Ukraine and capital punishment

[Lina]

(from kievpost.com)

KIEV, Ukraine, May 19 (UPI) -- Ukraine will abolish capital punishment as
President Leonid Kuchma signed into law a new penal code, Russia's official
Itar-Tass news agency reported.

The code will take effect June 1, the agency quoted a spokesman for Kuchma
as saying.

The Ukrainian president confirmed what had already been decided on April 5
when the single-chamber parliament, the Verkhovnaya Rada, voted
overwhelmingly to endorse the new code.

The decision to drop capital punishment is seen as a sign of Ukraine
following in the footsteps of Western European democracies.

In recent months, the West has been urging Ukraine to improve its human
rights record if it wants to integrate into the European Union.

Under the new code, life imprisonment would be the harshest punishment for
violent crimes.

The code also provides for community service. Offenders can be sentenced
to perform unpaid work for municipalities.

[Lina]

I think it's a good idea for Ukraine to do that! Ukraine seems to be desprate to improve it's immage. I hope it'll make the country look a little better in the eyes of the European community, But I think that this step is not good enough to substitute the removal of Yuschenko! Let's hope to see the next PM to be somewhat democratic and reform oriented!

p.s.

it's funny, because in the U.S., i'm pro capital punishment! I think situation here is very different!

[V-G]

It is indeed interesting that in US you are pro capital punishment. I am against it in general.
I agree that this ban should lift Ukraine's image a little, but I see even better reason for this happening. The reason is - how many people are imprisoned and that in a few years time freed because in fact they were innocent? Is the risk of general punishment being addressed to one out of 10 people not good enough to ban it?

[Lina]

No that is true! It's unfrogivable to make any mistakes. In the west they are pretty good about it...there is a lot of science involved today in the investigations! Though, there are people who are murders, without any questions!!!

There is also a difference..about Ukrainian code

The code also provides for community service. Offenders can be sentenced to perform unpaid work for municipalities.
I do not think that the work they'll be doing is going to be anything like Gulag..

Anyway, in the US you can't do it, as far as I know! It costs about 30 thousand dollars per year to keep a prisoner in prison!

I know it's a little cold blood sounding, but I'm not in the mood to pay from my taxes for some kind of a maniac child molester to sit in prison! I want my tax money to be spent on better purposes!

Some people are just proven to be killers!

[V-G]

Well, yes and no. Some people are proven to be killers, at the same time, who are we to deside to kill other person. I am not sure about US, but from what I know Bush, while in Taxes did not show much of leniency, that is sad in a way. To be honest I need to think about it again, I am confused, I think that Bush was too much in that area, but maybe you are right that the situation there is different...
I will think about it and try to write something more constructive, maybe, tomorrow.

[V-G]

As I promised I have thought about capital punishment... I even asked a friend what he thought about that, and we think the same in that case. It is morally wrong to kill even a killer, because then you are putting yourself down to his/her level. It is also wrong to kill anyone in a civilised country, because it is civilised. I will make myself clearer on this matter. You have said that you do not want o pay tax for their lives, well I must disagree on that, it is like saying, we need to kill as ill (very ill0 people because they are using NHS (National Health Service), which is sponsored by the Government and that comes from taxes.
Lastly my friend mentioned a figure that horrified me, 10% of those who were convicted were in fact innocent in the USA, Bush even did not show leniency towards the person who was out of mind (I forgot the name of that illness in English, sorry). These are all commonly known facts, and that is why I am strongly against capital punishment and especially in the USA.
I will be glad to hear from you again Lina, maybe you will change your mind too. [/quote]

[Lina]

people just have different ideas about death penalty. It's absolutely healthy!

I dissagree that punishing a criminal by depriving him from life, because he consiantly took someone else's life or two and depriving a mortally sick person from life is the same. It's TOTALLY different!!!! In the first case the society is punishing...in the second case the society is murdering! There is a Huge difference!!! Therefore the second case NEVER occures in any civillized society!!!

here are some stats on the effectivness of cp in this country....
During the temporary suspension on capital punishment from 1972-1976, researchers gathered murder statistics across the country. Researcher Karl Spence of Texas A&M University came up with these statistics, in 1960, there were 56 executions in the USA and 9,140 murders. By 1964, when there were only 15 executions, the number of murders had risen to 9,250. In 1969, there were no executions and 14,590 murders, and 1975, after six more years without executions, 20,510 murders occurred. So the number of murders grew as the number of executions shrank.


It is morally wrong to kill even a killer because than you put yourself on his level...Nop, it's different a murderer blows up a building with people in it, because he feels like it, a murderer kills a person because of his own reasons, a murderer has no value for a human life! When a state kills a murderer it punishes his doings...Comparing these two is crazy...Is a legal taking of property for debts and breaking into the same appartment with a purpose of stealing the same? Is the policeman speeding while chasing someone and a just speeding by the normal person the same? Is making love and raping the same? No..even though they both include a sexual intercouse....Murdering a person and murdering by state is not the same either it has different reasons....

Edward Koch said:
"It is by exacting the highest penalty for the taking of human life that we affirm the highest value of human life."

Just a different point of view...