolish decision, yes, but they took it. (What Norway must do now, no matter how the stomach heaves: stand by the rule of law 26 July 2011 12:15 PM)

The release of Philip Lawrence's killer showed we have forgotten what human rights are November 25th, 2010 - According to the logic of anti-capital punishment campaigners, if just one innocent life is taken then the system is wrong. So why do the same people not campaign against probation, when in just two years criminals on licence have committed 120 murders, 103 rapes and 682 other serious violent or sexual offences? Has anyone made any films about those 120 innocent victims? Nope. Have any rock stars made James Hanratty-style campaigns about probation? Not a chance.