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hmmm_teaYorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe 'fit to be freed from Broadmoor'
Heard about this on radio 4 this morning, along with a load of interviews with the "life means life, lock him up and throw away the key" brigade.
OK, what he was convicted of doing was horrendous. I remember reading about the murders a few years ago and feeling physically sick that anyone could even consider doing that.
However, I strongly feel that the justice system should be about rehabilitation rather than revenge. Therefore if he is deemed to be safe now why shouldn't he be given some more freedom again?
We don't have the death penalty in this country, which is, in my opinion, a good thing. However, surely by locking someone up, and refusing them any chance of parole, we are still taking their life away from them?
I was 6 months old when Peter Sutcliffe was convicted in May 1981, which means he's been in prison for about as long as I've been alive. I am struggling to comprehend what that must have been like and I doubt any of the people in charge of making these sort of decisions will truly know, it's all down to what looks good in the press and the public seem to like revenge.
I can understand people being kept locked up if they clearly remain a danger to the general public, but it seems like, as with Myra Hindley, we're not even prepared to even review their sentence and Peter Sutcliffe will die in jail without any chance of ever seeing anything resembling freedom.
He might not have shown much compassion towards his victims, but that doesn't mean we can't show some towards him.
Heard about this on radio 4 this morning, along with a load of interviews with the "life means life, lock him up and throw away the key" brigade.
OK, what he was convicted of doing was horrendous. I remember reading about the murders a few years ago and feeling physically sick that anyone could even consider doing that.
However, I strongly feel that the justice system should be about rehabilitation rather than revenge. Therefore if he is deemed to be safe now why shouldn't he be given some more freedom again?
We don't have the death penalty in this country, which is, in my opinion, a good thing. However, surely by locking someone up, and refusing them any chance of parole, we are still taking their life away from them?
I was 6 months old when Peter Sutcliffe was convicted in May 1981, which means he's been in prison for about as long as I've been alive. I am struggling to comprehend what that must have been like and I doubt any of the people in charge of making these sort of decisions will truly know, it's all down to what looks good in the press and the public seem to like revenge.
I can understand people being kept locked up if they clearly remain a danger to the general public, but it seems like, as with Myra Hindley, we're not even prepared to even review their sentence and Peter Sutcliffe will die in jail without any chance of ever seeing anything resembling freedom.
He might not have shown much compassion towards his victims, but that doesn't mean we can't show some towards him.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 04:46 pm (UTC)