Clarification

Since yesterday, I’ve had a few responses to my capital punishment posting. I cannot say why but these have come as email rather than as comment here on an open forum.

Let me just recap on my definition of ‘evil’. I do not include those I think of as just killers pure and simple. To me, an evil murderer is one to whom killing is just a transitional act. They execute their victim just so as to retain their company. For acts such as cannibalism, necrophilia or some other perversion. Don’t just think of or research Bundy – have a look at some of the others such as Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy in America, Peter Kürten in Duesseldorf or Miyazaki in Japan. They killed so that they might further degrade their victims’ bodies or use them as trophies and playthings. I’ll save you some horror – just look at Dahmer. Go on to the others if you doubt that such inhumanity could exist. Kurten demonstrates that we are not looking at some modern phenomena. Pretty well every country in the world has suffered evil killers. I also have little time for the deprived background or disturbed childhood theories. At the level of depravity that I consider qualifies as evil, I consider that any aberration in growing up is just another step on the pathway from evil potential to evil reality.

My use of the word ‘evil’ does not relate to any religious belief on my part. Any other word that equates to amoral will do if it suits the reader.

Execution in the case of such individuals is, to me, the most suitable way of dealing with those who have demonstrated their wicked ways. The requirement to retain them in extra security could only lead to inhuman conditions and there we risk being contaminated by those we have to safely hold. Incarceration of those who have such desires where these cannot be satisfied is also unnatural.

I am not advocating universal capital punishment.