Give a senator enough rope ...

["Rob, grandpa of Ryan, Trevor, Devon & Hannah" <rmslade () shaw ca>]

Today a Conservative Canadian Senator made a rather bizarre suggestion about 
giving convicted murderers a rope, and allowing them to hang themselves.

(No, I’m not kidding.  

http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20120201/tory-senators-rope-
hanging-idea-120201/20120201?hub=BritishColumbiaHome&utm_source=ctvbc.ca

http://www.vancouversun.com/Conservative+senator+says+worst+offenders+should
+given+ropes+hang+themselves/6085139/story.html

But he later retracted the statement.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/02/01/senator-pierre-hugues-boisvenu-death-
penalty_n_1246964.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/02/01/pol-crime-bill-senate.html

)

But, never let it be said that we couldn’t look at ideas, regardless of how they 
come.  Moral repugnance aside, is this a good idea?  Probably not.

Would it save money?  Only if the murderer felt really, really sorry.  And, isn’t 
that what we wanted out of the justice system in the first place?  So, we might 
have saved money and wasted a life.

Then again, what if the convicted person was not guilty?  I would think that an 
innocent person, unjustly convicted, would be a prime candidate for suicide.  So 
then we have a monetary saving at the cost of an innocent life.

And, for those who really don’t feel bad about killing people, they might welcome 
the option of getting out of a life sentence.  So we may be reducing the deterrent 
effect if we implement the rope idea.

If we’ve got a real psychopath, is it really a good idea to give him a rope, or 
poison, or a knife, or a gun, or anything particularly dangerous?  It isn’t too hard 
to start to imagine scenarios where he/she/it could do some real damage, even 
within the prison.

Maybe we should chip in and buy the Senator a copy of Schneier’s “Liars and 
Outliers.” 

======================  (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer)
rslade () vcn bc ca     slade () victoria tc ca     rslade () computercrime org
We have met the enemy and he is us.           - Walt Kelly 1913-1973
victoria.tc.ca/techrev/rms.htm http://www.infosecbc.org/links
http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/author/p1/
http://twitter.com/rslade
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