Defined Terms

Capital Punishment is more humane and civilised than Life without parole

Believers that the Death Penalty is inhumane and cruel -

a)     are unwilling to become acquainted with the heinous, monstrous, cruel murders committed;

b)     are not concerned with the substantial cost of Maximum Security Incarceration per inmate per annum; and

c)     couldn't "give a tinker's cuss" about the mental torture inmates with "no hope" endure daily.

Prison officers and inmates believe that execution is a lesser Sentence than Life without parole, because the torment is soon over.  “If you don’t have hope, you don’t have anything.  Death is a much better option for them because it’s over and it’s finished."

Many Lifers deemed never to be released are dying a thousand deaths; experiencing a manic depressive QOL.

Civil rights advocates readily contend that execution is cruel and inhumane.  Alas, these opponents of Capital Punishment have no 'first hand' exposure to, or experience of, the mental torment that invariably each inmate that is sentenced to Life without parole suffers from hour-after-hour, day-after-day, week-after-week, year-after-year, until death in that cell.

Further below are potent quotes from an article titled "Jailed Sydney businessman reveals what it was like to share a cell with notorious killer John Travers" by SkyNews journalist, Ben Graham, that provide a 'first-hand' account from 53-year-old, Greg Fisher, who was jailed for seven years and 10 months for corporate fraud and drug dealing.  When Greg Fisher was jailed, he entered a very different world to the one that he knew.

Following his release, Greg Fisher turned his life and career around.  He was the CEO for over four years of a of a charity, Thread Together, that provides clothing and shoes for the underprivileged.  He is now the Business Development Associate of iAccess ConsultantsGreg Fisher was interviewed extensively in SBS Insight programme 'Remorse'.

It wasn’t long after Fisher was incarcerated in 2005 that he ended up sharing a cell with an inmate whose horrific crimes stunned Australia.  Greg Fisher didn’t initially know it, but the man on the top bunk of his Lithgow jail cell was, John Travers, one of the five men who had raped and murdered Sydney nurse, Anita Cobby, in 1986.

Below are two extracts from SkyNews journalist, Ben Graham's article:

          "They took turns raping the 26-year-old, before Travers slit her throat and left her to die."

        "And you’re locked in there for a long time, often for days on end when the jail’s short-staffed, so you get to know your cellmate very well.

Fisher and Travers passed the days away sharing a jail cell, by playing cards and watching TV, but Mr Fisher said it was clear his cellmate was a loner.

Later in his stint behind bars at Cooma jail, Greg Fisher acted as a peer support inmate for another notorious killer, Matthew Elliott.

Elliot was serving life for the 1988 rape and murder of 20-year-old Janine Balding — who was kidnapped from Sutherland train station by a group of homeless men and youths.

She was taken to Minchinbury — a small suburb in western Sydney — where she was raped and drowned in a dam.

Mr Fisher said Elliott truly believed that he should die”, not only because he didn’t want to be in prison anymore, but because his crimes were “so hideous” he couldn’t live with what he did.

The dramatically different outlooks of the two killers reshaped the way Greg Fisher saw the justice system, in particular how he saw the mental torment of those Sentenced to 'life without parole':

“Before I went to jail I was opposed to the death penalty, not because it’s too cruel, but it’s too kind,” he said. “When I went to jail that view was reinforced because when you’re never to be released, that’s taking away the only thing you ever had and that’s hope.

“If you don’t have hope, you don’t have anything. Death is a much better option for them because it’s over and it’s finished.”

Below are extracts from Fighting to End the Other Death Sentence: Life Without Parole - by  

 In an August 26 interview with MSNBC, formerly incarcerated activist, Darren Mack, described Life without parole as “death by incarceration,” explaining, “You will not leave prison until you die".

”Noted political scientist and author, Marie Gottschalk, has called life without paroledeath in slow motion.

Pope Francis deemed ita death penalty in disguise.”

Kenneth Hartman, who served more than 37 years in prison before California governor, Jerry Brown, commuted his sentence, was the first to label itthe other death penalty.”  When he was still behind bars, Hartman wrote for The Marshall Project that life without parole is “the sense of being dead while you’re still alive, the feeling of being dumped into a deep well struggling to tread water until, some 40 or 50 years later, you drown.

 

 

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