Thanks, Trudy, for the clarification. Thanks Don, too.
I wonder though whether we should be so dismissive of the gains we have
made? While I accept Trudy's and Don's point about deaths in custody being
a sort of de-facto 'death penalty' it is still important to distinguish
between this sort of crime and the actual death penalty. Isn't it? So
Don's point about prisoners on remand that: "They have not been convicted of
anything and they either suicide, are murdered (by other inmates or
officers), or die of neglect and a lack of duty of care (still murder in my
eyes - but officially sanctioned)" while well-taken, still confuses
"officially sanctioned" with "state sanctioned". The fact that our state
does NOT legally sanction the death penalty is the very way we can conclude
that the crimes Don's mentions are in fact illegal. It is also a tremendous
gain for our society. Isn't it?
The logical outcome of saying that such deaths are more or less the same as
a legislated death penalty is to say that if we had the death penalty then
the situation would be no different than what we have today. In other
words, if what we have today is in practice indistinguishable from a legal
death penalty, then a state-sanctioned death penalty being introduced would
make no difference. And I don't really think anyone would suggest that.
Would they?
I guess my point is, we should be glad we don't have a death penalty and
that this can and should be separated from the awful crimes that Don and
others regularly report on.
My other point about Trudy's original comment had to do with the part that
said: "except there are no students here to expose the injustices." I'm
still not sure I understand that part.
Anyway, thanks again.
Tim
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