As to your remarks re the possibility of mistakes in sentencing - well the problem with the death penalty is that it is very final. You can hardly apologise to someone that has been executed if you find out later you had the wrong person! It is for this reason that in Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence you are innocent until proven guilty. I don't have a problem with the system being biased in favour of defendents, but I do have a problem with the way it seems to increasingly be biased against victims. Justice systems do have to punish offenders.
For the record, I'm a European too (British in fact). Every year there is a debate in the UK parliament re the death penalty. It is a "free" vote (meaning that MP's are not pressured to vote on party lines, but only to their own consciences). Every year the proposal to restore the death penalty is rejected. Yet, opinion polls over the past fifty years consistently show that the majority of Brits favour the death penalty for certain crimes (murder etc). So I'm not so sure that being European means being "reared in an environment where there is a lot of opposition to the death penalty". There's a lot of opposition from the liberal elite who have a stranglehold on the media, but of course, they're not the ones who suffer from the depredations of violent criminals, are they?
I thank you for your diligent reply.
Yes, the chance of getting caught is crucial in deterring potential criminals, I agree. And I concur with your viewpoint on negligence of the victims. Perhaps it is an heritage of the 60s’ utopianism: the fantasy that one can ‘cure’ criminals, and that all criminals are ill people in reality, who are less to blame than we think they are. In brief: ‘they’re victims too, you know?’
Which would, if followed though to the end, mean the end of civilisation. No arguing about that.
I did not know that in the U.K. a majority favours the death sentence for the very worst criminals. Perhaps this also goes for other countries, not for Holland (where I live). But it motivates me to do a bit of internet inquiry.
Again, thank you for your post.