The Death Penalty - Brief Thoughts

There's a debate been started on the death penalty, David Allen Green blogs here on it as well as he usually does, and for the serious points from a legal perspective I recommend reading this. This blog is my thoughts on the death penalty.

Basically I'm against it. In his autobiography Albert Pierrepoint, who probably executed more people than anyone in the UK, said the following:

All the men and woman whom I have faced at that final moment, convince me that in what I have done, I have not prevented a single murder.

If it's not preventing the crime then why execute anyone? As Pierrepoint also said, it's revenge. Pure and simple and state sanctioned. I don't get the need for revenge, possibly because no-one I'm close to has ever been murdered, but I like to think I'd still be against it then. Our penal policy is a mess, the re-offending rate is ridiculously high for prisoners who come out, unlike say Norway who actually believe in rehabilitation. And people think now that we should start executing them?

The revenge thing makes no sense anyway, revenge would imply suffering and a good hangman could kill them in seconds, no suffering, other than the expectation of what is going to happen before it does. Or do those who want to bring back the death penalty also want torture on the statute books?

If you're going to have a debate on the death penalty, can I suggest this as the question - Do you the British public want to have state sanctioned revenge as an option for those who have committed a crime regardless of the consequences for those innocent who are executed. For there will be innocent executed, mistakes are made in court on occasion.