The " Death Penalty " Debate !

A century ago judges delivering a guilty verdict in sensational murder trials usually donned a piece of black cloth on their head and sentenced the murderer to the gallows.  Some sentences were commuted to life imprisonment, but hanging was the usual method of execution in all Australian states.  The last man hanged in Australia was Ronald Ryan and he died in Melbourne in 1967.

There has been relentless pressure to cease judicial executions on a world wide basis and now it remains on the books in just a few countries.  Here in Australia the penalty for most murders seems to be a de facto  twenty years imprisonment, usually commuted to parole after a period of good behaviour.

When the death penalty was taken off the books it was replaced with judges marking papers "Never to be released " for particularly abhorrent cases of murder.  This applied to Michael Murdock and John Travers, the ringleaders of the Anita Cobby murder, and to Alan Baker and Kevin Crump for the torture/rape slaying of Virginia Morse in 1973.   When a legal loophole emerged that could allow such sentences to be "reclassified " Labor Premier Bob Carr closed that loophole and ensured that those serving their sentence for the most heinous crimes - would die in prison !

Once again we have a parliamentary enquiry looking into the prison sentencing system and the above named prisoners have appealed that they have been served with a "cruel and unusual "punishment and are pleading to be given vocational training with the possibility of eventual release.  There is a school of thought prevailing in left wing minds that executions do not deter murder, resulting in a degree of pressure for sentencing reform.

That thinking could eventually allow Martin Bryant to again walk the streets of Hobart.  In 1996 he calmly and methodically stalked visitors to Tasmania's Port Arthur, killing thirty-five men, women and children and seriously wounding another twenty-three.  That was a crime that led to tightening of gun laws on a nation wide basis.

Perhaps it is time to rethink punishment.  These type or murderers are totally repugnant to other prisoners and need to be separated at all times.  They are under constant threat and live a lonely life, but this is a punishment they have inflicted on themselves by the nature of their actions.  Ending their life by way of execution would have at least been preferable to the miserable existence of living out their years as a "hermit " within the prison system, hated by both fellow prisoners and the guards tasked with tending their needs.

Our attitude to execution seems strangely selective.   The vast majority do not wish to return to the death penalty and yet we simply shrug our shoulders when we hear of refugees drowning at sea when they try to escape repression or religious wars maiming and killing civilians - for the crime of not following the creed demanded by their persecutors.   We are more concerned about the possibility of just several executions here a year, and oblivious to the death of hundreds of thousands who die an agonising death by starvation and privation in other countries.

Then there is the cost factor.  Keeping a notorious murderer safe in the prison system costs a vast multiple of ordinary prisoner costs.  We seem to be on the brink of jihad from religious radicalization which may take the form of bombings or street murders.  Those apprehended would need segregation and would likely retain their aim of waging war on all "infidels " - including guards and prisoners within the system.  This could easily turn our prisoners into hot beds of rebellion that can spin out of control.

We had no hesitation in putting spies before a firing squad during previous wars and those who used civilian attire to make armed intrusions suffered the same fate.  Islamic State has declared war on the rest of the world - and surely making war on Australian soil by radicalized civilians meets this same criteria.  It certainly falls within the guidelines of what are recognised as the " Rules of War " as practiced by civilized countries.

If we are not prepared to revisit the death penalty the only alternative is to accept that all and every crime must eventually result in the release of the perpetrator - because having a prisoner locked away until the end of their life is deemed to be a "cruel and unusual "punishment that does not meet the bounds of decency.

The only problem with that approach is that is so enrages victims of atrocious crimes that some seek to deliver their own versions of "justice " !     If jihad becomes a way of life in Australia, the appearance of right wing "Death Squads " could be an eventuality.

Newtons Law applies.   To every action, there is an immediate and opposite reaction !