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Originally Posted by Nugget
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Originally Posted by Damien
The death penality has no effect on reducing crime
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Having said that, it does have an effect on reducing criminals  |
Usually to ashes...
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The problem with the death penalty is that there is too much potential for the wrong person to be punished. Obviously, in this case, the guy has been found guilty and sentenced accordingly.
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True. While I often defend our legal system, it's possible for mistakes to occur in any legal system.
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However, I don't feel that the death penalty would be applicable for the ricin issue (the fact that he murdered a policeman is another issue). With regards to the potential 'genocide', while he possessed the tools to harm / murder a fairly large amount of people, he didn't actually do it. As a result, if the death penalty was enforced, surely, in this instance, it would have been enforced because of the potential for somebody to commit the crime, in which case we could all be in trouble because we all have that potential.
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True. As far as I can tell (of course, I haven't seen the evidence, so could be wrong), all they have proved is he had the recipe, and some of the ingrediants for Ricin. Even assuming he did manage to make it up, possessing a dangerous chemical is not a good reason to put somebody to death. After all, we all have bottles of bleach, disinfectant, various poisons for gardening etc. If he HAD released the Ricin (or cyanide) into an area and killed or injured people, that would be more of a reason.
me283, this is off topic, but you seem to know an awful lot about prisons (pretty sure I've seen you compare them to holiday camps before). Do you actually have any experience of them (visiting, or talking to people that have experienced prison), or are you basing your opinion on what the media say? As I have said, I know someone who did do time, and he paints a different picture of prison life.