Botched executions in the USA

simon gray — 2026-10-01, 03:24:58 - 264 words

As yet another execution in the USA is botched, it's worth pointing out that the death penalty there is designed to be Cruel And Unusual by design; by design it causes the maximum amount of stress and trauma to the condemned person, even when it is not botched.

Even when everything goes smoothly to plan, the methods used to judicially murder people — gas chamber, lethal injection, electric chair, and firing squad — draw the process out as the condemned is marched from their cell to the execution chamber, and tied to a gurney, a chair, or a post, and any further preparations made before the execution itself is delivered.

And then when the process itself is started, it is not instant; the choices of chemicals and gasses used, the action of electrocution or of shooting somebody, make for minutes of sheer torture in agony for the final minutes of life.

By contrast, the long drop method of hanging as used in Britain in the first half of the 20th Century at least makes for an instant death from the drop, and the whole overall process itself was over [...]

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Conviction and punishment for sexual assault

simon gray — 2026-09-22, 20:10:41 - 552 words

Over on Threads, another user said thus:

Castration for sex offenders should just be a basic requirement.

It's not an unpopular thing to say; the urge to viscerally respond to a viscerally wicked crime is understandable.

There are many reasons why it's not actually a good idea, not least because, as I replied:

Well, it might stop the ability to reoffend with the penis being the principle weapon used in the assault, but there are plenty of ways of sexually assaulting people without using one’s penis as a weapon, and indeed it wouldn’t stop the ability for a physically stronger person to exercise violent control over a physically weaker person, which is mainly what most people who commit sexual assault are doing.

To which the other person replied to the effect that the death penalty could be the alternative. 

Again, viscerally understandable, but in practice an even worse answer.

If you’re going to kill the rapist, they might as well kill their victim when they’re done.

Plus, see the already woefully low — for a variety of reasons, some of which have solutions — conviction rate for rape plummet even further, since the whole reason the death penalty was abolished in the UK was people who had [...]

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Have the police lost control of the city centre streets of Birmingham?

simon gray — 2018-10-03, 14:20:57 - 854 words

A couple of weeks ago when I was walking from work to the railway station along Dale End / High Street in Birmingham I commented that just about every evening when I walk that way there's some kind of blue light incident going on in the area.

Last night as I was walking along the road I saw that the blue light incident had been levelled up considerably by the entire area being sealed off.

It turned out what had occurred this time was a mass brawl of about 100 youths resulting in three people being stabbed. From eye-witness reports of the lead-up to the incident, it seems that to a certain extent some kind of rumble was already pre-planned:

"I was on the bus going into town and everyone started making weird noises as it started pulling up at the bus stand near the McDonald's.

There was a massive group of kids, I'd say they were probably aged around 16.

They all went after this one guy who looked the same age and grabbed him - he nearly went

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