Ian Huntley.

Sorry Jack C, your response, although interesting, is simply not accurate. Firstly, I don’t really think that Utilitarianism argues that war can be justified for the greater good. Admittedly, I have only a sketchy knowledge of it, but as I understand it, it mainly talks about actions, moral or otherwise, being judged principally by the amount of human happiness that results from those actions, or by how much human misery is reduced by those actions. “The greater good” is merely, in my view, a handy catch phrase for politicians to use when they want to justify something, and I generally have no truck with it. Neither did I say that “captured paedophiles (should be) hanged.” What I actually said was: “I'm not arguing in favour of the death penalty necessarily; but in some cases I can see it's justification.” The main point I made here was that Life terms should mean Life and not a few years. I am surprised you think that re-offending by child abusers and killers doesn’t make the papers much. There have been so many cases. Only last June I remember a furore about some bloke who was released, and within days, raped and murdered another child. More notoriously, Roy Whiting was released two years early after being convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl. After his release, he kidnapped, assaulted and murdered eight-year-old Sarah Payne. That odious man, Excell, who spent 37 years in prison for his crimes, reoffended on each of the three occasions that he was parolled. In 1973, he raped a nine-year-old boy and when he got out again in 1977 he raped a 13-year-old. And yes, re-offending rates for paedophiles are very high. It seems impossible to get an accurate figure, but the general rate of re-offending for all sex offenders is about 25%, according to a 21 year study by the Journal of Legal and Criminal Psychology. Rates for paedophiles are reportedly much higher, anything up to 80%, which is the re-offending rate for psychopaths. Even if you interpret the figures fairly generously, you can estimate that 1 in 3, or even 1 in 2 paedophiles will re-offend. And re-offending rates in sex offenders persist for over 10 years. These debates have had so much exposure in the last few years I am really surprised you haven’t come across them. So it is not a “might” happen so much as a “likely to” happen. And why not have certain rules for certain categories of offence? That has always been a principle in law. Treason was until recently a hanging offence. And I don’t think it’s a case of punishing people becaue of our disgust, it is punishing people to save others form being raped, abused or murdered. The main point I wanted to make, and did make, is that I don’t think it’s of any value using a moral argument to sustain a certain course of action (e.g. abolishing the death penalty) if you don’t balance that against other moral considerations which that course of action might lead to. No-one can explain to the parents of Sarah Payne, and all the other children killed or abused by re-offending paedophiles that their children’s lives matter less than the liberty of the abuser. Therein lies the problem. One person’s liberty, or one person’s moral principle, leads to another person’s loss or damage of life. How does anyone defend that?

Sorry Jack C, your response, although interesting, is simply not accurate. Firstly, I don’t really think that Utilitarianism argues that war can be justified for the greater good. Admittedly, I have only a sketchy knowledge of it, but as I understand it, it mainly talks about actions, moral or otherwise, being judged principally by the amount of human happiness that results from those actions, or by how much human misery is reduced by those actions. “The greater good” is merely, in my view, a handy catch phrase for politicians to use when they want to justify something, and I generally have no truck with it. Neither did I say that “captured paedophiles (should be) hanged.” What I actually said was: “I'm not arguing in favour of the death penalty necessarily; but in some cases I can see it's justification.” The main point I made here was that Life terms should mean Life and not a few years. I am surprised you think that re-offending by child abusers and killers doesn’t make the papers much. There have been so many cases. Only last June I remember a furore about some bloke who was released, and within days, raped and murdered another child. More notoriously, Roy Whiting was released two years early after being convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl. After his release, he kidnapped, assaulted and murdered eight-year-old Sarah Payne. That odious man, Excell, who spent 37 years in prison for his crimes, reoffended on each of the three occasions that he was parolled. In 1973, he raped a nine-year-old boy and when he got out again in 1977 he raped a 13-year-old. And yes, re-offending rates for paedophiles are very high. It seems impossible to get an accurate figure, but the general rate of re-offending for all sex offenders is about 25%, according to a 21 year study by the Journal of Legal and Criminal Psychology. Rates for paedophiles are reportedly much higher, anything up to 80%, which is the re-offending rate for psychopaths. Even if you interpret the figures fairly generously, you can estimate that 1 in 3, or even 1 in 2 paedophiles will re-offend. And re-offending rates in sex offenders persist for over 10 years. These debates have had so much exposure in the last few years I am really surprised you haven’t come across them. So it is not a “might” happen so much as a “likely to” happen. And why not have certain rules for certain categories of offence? That has always been a principle in law. Treason was until recently a hanging offence. And I don’t think it’s a case of punishing people becaue of our disgust, it is punishing people to save others form being raped, abused or murdered. The main point I wanted to make, and did make, is that I don’t think it’s of any value using a moral argument to sustain a certain course of action (e.g. abolishing the death penalty) if you don’t balance that against other moral considerations which that course of action might lead to. No-one can explain to the parents of Sarah Payne, and all the other children killed or abused by re-offending paedophiles that their children’s lives matter less than the liberty of the abuser. Therein lies the problem. One person’s liberty, or one person’s moral principle, leads to another person’s loss or damage of life. How does anyone defend that?

Sorry Jack C, your response, although interesting, is simply not accurate. Firstly, I don’t really think that Utilitarianism argues that war can be justified for the greater good. Admittedly, I have only a sketchy knowledge of it, but as I understand it, it mainly talks about actions, moral or otherwise, being judged principally by the amount of human happiness that results from those actions, or by how much human misery is reduced by those actions. “The greater good” is merely, in my view, a handy catch phrase for politicians to use when they want to justify something, and I generally have no truck with it. Neither did I say that “captured paedophiles (should be) hanged.” What I actually said was: “I'm not arguing in favour of the death penalty necessarily; but in some cases I can see it's justification.” The main point I made here was that Life terms should mean Life and not a few years. I am surprised you think that re-offending by child abusers and killers doesn’t make the papers much. There have been so many cases. Only last June I remember a furore about some bloke who was released, and within days, raped and murdered another child. More notoriously, Roy Whiting was released two years early after being convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl. After his release, he kidnapped, assaulted and murdered eight-year-old Sarah Payne. That odious man, Excell, who spent 37 years in prison for his crimes, reoffended on each of the three occasions that he was parolled. In 1973, he raped a nine-year-old boy and when he got out again in 1977 he raped a 13-year-old. And yes, re-offending rates for paedophiles are very high. It seems impossible to get an accurate figure, but the general rate of re-offending for all sex offenders is about 25%, according to a 21 year study by the Journal of Legal and Criminal Psychology. Rates for paedophiles are reportedly much higher, anything up to 80%, which is the re-offending rate for psychopaths. Even if you interpret the figures fairly generously, you can estimate that 1 in 3, or even 1 in 2 paedophiles will re-offend. And re-offending rates in sex offenders persist for over 10 years. These debates have had so much exposure in the last few years I am really surprised you haven’t come across them. So it is not a “might” happen so much as a “likely to” happen. And why not have certain rules for certain categories of offence? That has always been a principle in law. Treason was until recently a hanging offence. And I don’t think it’s a case of punishing people becaue of our disgust, it is punishing people to save others form being raped, abused or murdered. The main point I wanted to make, and did make, is that I don’t think it’s of any value using a moral argument to sustain a certain course of action (e.g. abolishing the death penalty) if you don’t balance that against other moral considerations which that course of action might lead to. No-one can explain to the parents of Sarah Payne, and all the other children killed or abused by re-offending paedophiles that their children’s lives matter less than the liberty of the abuser. Therein lies the problem. One person’s liberty, or one person’s moral principle, leads to another person’s loss or damage of life. How does anyone defend that?

I'm really sorry about that. I tried three times to post and it refused, then it did all three.

"One person’s liberty, or one person’s moral principle, leads to another person’s loss or damage of life. How does anyone defend that?" The obvious defence that springs to mind is that it's wrong to say a 'moral principle' in itself has led to the loss of damage or life. If we agree, as a moral principle, that people should be proven guilty before they are punished, is that principle then to blame if a person who cannot be proved guilty commits another offence? It seems to me akin to the logic that blames a victim for being drunk - their drunkenness might have been a clear signal to the criminal of their vulnerability, but should they have to apologise for it? We risk future attacks from convicted criminals in order to make sure those who won't commit another crime are given freedom wherever possible - because, ideally, in a liberal society, we want as many people free as we can reasonably put up with. That said, I don't think it's a good idea to let paedophiles out if we're going by those statistics, and I'm surprised that they do. I was at a court appeal for a rapist a few weeks back, and the judge made it pretty clear that they were weighing their decision on psychological investigations and the likelihood of the criminal offending again. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

Give me a length of rope. Some wire cutters. A DC electrical current, some electrodes, and a chair. And half an hour alone in a small room with the guy and I'll take care of it. My webpage is at: http://www.bookscape.co.uk