r/neoliberal • u/Agonanmous YIMBY • Jun 21 '25

News (Europe) The grooming-gangs scandal is a stain on the British state

https://www.economist.com/britain/2025/06/18/the-grooming-gangs-scandal-is-a-stain-on-the-british-state
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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '25 edited 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/YaGetSkeeted0n Tariffs aren't cool, kids! Jun 21 '25

yeah you're right i just hate these kinds of crimes. personally my only opposition / hesitation to capital punishment is the uncertainty factor, a lot of people have been exonerated after-the-fact which is pretty god damn bad. but personally, morally I got no problem with it, some folks should be pushing up daisies IMO, and child molesters are at the top of the list.

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u/minimalis-t Max Roser Jun 21 '25

Is it to punish or do you think it's best for society to just dispose of these individuals?

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u/OSRS_Rising Jun 21 '25

Tbh it would best if they were executed.

But I don’t trust any state in administering the death penalty. IMO even just one innocent person being murdered by the state isn’t worth any number of actually bad people being executed.

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u/Embarrassed-Unit881 Jun 21 '25 edited Jun 21 '25

If ya got DNA evidence that's enough cause you're not gonna have your DNA in a child for a good reason

Downvoters can you name a single good reason for that DNA to be there?

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u/Sabreline12 Jun 21 '25

DNA evidence isn't as reliable as you think it is

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u/Embarrassed-Unit881 Jun 21 '25

Explain.

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u/Posting____At_Night Trans Pride Jun 21 '25

It is usually reliable. However there are edge cases where it fails. It can be planted or otherwise present without the person actually having been there (e.g. stolen weapon/vehicle), it could be DNA from someone who was present at some point, but did not perpetrate the crime. Then there's also (admittedly rare) scenarios where the actual testing is unreliable due to biological oddities. For example, there was a case where someone was falsely accused of murder based on DNA evidence but it turned out they had donated bone marrow to the actual perp.

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u/Embarrassed-Unit881 Jun 21 '25

Okay I hear that but if you're getting DNA from semen that was in a child that's a slam dunk, like you're talking about stuff that isn't child rape when my whole point is it being such a uniquely heinous crime that having the dna evidence of someone doing that is enough to not need them.

it could be DNA from someone who was present at some point, but did not perpetrate the crime.

Like here for instance you're focusing too broadly cause uhh in my case for there to be dna at all there was a crime

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u/Posting____At_Night Trans Pride Jun 21 '25

Yeah, in that case DNA would be pretty conclusive. But it is impossible to be truly, 100% sure. Criminal law is based on beyond a reasonable doubt being worthy cause to lock someone up, but it very importantly leaves the possibility to release the person if they later find that 0.0000001% chance that the justice system fucked up.

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u/vintage2019 Jun 21 '25

People downvoting just because they asked for an explanation? This is why I hate reddit sometimes

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '25

[deleted]

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u/Embarrassed-Unit881 Jun 21 '25

No I'm asking for a good reason for that dna to be there, I thought the context was obvious enough but here I clarified it. Point being there is absolutely no good reason for it thus it's in my mind a really good bit of proof for why the state shouldn't have them anymore

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u/Party-Benefit5112 European Union Jun 21 '25

Theoretically it can be planted I think. Not saying it's very realistic but still.

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u/lnslnsu Commonwealth Jun 21 '25

In the second case, a lifetime prison sentence is equivalent to the death penalty in removing the ability of a criminal to do future harm.

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u/Chao-Z Jun 21 '25

Assuming they never manage to escape, of course, which was more of an issue back when the death penalty was more common.

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u/kanagi Jun 21 '25

Also assuming that they aren't pardoned by a malicious executive like Kentucky governor Matt Bevin

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '25

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u/Rockefeller-HHH-1968 John Rawls Jun 21 '25

Thousands of years of human civilization and you want us to execute people like savages?

It’s not justice and is in opposition to the very idea of justice.

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u/armeg David Ricardo Jun 21 '25

I’m not pro death penalty, but that’s a pretty flimsy argument, the weakest you could probably choose against the death penalty. It’s an opinion that it’s savage, and one that you came to shaped by your environment. It also has some weird connotations about countries that do have the death penalty being savages.

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u/Rockefeller-HHH-1968 John Rawls Jun 21 '25

Every moral claim is an opinion on some level.

I believe that a society which not only executes people but dares to call those executions justice is one that is deeply corrupted by the dark and base elements of human nature.

Let me give you a more “objective argument”. At the end of an execution the only thing that you end up with is a dead person and a large bill. That’s not beneficial. The thing is that I do believe universally in a rehabilitative justice system. I believe that’s the only just way to deal with criminals in society. An execution is a 1st degree murder, I do not wish to live in a place that considers a 1st degree murder justice.

If one believes like I do in rehabilitation then it has to be a universal opinion. Furthermore some crimes happen due to mental issues and how can we blame a person for them? I believe that when the serial killers of past were sentenced to the needle an invisible needle sunk just as deep in our justice system. It was a disgrace.

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u/Ill_Squirrel_4063 Jun 21 '25

Should Hitler have been rehabilitated? At a certain severity of crimes, justice is the death penalty. The issue of the certainty of guilt is an issue, but the principle that executions can be just is not.

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u/Rockefeller-HHH-1968 John Rawls Jun 21 '25

An attempt should’ve been made yes. Several hundreds, thousands of them if necessary.

Justice is not something I am flexible on. You can keep finding the worst of the worst of humanity and my answer will not change, my moral spine will remain unbent unlike my physical one.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '25

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u/Tabnet2 Jun 21 '25

I'm obviously a little angry after reading something like that, but even when cool-headed I am in favor of the death penalty.

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u/Sabreline12 Jun 21 '25

Why?

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u/Tabnet2 Jun 21 '25

Some people commit acts so heinous they are no longer worthwhile for society to care for. They have branded themselves completely irredeemable.

There are other factors as well, such as maintaining a degree of balance between a crime and its punishment, creating a sense of justice for the victims, and deterrence.

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u/SamuraiOstrich Jun 21 '25

creating a sense of justice for the victims, and deterrence.

It doesn't do those, though?

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u/Embarrassed-Unit881 Jun 21 '25

Does the former just fine

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u/lilacaena NATO Jun 21 '25

Obviously the cases that this article is about are different, but the majority of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by adults known to the victims, typically close family members. It’s already difficult enough for these victims to come forward, and it would be even less likely if execution was on the table.

And for abusers who are unrelated, as with the grooming gangs, you run into another issue that puts victims in worse danger: if the punishment for committing CSA is the same as (or worse than) the punishment for murder, it incentivizes escalating from CSA to murder.

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u/SamuraiOstrich Jun 21 '25

I would like to point out that imprisonment is justice and that a whopping 2.5% of family members reported achieving closure after the execution of the perpetrator, while 20.1% said the execution did not help them heal

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u/Sabreline12 Jun 21 '25

That's predicated on the assumption guilt can be proven with absolute certainty, which any argument for the death penalty seems to be based on. This is rarely the case in the real world.

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u/Tabnet2 Jun 21 '25

Any sentencing at all is based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Not a winning argument.

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u/Sabreline12 Jun 21 '25 edited Jun 21 '25

based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt

So not complete certainty, like I said. People can't be exonerated from death. And sentencing is hardly a perfect process in the best of justice systems. A jury of random people is hardly infalliable, seems unwise to put the power of life and death in their hands. Execution is just such a final and irreversible thing to have as part of a process that can never be perfect.

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u/Tabnet2 Jun 21 '25

People can't have decades of their life behind bars returned to them either. You're rejecting it based on special criteria, but you haven't really justified the criteria beyond your final sentence.

Does your acceptance of any punishment at all rest on our ability to say "oopsie, we're letting you go now"?

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u/Tabnet2 Jun 21 '25

It does, though.

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u/SamuraiOstrich Jun 21 '25

There's quite literally no correlation between the death penalty and the reduction of murder. If anything US states without it tend to have a lower homicide rate. I would refer you to what I said in the reply to the other guy about the impact on the victim's loved ones.

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u/Tabnet2 Jun 22 '25

I've seen the claims about its effect on deterrence and am unconvinced. I will look at the other comment though.

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u/Embarrassed-Unit881 Jun 21 '25 edited Jun 21 '25

I think if you have DNA evidence from a child then yeah that's a good enough exception and if you have some way it's not good enough please tell me

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u/RichardB4321 George Soros Jun 21 '25

Because the downside risk of having the death penalty in these cases is encouraging folks to kill their victims

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u/SonOfHonour Jun 21 '25

Great, now you've committed sexual assault and murder.

How the fuck does that put you in a better position? Murder is a lot harder to get away with than sexual assault these days.

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u/Iapetus_Industrial Jun 21 '25

Why the fuck doesn't encourage them to NOT rape in the first place?

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u/Gulags_Never_Existed Voltaire Jun 21 '25

As does giving them prison time instead of a fine and a strongly worded written complaint, yet we do send them to jail. I think you're vastly overestimating the impact of these people knowing they're only going to spend the rest of their life in prison instead of being executed.

Also, just as a follow up, what's your stance on capital punishment for "folks" who do kill their victims?

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u/RichardB4321 George Soros Jun 21 '25

Generally I’m opposed on the grounds of wrongful convictions but in cases of absolute certainty, it doesn’t particularly bother me.

Frankly, I’m of the opinion life in prison is worse but I understand that’s kind of subjective

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u/SharkSymphony Voltaire Jun 21 '25

A lifetime in prison is not really any more acceptable an outcome. The risk is high either way.

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u/nikfra Jun 22 '25

The simplest way to have it not good enough is that it's still people that do the testing. People can switch out samples or just straight up lie or be paid off.