E-mail address to contact Admin direct is admin@religionethics followed by .co.uk.
Because we don't live in Dodge City c. 1880 and are meant to live by the rule of law and not vigilante justice. If entirely innocent people can be hounded to their deaths, those who have been tried, convicted and have served their time can be attacked too.
Do you think the Fred West, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady should not have had their names revealed?
Certainly. We know the names of the killers of James Bulger. However, for their own safety they have been given in effect new identities, as was Mary Bell. For these identities to become common knowledge leaves them wide open to attack and even murder, meaning that we end up with even more deaths than would otherwise have been the case. Perhaps that's what you want?
After what those evil people have done if someone topped them I would not cry any tears at all.
So you (a) support the death penalty (b) carried out by random citizens - in other words, murder (c) with the very real prospect of the wrong person being targeted murdered.
I don't actually support the death penalty, too many innocent people were hanged in the past.
But by revealing the names of those killers given new identities you are laying both them and as Rhiannon pointed out those with the same name - innocent people - wide open to attack and therefore potential murder. You can't have it both ways. Rumour, innuendo and gossip are more than sufficient for someone to be targeted. This isn't some fantasy of what might happen; it has already happened.
How many people with the same name as notorious murders have been killed?
And as pointed out a man has already killed himself because of rumours that he is Robert Thompson. When I was on Mumsnet years ago a woman posted to say that she'd heard that someone who had just moved onto het estate was Maxine Carr and that she didn't know what to do.
No idea. The situation is even worse: completely innocent people with entirely different names have died, all on the basis of gossip.
And your evidence for that statement is?
Besides which, if innocent people have been killed, even though they don't share the same name as the killer, what is the point of changing their name?
I suppose quite a number of people support that view that names should be released, and if they are killed, well, good job. What can you call this? Broken Britain? A moral cess-pit? Hopefully, there are enough decent people around.
None of those people ever walked free again but if they had been released from prison, certainly, they should have been given new identities. Somebody who has served their sentence does not deserve to be lynched.
But then you have the issue as to whether local people should be informed as to who is living nearby. Just one example: a sex offender started to attend church. A CRB check would have revealed his offences so he didn't apply for any volunteering posts. Instead he got to know the families at church and ended up babysitting for one couple while they attended Bible study together. While they were out, he was abusing their prepubescent daughter. 'Serving time' does not make someone safe. What the answer is here I don't know, but I do know that sexual abuse screws lives up.
There are some people who should never be released, like serious sex offenders as they will always be a danger to children, unless they can be put on an unihabited desert island far from civilisation.
