Sunday, January 18, 2004
In as much as I've considered my personal politics I consider myself fairly left-wing, opposed to capital punishment and the death penalty, I consider the primary role of prisons should be redemptive and reducational rather than punishment and I'm broadly in favour of euthanasia, although at the moment that's more the idea than as an actual policy.
So, I'm completely against this article from today's IoS, Mark Leech: Give them enough rope - why lifers should be offered a dignified exit. Mainly because if it were ever adopted as policy I see it as the return of execution under the guise of euthanasia. Having little faith in the concept of life after death and none in the idea that an eternity of pain or pleasure exists to punish/reward you for four score and ten's worth of living, I see euthanasia in this case as denying something to everyone's views of prison, it doesn't punish someone, it doesn't give a chance that they can understand they were wrong or find someway to make some recompense to society from their cells. Unlike Herod Blunkett I didn't want Shipman dead because I wanted him to see society go on despite his attempts to destroy part of it, just as I want Saddam Hussein not to be given a death sentence at his forthcoming trial because I want him to live long enough to see Iraq return from the brink he drove it to.
Even to my 'pinko liberal' ears some of the writing makes me feel like I'm sitting over on the bench with Blunkett when I read this:
It's not that hard to imagine why [Harold Shipman hung himself]: he was facing the prospect of the next 30 years or more inside after David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, told him he would serve "whole life" - and I guess he concluded there was absolutely nothing to be had in his future that was worth the pain and anguish of going through even one more day.
'His pain and anguish'? What about the pain and anguish the families of his victims felt?
So, I'm completely against this article from today's IoS, Mark Leech: Give them enough rope - why lifers should be offered a dignified exit. Mainly because if it were ever adopted as policy I see it as the return of execution under the guise of euthanasia. Having little faith in the concept of life after death and none in the idea that an eternity of pain or pleasure exists to punish/reward you for four score and ten's worth of living, I see euthanasia in this case as denying something to everyone's views of prison, it doesn't punish someone, it doesn't give a chance that they can understand they were wrong or find someway to make some recompense to society from their cells. Unlike Herod Blunkett I didn't want Shipman dead because I wanted him to see society go on despite his attempts to destroy part of it, just as I want Saddam Hussein not to be given a death sentence at his forthcoming trial because I want him to live long enough to see Iraq return from the brink he drove it to.
Even to my 'pinko liberal' ears some of the writing makes me feel like I'm sitting over on the bench with Blunkett when I read this:
It's not that hard to imagine why [Harold Shipman hung himself]: he was facing the prospect of the next 30 years or more inside after David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, told him he would serve "whole life" - and I guess he concluded there was absolutely nothing to be had in his future that was worth the pain and anguish of going through even one more day.
'His pain and anguish'? What about the pain and anguish the families of his victims felt?
