How about the moon?

Bit strong Luke, each to their own opinion, have said mine about this subject. This subject is bound to raise the pressure but some posters have got a tad nasty to each other. And his reply to you about the welsh bit was OTT as well.

Discussing this subject is good but too many posts on here have got at each other and I don't think it helps

Do you think iceberg lettuces would be cheap there?

Just like Bart....
hehehe )

I wish Australia had the death penalty... then this day would have not come... the Good Bro died of someone who is real culprit....
long live brotherhood, drug smuggling is bad...
- Bart

ok now... Blame it on Rio... )

It doesn't matter till we are hidden under our avtar..... lol..
btw, its fun to tease, crack joke and make someone angry...sometimes... Remeber when did we get the last oppurtunity to break the glass of neighbour, scribble on the wall at home, make loud noises or firing crackers when everyone in the apt is fast asleep..

No please not the moon, I've always wanted to go into space and who knows in 20 years I might be able to go to the moon. The last thing I want when I get there is it full of crims pretending they are ok now, short changing me everywhere I go and talking with a stupid accent, making me stand in an immigration queue at the spaceport and asking stupid questions like have I brought any apples or lettuces with me!

There has been a lot of comment with respect to this case about the "censored Singapore press".

FWIW I've just got back from a week in Singapore - no, I didn't go for the hanging - and the Straits Times carried full coverage of the whole thing, including all the relevant Australian comment. Some days there were a good half dozen long articles, plus letters on both sides.

And as for the opinion that hanging drugs operatives is no deterrent - how in heaven's name do you prove that? Australia has laughable penalties and is probably the world's leading druggies cultures: Singapore (although the East India Company virtually *ran* on heroin) *has* the death penalty and has one of the lowest rates of drug use.

If you can make $thousands tax free with almost no penalty there will be many will try it. If the penalty if caught is death you have to be friggin' imbecilic to attempt it and anyone who says it doesn't deter IMO is talking through his/her hat!

The death penalty for crimes has been around for thousands of years. If it were such a great deterant why hasnt serious crime that warrants the death penalty become a thing of the past instead of on the increase ?

I'll go and get my hat.

Because some want to gamble... some want to take a chance...
Quick bucks you know....

Well thats not the ans.... the ans is many are thick skinned just want to achive the things w/o even thinking of consequences.
Just guess if both bro thought of family suffering if at all they were caught and things like that, trust me this would have not happened. Instead of govt enforing why cant we as parents, bros, sis teach them. Education has to start @home. Compare the no of hrs one spend in home with family and friends... that will tell all.
- Bart

a while back on this thread peeps were talking about punishment for paedophilia/ ephebophilia (adults abusing 12/13 - 16yr olds)....

if convicted of rape gary glitter faces death by firing squad. d'you think there'll be as much difference in opinion (in the press for example) of the appropriateness of this punishment as compared to drug running.... and if there is why?

just wondering!

f
x

Ahh, the Straits Times, that Bastion of freedom of speech.

Rog, no offence mate, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the reason for the low drugs rate in Singapore is a combination of it being a Police State/ dictatorship, a strong social framework and the fact that you will get caught.

I used to hold the same view as you citing the success of Singapore, but whilst studying the Death penalty as part of my Law degree I came to realise that punishment has no bearing on crime rates. It is a well held view amongst academics that the Death Penalty has no value.

Anyway, I've tried to get some numbers off the internet, but didn't have time to find much, but below is what I got. At the end of the day I wish people would be honest and admit that the Death penalty doesn't effect crime. Just say it, you like criminals to be killed.

Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Examining the Effect of Executions on Murder in Texas. Authors John Sorenson, Robert Wrinkle, Victoria Brewer, and James Marquart examined executions in Texas between 1984 and 1997. They speculated that if a deterrent effect were to exist, it would be found in Texas because of the high number of death sentences and executions within the state. Using patterns in executions across the study period and the relatively steady rate of murders in Texas, the authors found no evidence of a deterrent effect. The study concluded that the number of executions was unrelated to murder rates in general, and that the number of executions was unrelated to felony rates. (45 Crime and Delinquency 481-93 (1999)).

Deterrence, Brutalization, and the Death Penalty: Another Examination of Oklahomas Return to Capital Punishment. In this study, author William Bailey speculated that if executions had a deterrent effect in Oklahoma, it would be observable by comparing murder rates and rates of sub-types of murder, such as felony-murder, stranger robbery-related killings, stranger non-felony murder, and argument-related killings, before and after the resumption of executions. Bailey examined the period between 1989 and 1991 for total killings and sub-types of killing. After controlling for a number of variables, Bailey found that there was no evidence for a deterrent effect. He did, however, find that there was a significant increase in stranger killings and non-felony stranger killings after Oklahoma resumed executions after a 25-year moratorium. (36 Criminology 711-33 (1998)).

Homicide Rates Fall in Canada After Abolition of Death Penalty
The abolition of the death penalty in Canada in 1976 has not led to increased homicide rates. Statistics Canada reports that the number of homicides in Canada in 2001 (554) was 23% lower than the number of homicides in 1975 (721), the year before the death penalty was abolished. In addition, homicide rates in Canada are generally three times lower than homicide rates in the U.S., which uses the death penalty. For example, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, the homicide rate in the U.S. in 1999 was 5.7 per 100,000 population and the rate in Canada was only 1.8. Canada currently sentences those convicted of murder to life sentences with parole eligibility. (Issues Direct.com, 8/4/02).

Deterrence: U.S. Murder Rate Greatly Exceeds European Non-Death Penalty Nations
Data released by the British Home Office reveals that the United States, which retains the death penalty, has a murder rate that is more than three times that of many of its European allies that have banned capital punishment. (New York Times, May 11, 2002). The data challenges the argument that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder. There are more than 110 nations around the world that have banned the death penalty in law or practice.
When comparisons are made between states with the death penalty and states without, the majority of death penalty states show murder rates higher than non-death penalty states. The average of murder rates per 100,000 population in 1999 among death penalty states was 5.5, whereas the average of murder rates among non-death penalty states was only 3.6.
A look at neighboring death penalty and non-death penalty states show similar trends. Death penalty states usually have a higher murder rate than their neighboring non-death penalty states.

I tend to have a lot of sympathy for your argument. What would be an interesting exercise is to see whether murder rates and other serious crimes went up if the death penalty were to be brought in. America re-established the death penalty 28 years ago there have been 1000 executions in that time, are murder rates also up ?

BTW there are 29 documentated cases of the death penalty being applied to innocent people in the US now.

I can see a corrolation, that if the Government says that is ok to Kill for punitive or for the eye for an eye mentality, then common sense says, that 'some' individuals will also think this way in certain circumstances within that society.

The other side of the coin to this is, that life inprisonment, really should be life in prison.