It seems to me that
life is suddenly not worth a dime, or whatever denomination we prefer to use. Let
me say right now that I didn’t come to that conclusion easily. Every day, in
newspapers, on radio and television there are reports of murders, some more
gruesome than others but still putting to death a lover, partner or child,
colleague or drinking companion, even parents or grandparents. What is the
world coming to when it becomes fashionable to commit such a crime. Open a
newspaper and you won’t just read about one awful incident, but two, three, and more.
Recently I read
about a 14 year old boy being murdered in a cemetery. It was described as a
savage and brutal murder committed by three males aged 16, 18 and 19. What on
earth induces young people to commit such terrible crimes? Is it anger that
drives them or drugs?
And what about those
husbands who kill themselves and their kids in an act of defiance against an
ex-wife and/or society? This tips the scale for me every time I read about such
senseless crimes. They seem to have an attitude that says ‘if I can’t have them,
neither will you’. Do these men actually LOVE their kids? I can’t see how they
can if they are willing to slaughter them in spite. I say again, what price is
life if it can so easily be destroyed?
Only yesterday I
read with horror about a guy who stamped on his heavily pregnant partners
tummy, killed the well formed but as yet unborn baby, and landed the woman in
hospital. He is charged with killing an unborn child and assault. I hope he and
all other murderers rot in hell.
It seems that from
an early age kids are being brainwashed by television and those newspapers that
make more of the crime and less about the punishment. The latter was once a
deterrent, now it’s like winning medals. If courts sentence teenagers to a term
of confinement they brag about where they’re sent to.
My current thinking,
which has been current for a long time, is that the UK should bring back the
death sentence. We used to hang criminals, now we pat them on the back and tell
them not to do it again. Not literally, of course. Instead they are locked
away, deprived of family life, and released before an imposed sentence is
complete.
Bring back the dungeons,
I say. Prisons do NOT teach criminals a lesson. The only sufferers are the
families they leave behind. As a nation
we’ve become soft, which allows wrong-doers to carry on without fear. For sure
we need stronger punishment than a term in prison.
