Voluntary euthanasia for lifers?

I was a little surprised that the story about Ian Huntley's attempted suicide in prison didn't hit the Backroom, but there are some issues raised by his situation that may bear discussion.

(For those who may not know the case, Huntley was convicted of a particularly nasty sexually motivated murder of two young schoolgirls in the UK last year).

It appears that he managed to hoard enough pills to attempt suicide but was found in time to save his life. He is currently in intensive care.

I find myself conflicted about what to think about the situation. First of all, I should note that I am opposed to the death penalty imposed by the state. Secondly, I have no issue with people who wish to take their own lives - I feel that the right to life also includes the right to end that life by choice, and would support measures to make this easier for those who choose that path.

Yet as a convict, Huntley has made choices which mean that the state has responsibility for him, which complicates things. He is also due punishment.

My immediate gut reaction is that he should have been left to die, for he would be imposing the death penalty upon himself. Why should the state continue to subsidise his existence if he provides the opportunity to save these costs? Perhaps it would also present some sort of closure to the families of the girls as well? Should there be a Hell, surely it would better for him to face Divine retribution sooner rather than later? I recognise the emotional appeal of vengeance in my reaction.

However, if he is so miserable that he wishes to die, surely keeping him alive to suffer the guilt and misery of his existence for as long as possible would be a more fitting punishment? There is no suffering more exquisite than that which we can visit upon ourselves. If there is no afterlife, then escaping from his awful incarceration through suicide would be a relief, and easy way out of his just punishment.

There is talk, on the back of this incident, that prisoners who are sentenced to whole life imprisonment should be given the opportunity to end their own lives early through voluntary euthanasia. Does the fact that they are imprisoned count as coercion, thus coming into conflict with the right to life?

There is certainly an economic argument for euthansia, but is there a moral one?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In case our American friends gloat about the availability of the death penalty to their courts, I would note that some of the issues are still the same because of the very great length of time most convicts spend on death row. Should they be allowed to choose death earlier?

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I was a little surprised that the story about Ian Huntley's attempted suicide in prison didn't hit the Backroom,

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Personally I had little more insightful to add other than that I would disapprove of anyone gloating over the death (or attempted suicide) of another, but on the other hand I really wasn't going to lose any sleep if Huntley didn't recover. Which didn't seem worth saying.

The trouble with letting him kill himself, still more with euthanasia, is you are complict in the act. No one is in any meaningful moral sense responsible if I go done the chemists and scarf up a bottle of paracetamol, but a lifer lives in a very controlled environment and it ought to be possible to make that enviromment basically suicide proof. Failure to do so DOES make you in a sense responsible for the suicide.

Even if we assume that we would extend euthenasia to the terminally ill and in pain (it certainly seems odd that Huntley would be allowed to end his existence as he chose but not someone who was old and in great pain), i am not sure I would want society to be engaged with this sort of issue for people like this (Huntley I mean, not the sick). Even leaving aside issues of coercion (if you were his jailor could you resist making him miserable in the hope he'd take the pills?) there are those who would use it to lead us all a merry dance. Ian Brady has spent forty years attempting to manipulate his vicitims families, the media, and anyone who will listen, into, well, I don't pretend to understand the motivatioins of a true psychopath, but some sort of sympathy for poor Ian seems to be a small part of it. I guess he likes to hurt and its the only way he has left. Can you imagine all the "I want to die...I'm going to die,...next month....oops I've changed my mind.....no I'm going to do it now...etc etc he would try to lead us through. Its bad enough with this bloody hunger strike hes on, or not on, or on again.

IMHO the right way to deal with these people is to put them in a confined but not uncomfortable enviroment and forget they ever existed. Minimal engagement on a material and a moral level. They are a contaminant, and the less society handles them the better.

My view.

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Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

If an inmate wants to off his/herself, let them. Each one of them is a massive economic burden.

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Hey, at least we can use these crackjacks for science for example. Testing euthanasia, or AIDS vaccine. :thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by English assassin

Personally I had little more insightful to add other than that I would disapprove of anyone gloating over the death (or attempted suicide) of another, but on the other hand I really wasn't going to lose any sleep if Huntley didn't recover. Which didn't seem worth saying.

The trouble with letting him kill himself, still more with euthanasia, is you are complict in the act. No one is in any meaningful moral sense responsible if I go done the chemists and scarf up a bottle of paracetamol, but a lifer lives in a very controlled environment and it ought to be possible to make that enviromment basically suicide proof. Failure to do so DOES make you in a sense responsible for the suicide.

Even if we assume that we would extend euthenasia to the terminally ill and in pain (it certainly seems odd that Huntley would be allowed to end his existence as he chose but not someone who was old and in great pain), i am not sure I would want society to be engaged with this sort of issue for people like this (Huntley I mean, not the sick). Even leaving aside issues of coercion (if you were his jailor could you resist making him miserable in the hope he'd take the pills?) there are those who would use it to lead us all a merry dance. Ian Brady has spent forty years attempting to manipulate his vicitims families, the media, and anyone who will listen, into, well, I don't pretend to understand the motivatioins of a true psychopath, but some sort of sympathy for poor Ian seems to be a small part of it. I guess he likes to hurt and its the only way he has left. Can you imagine all the "I want to die...I'm going to die,...next month....oops I've changed my mind.....no I'm going to do it now...etc etc he would try to lead us through. Its bad enough with this bloody hunger strike hes on, or not on, or on again.

IMHO the right way to deal with these people is to put them in a confined but not uncomfortable enviroment and forget they ever existed. Minimal engagement on a material and a moral level. They are a contaminant, and the less society handles them the better.

My view.

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Very well argued, thank you. :bow:

The bastard should rot in gaol for the rest of his life. No euthenasia, no allowed suicide, no parole.

Yes, tough issue. My position generally: I'm in favour of voluntary euthanasia, in that I believe if someone finds their life unbearable they should have the option of a quick easy way out to end suffering. I have doubts about how to implement that given the incidence of impatient heirs etc etc! I totally abhor common current practice of suspending food and water. Totally barbaric and the medical profession should be ashamed of themselves if they think it's unethical to give a swift injection on demand yet ethical to starve someone to death.

I also do not like the death penalty as there is no going back. Too often miscarriages of justice crop up years after the event. A posthumous pardon just doesn't cut the mustard, in my eyes. At least years of false imprisonment can be compensated for (however inadequately), but the executed innocent cannot be resurrected. If the justice system was 100% accurate I would have to rethink my position, but for now, that's why I oppse the death penalty. To my eyes the risk of killing an innocent outweighs the risk of not killing the guilty - protecting the innocent is the higher cause (which is why we punish murderers in the first place).

I also believe that imprisonment entails loss of freedom as the element of punishment, and should not involve cruel and brutalising treatment of those inside. All attempts at reforming the character of prisoners should be taken.

So given this framework (if you're still with me), I would argue that Huntley does not have the right to commit suicide, as that is part of the freedom taken from him by incarceration. Personally, I too wouldn't shed a tear, but recognise that as an emotional rather than an ethical impulse on my part.

Finally, for EA - up to you if you want to top yourself, but can I advise NEVER do it with paracetamol, that is one of the worst ways imaginable to go.

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Finally, for EA - up to you if you want to top yourself, but can I advise NEVER do it with paracetamol, that is one of the worst ways imaginable to go.

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Many thanks. Back to plain B then, sexual exhaustion with Rachel Stephens.

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Originally Posted by English assassin

Many thanks. Back to plain B then, sexual exhaustion with Rachel Stephens.

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I thought death was supposed to be unpleasurable...

Oh, lay of the Viagra.

Anyone (adult, not crazy) that wants to take their life should be able to.
Just try not to make a mess, someone will have to pick up after you.

In cases where the guilt of the individual is beyond doubt (there are a few of them), I think that they should be either used for medical research, or failing that organ donorship.

The fact that money is wasted on looking after him is an indefensible drain on the public purse.

Starving people to death?

Are these the people that don't want to eat? Many elderly patients have no drive to eat or drink - their brain is that gone. They are not suffering in food and drink bieng witheld, and in fact are far more agitated when they are forced to eat and drink.

I agree that the big flaw with capital punishment is cases where there is doubt. Capital punishment should be on the books, but only used in a select group of people.

~:smoking:

Lifers have lost that choice, part of their punishment is to serve their sentence. Death by natural causes or parole should be their only outs.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

Lifers have lost that choice, part of their punishment is to serve their sentence. Death by natural causes or parole should be their only outs.

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If they're there for punishment, then rent some land in siberia / centre of australia and bung them there.

There are many others that require the money more than them.

~:smoking:

Make them work, or be really nasty and make them work for the NHS...:laugh4:

If we want to humanize our institutions (speaking for the occidental world as a whole) then the only just choice between keeping him alive to purgate his entire conviction and letting him die (providing this is what he really wants) is the latter. The convicted never gives his lives to the state, decisions of life and death always belong to the person, there's nothing more personal. And there's no moral conflict, in my opinion, because he's a murderer, that's outside the issue considering that being charged with murder and convicted does not steals from one the right to take one's life. I do hope he's "freed" if he wants to, not doing so implies the presumption that the state has the right to make decisions of life and death over persons.

If you've done something such as murder a child then I don't think you have any rights until after you have served your time.

I'm undecided on the issue of capital punishment in general, but I think voluntary suicide should be allowed, and also in cases of the terminally ill. There should be checks to make sure the inmate is not encouraged to make this choice, and probably the involvement of family in the decision-making process (and probably a requirement for counselling or some-such first to make sure they're certain), but I think it's silly to force a convict to live out their sentence if they'd rather end it and save society a lot of hassle.

Ajax

Lifers shouldn't get voluntary euthanasia - what's the point in that? They're there as punishment - to spend their days locked up so they know what they did is wrong. Giving them an easy way out to end their misery is never an option. Serve your time! Huntley came to my town, killed some kids there, and now should suffer inside until the life finally drains from his worthless body.

Really scum like him should be given a good kicking everyday and be forced to stare at a TV screen that flashes up, 'I AM A WORTHLESS ****' until his eyes bleed. You can cry human rights as much as you like, but when you do what he did, you become sub-human in my opinion, and such rules don't apply.


Then again, if you killed them off early, you could donate their organs to people that need them, although would you really want the heart of a cold blooded killer inside you?





Btw: I am not wholly serious about the kicking and forcing him to watch TV part, although I wouldn't shed a tear if it were to happen.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

If you've done something such as murder a child then I don't think you have any rights until after you have served your time.

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I might have to elaborate to make myself a little clearer. I'm saying that they in FACT don't lose any rights regarding their life, those are basic human rights institutionalized that way in the actual configuration of law. Even if there's death penalty as an institution in a time and in a place the person still can kill himself if he wants and it will be unreasonable (especially in this case) to keep him alive against his will.
Now what you think is morally correct is another issue, and you might be right or not. I still remain the same and say this: If WE want to humanize our institutions and our conducts, wheter they're politic or not, then keeping a person, ANY person, alive against his will is an excess of interventionism and inmoral in my opinion.

If the person was by themselves their entire life fair enough.

But I do not see someone who is part of a society has it all one way. Society (ie the rest of the individuals) and an individuals liberty (rights within the law) have to be balanced and it is a recipricol kind of relationship (not one to one). So while society owes the individual access to health and education the individual has responsibilities. A criminal is someone who has shirked their responsibilities and a murderer is someone who has removed all freedom of choice from another, since once you are dead you haven't got any choices left in life. As such the criminal has compromised his status... he owes society. Now he can't pay back a life as he can't bring back the dead... and if you can't fix something you shouldn't break it in the first place.

The criminal had a choice, they made it now they can live with the consequences like any adult should. Is the punishment too harsh, maybe. But if it saves a single childs life from another murderer who rethinks their actions then it is a credible exchange... an adult for a child, a criminal for an innocent. So yes if extracting his vital organs and bone marrow would save other lives then by all means harvest him. If on the other hand having voluntary euthansia reduces crime rates then that should be used too.

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Originally Posted by ajaxfetish

I'm undecided on the issue of capital punishment in general, but I think voluntary suicide should be allowed, and also in cases of the terminally ill. There should be checks to make sure the inmate is not encouraged to make this choice, and probably the involvement of family in the decision-making process (and probably a requirement for counselling or some-such first to make sure they're certain), but I think it's silly to force a convict to live out their sentence if they'd rather end it and save society a lot of hassle.

Ajax

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I would do just the opposite and do everything possible to make it so miserable that all the inmates would want to commit suicide. Turn up the heat, play celine dion music all the time, only serve lima beans for meals, etc. Then set-up Futurama style “Suicide Booths” and watch the crime rate drop. (What do you mean, cruel and unusual? Celine said it was a way to bring beautiful music and delicious beans to an untapped audience.)

Coincidently, on the season finale of 30 Days they mentioned that more than 2 out of 3 people that serve time in prison will return to prison.

The legal system is far from perfect. People often serve time for crimes they didn't commit, and many who are guilty are guilty of things that are certainly not worthy of death. Voluntary suicide puts the responsibility on the shoulders of the criminal (or so I would argue, at least). Encouraging it in any way would make the state responsible at least in part, and if an innocent inmate were to commit suicide to escape the hellish conditions imposed on them that would be a tragic failing in the system (and though it is one that is surely already present, if voluntary euthanasia were instituted I would want as many checks to at least try to prevent it as are reasonably possible).

Ajax

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

If the person was by themselves their entire life fair enough.

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If that were the case the law wouldn't be a problem. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that there will be no problems with my ethic or logic if the person was completly alone.

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But I do not see someone who is part of a society has it all one way.

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That's your opinion. I could refute it by saying that the society and the individual only delegate competences to the state, the state has no "competence" over anybody's life, just as other basic rights wich cannot be substracted from the individual, many of them are, in theory, only suspended, but life is not one of them.

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Society (ie the rest of the individuals) and an individuals liberty (rights within the law) have to be balanced and it is a recipricol kind of relationship (not one to one).

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Agreed. And this is was exactly the task of occidental ideals when setting the course of the next centuries by establishing said limits to the state.

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So while society owes the individual access to health and education the individual has responsibilities.

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Yes, but this has little to do with the issue. The punishment is already established and death is not a wishful choice for every convict trying to escape hell.

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A criminal is someone who has shirked their responsibilities and a murderer is someone who has removed all freedom of choice from another, since once you are dead you haven't got any choices left in life.

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Yes, you've no life. Condemning the actions of the criminal is natural, as wanting revenge, but it still don't tells why is it reasonable to force someone to purge the entire time (even considering the inexistence of positive law), while the other way you could be saving him the suffering and saving yourself the money.

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As such the criminal has compromised his status... he owes society. Now he can't pay back a life as he can't bring back the dead... and if you can't fix something you shouldn't break it in the first place.

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Many agree with you in this metaphysical conception of the "payback", however, even if I accept it, it still doesn't tell why his death is not a "payback", while his privation of freedom is. Unless of course you want to establish a new set of hierarchy with freedom at the top, many people do it, but still life is empirically the foundament of all other values. I understand that you're trying to say that loosing one's freedom is much more terrible than loosing one's life, if that's the case, then at this point our positions are irreconciliable.

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The criminal had a choice, they made it now they can live with the consequences like any adult should.

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Before being an adult he's an human. The adult doesn't lose common sense, even if he's a criminal, and by your standards he's even more justified to take his own life when you put freedom at such a valuable position.

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Is the punishment too harsh, maybe. But if it saves a single childs life from another murderer who rethinks their actions then it is a credible exchange... an adult for a child, a criminal for an innocent.

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Again death as a relief cannot be an instigation or insinuation from the state to commit crimes. That's purely based on the false idea that everyone knows the consequences of their actions and that any leniency on the punishment or in the serving time automatically encourages more crime.

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So yes if extracting his vital organs and bone marrow would save other lives then by all means harvest him. If on the other hand having voluntary euthansia reduces crime rates then that should be used too.

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I don't share your utilitarists views on politics, but then again you're technically correct, from a moral point of view I'll stand back and say even Hundley deserves some respects in death... :bow:

I say. If they want to kill themselves, make them do it the cost-effective way. Put a knife in their cell and politely ask them to use the restroom before putting it to use.

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Originally Posted by English assassin

Many thanks. Back to plain B then, sexual exhaustion with Rachel Stephens.

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You know, I told a friend of mine about that, and he freaked out and asked me to ask you to get her autograph.

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Originally Posted by holybandit

I say. If they want to kill themselves, make them do it the cost-effective way. Put a knife in their cell and politely ask them to use the restroom before putting it to use.

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Amen. Then get the theatre on standby to use the pieces.

~:smoking:

There's a reason why the state can't allow suicide of inmates, it's the same as why the state can't declare anyone mentally ill and detain them at will, and that's a nasty thing called dictatorship and killing dissenters that turns up every once in a while in history. As much as we'd like to see an inmate convicted of something bad kill himself or be killed by a state sactioned death penalty, it hurts the masses more to have that satisfaction. Besides it's likely that he suffers more from living in prison than from committing suicide. If the state wants to find more effective ways of dealing with sex-related crimes there's a simple answer - voluntary chemical castration. The person still lives, the effects are mostly reversible (note chemical not other form of castration) and it's in no way hurting freedom and openness in society. If somebody thinks he can't control his sexual urges he should go to the nearest hospital and get the necessary medication for temporarily putting these urges out of action. This would also be a good way of fighting rape and other forms of sexual assault, seeing as the less extreme forms of rape are much more spread out than most people believe, most cases of it aren't reported to the police.

America is getting very close to a democratic dictatorship then. Oh, currently they are "only" foreign nationals that have no rights, are captured somehow somewhere and then dumped for as long as the state requires. Sadly for those in charge the courts just woke up to the fact that kangeroo trials and summary executions were just around the corner and did something about it.

But there are the camps that were denied existence of. Wewre everyone's rights there treated? And if someone died at a camp that does not exist who would know?

Compared to such minor things as merely ending suicide watch and on site resucitation teams is relatively minor.

If the tate wants people to disappear there are ways - indeed employed by America at the moment. No one has challenged their claim to democracy. One or two guilty prisoners taking their own lives is a dictatorship, but pummling another country to the dust is merely good government...

~:smoking:

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Originally Posted by rory_20_uk

America is getting very close to a democratic dictatorship then. Oh, currently they are "only" foreign nationals that have no rights, are captured somehow somewhere and then dumped for as long as the state requires. Sadly for those in charge the courts just woke up to the fact that kangeroo trials and summary executions were just around the corner and did something about it.

But there are the camps that were denied existence of. Wewre everyone's rights there treated? And if someone died at a camp that does not exist who would know?

Compared to such minor things as merely ending suicide watch and on site resucitation teams is relatively minor.

If the tate wants people to disappear there are ways - indeed employed by America at the moment. No one has challenged their claim to democracy. One or two guilty prisoners taking their own lives is a dictatorship, but pummling another country to the dust is merely good government...

~:smoking:

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I'm a bit confused now... was that a post for or against my viewpoint??

As for the problems of not allowing death penalty and convicts to commit suicide I'm aware of how much the masses want the enjoyment of seeing criminals tortured and killed, but as we have seen the dangers of having systems that could be abused for making people disappear are too great. I'm as sad as you are that we can't torture bad guys for pleasure, but unfortunately every time a maniac claims power through coup and dissenter killing at least 1 million people die. I can live without the pleasure of seeing bad guys tortured if it saves the lives of 1 million people, sometimes more. The criminals are a minority and they don't have the logistical capabilities of killing as quickly as a dictatorship with industrialized killing factories. I'm not a supporter of such industry, and think there should be proper market regulations to keep such bussiness as small scale as possible. Until a better method is found, I'm afraid we can't enjoy seeing criminals and innocently convicted alike be torn to pieces, their bodies stabbed repeatedly after they die, their eyes cut out and fed to the crows, or their bodies being slowly fried over fire unless you wish to go back to the Medieval age in all other aspects with all it's consequences. There are very bad guys in our societies that are worse than any of these criminals, very bad guys who threaten to make millions of us die. We must be brave and stand up against them, even if it takes away from us a natural pleasure we all feel we have a right to.

I'd not torture someone for pleasure. In fact I'd not bother at all in the "use a drill on his kneecaps" sense. It is not reliable. You'll get a lot of information as most people will say anything when an expert gets to work. Is it any use? Some of it probably is - but what bits? And since you're probably going for nuance the point is lost.

My take would be that although dictatorship do occur, they usually do not occur due to cutting budgets to save criminals for suicide. In fact I can't think of one. So on that score I feel we are safe.

The gist of admittedly a poorly focused post is that it is really IMO a non issue. Sure, save some money, use the pieces when they die; that people can focus on this when there are actions in the world which are definitely illegal, probably war crimes and close to genocide puzzles me. Perhaps it is because they are so obviously guilty we can't be bother to talk about it here.

But there is precious little action going on elsewhere. No one cares. Countries are killing thousands of people and we don't bat an eyelid. We in many cases sell them "integrated systems" - arms sales has such a nasty ring to it...

Are thousands of others dying OK, we just need to whatch out for when they start it over here.

There's nothing a maddened dictator drunk with power and privilege can do that can't be replicated by a room full of people with invested interested and private agendas.

~:smoking:

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Originally Posted by rory_20_uk

I'd not torture someone for pleasure. In fact I'd not bother at all in the "use a drill on his kneecaps" sense. It is not reliable. You'll get a lot of information as most people will say anything when an expert gets to work. Is it any use? Some of it probably is - but what bits? And since you're probably going for nuance the point is lost.

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I'm not talking about information-mining either. There, it has already been repeatedly proven that torture is useless compared to all alternatives.

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Originally Posted by rory_20_uk

My take would be that although dictatorship do occur, they usually do not occur due to cutting budgets to save criminals for suicide. In fact I can't think of one. So on that score I feel we are safe.

The gist of admittedly a poorly focused post is that it is really IMO a non issue. Sure, save some money, use the pieces when they die; that people can focus on this when there are actions in the world which are definitely illegal, probably war crimes and close to genocide puzzles me. Perhaps it is because they are so obviously guilty we can't be bother to talk about it here.

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Handicapped people also cost money to feed even though they don't help society. With your logic it would be acceptable to save money by cutting their funds too. The point is that it doesn't cost much to feed the handicapped and the convicts, it's not a high priority place to save money. I have also previously on many occasions described why modern societies make it increasingly difficult to be certain about who was guilty. There are basically too many people to choose from, too many people look alike, criminals know from movies etc. how to hide their traces and with the DNA technique it's easier than ever to plant DNA that will make someone else look guilty. As for the core question: if one or two criminals commit suicide in a cell, it's not likely to be a case of the government making them disappear. In such a case, there's very little money you could save from letting them kill themselves. However if there are many people committing suicide, it's very likely that it isn't really suicide but something else. Even if the worst case isn't the truth, people outside prisons should be saved the constant deep fear of not being sure what their governments are doing, whether it's necessary to revolt or not. Situations like that make ordinary people go mad, and crime increases as an indirect result. Point in case: the most surveillance heavy places are the places where most crimes are committed - subways etc. Countries with increased surveillance can show statistics of improved number of criminals captured, but the tiny point that crime has also increased is not often mentioned. And a final remark: most severe crimes like rape and murder are crimes of passion, jealousy or similar from your nearest friends, family or relatives. Only a very small minority of such crimes are carried out by unknown people and are of bestialic character. We're talking about some 10 cases a year per larger nation.

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Originally Posted by rory_20_uk

But there is precious little action going on elsewhere. No one cares. Countries are killing thousands of people and we don't bat an eyelid. We in many cases sell them "integrated systems" - arms sales has such a nasty ring to it...

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Sure, dictatorship abroad is a big problem, but we aren't exactly helping them to defeat it. We sell arms to the dictators that they can use to destroy rebellions, and all educated people then flee from these countries, leaving noone to do the rebellion work. Then fifty years later we come and try to play heroes, deciding we could get a share of their oil in return for saving them from what we took part in creating and gave logistical support to.

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Originally Posted by rory_20_uk

There's nothing a maddened dictator drunk with power and privilege can do that can't be replicated by a room full of people with invested interested and private agendas.

~:smoking:

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Please explain what you mean by this? As far as I know, there are few ways as effective of killing millions than as a dictator (or also democratically elected leader) to say "I hereby declare war on blah". He only needs mention 6 words to have millions of people die in a year or two, a complex hierarchy below him carrying out all the work for him. If you aren't a leader of a nation you can't kill that quickly. The most extreme know cases of murder not carried out by a state would be some massmurderer (a doctor) in the USA who killed around 200 people over his entire career as doctor, or terrorist attacks killing over 1,000 people. I don't have the exact figures but I don't think any country on average suffers from more than some 200 people bestially murdered by unknowns or killed by terrorists per year. So as we can see even in real horrible anarchistic scenarios no non-state sanctioned killing seems to be able to get anywhere near as bad as state sanctioned killing.

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Originally Posted by rory_20_uk

My take would be that although dictatorship do occur, they usually do not occur due to cutting budgets to save criminals for suicide. In fact I can't think of one. So on that score I feel we are safe.

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Naturally, I'd like to emphasize that you need an entire package of safety measures to prevent dictatorship or constitutional crisis democracy to develop from a democratic system. Alone, each of the points in such a program look unimportant. I compare the package of safety against dictatorship with the package of things we would do to solve other problems if we would completely ignore any risks of dictatorship. The comparison still shows that the damage caused by sacrificing a few things we would like in order to counter the risks of dictatorship is weighed up by the extreme killing speed efficiency of dictatorship or a democracy that has ended up in a constitutional crisis situation.

The problem with NZ prisons is that they are too nice. I have an uncle who spent a few months in prison and said how he now understands why people want to stay there. We have an overcrowding problem in our prisons and the government's solution is to try and get them back into the community if they are only "minor" crimes. But the problem is that the people commit another "minor" crime because life in prison is better than their life at home. :wall:

Our prisons are more like holiday camps, we even pay out money to prisoners who were mis-treated despite their crimes. I doubt anyone would commmit suicide given the option.