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stella41b -> RE: Releasing the Yorkshire Ripper (3/1/2010 5:18:31 PM)
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I grew up in Bradford living approximately a mile from his house and one street away from where Yvonne Pearson - his 8th victim was found. My school was actually on Lumb Lane, and I spent part of my childhood living and being educated in the red light district in Bradford and one of the things I can remember is the fear and terror that this man caused, especially to women, at the time.
Peter Sutcliffe hasn't served his sentence at all, for he, like the detectives working on his case, the members of the judiciary serving at the time and William Whitelaw who was the Home Secretary at the time, is a liar, a compulsive liar and unlike other notable killers who fessed up and did their time Peter Sutcliffe got what he bargained for when the deals were struck in Sheffield and Dewsbury.
This might be an unpopular point of view but until the last two victims were murdered - Marguerite Walls and Jacqueline Hill, both in Leeds, this was never a serious murder enquiry and it wasn't because it was assumed that he was out after prostitutes. It wasn't until Marguerite Walls, the 47 year old Pudsey based civil servant was murdered and then student Jacqueline Hill was murdered in Headingley (and not the red light district of Chapeltown) that the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police started acting as if he was a danger to all women - which he was and had been ever since 1969.
This investigation bears a very striking similarity to that in Florida of Aileen Wuornos were in both cases police sat back because the victims were involved in prostitution. In both cases police could have apprehended the killer long beforehand but didn't, and so therefore in both cases the killer was given additional opportunities to kill, and unfortunately took them. This was something Wuornos pointed out in her last interview before her execution in 2002. The West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police interviewed Sutcliffe nine times and even had a numbered five pound note directly linking him to a victim in Manchester.
When he was on remand in Armley prison in 1981 Sutcliffe was reported as saying that if it went right that he would 'only have to serve ten years and serve the time of his time in the nuthouse' and this is exactly what happened. Wasn't it at some time in the early 1990's when he was transferred to Broadmoor? How long did he spend in Broadmoor?
I am strongly against the death penalty but I am also just as much against the early release of killers and feel that life without parole is the best solution. Okay, so Harold Shipman couldn't face up to living without hope and took his own life? Tough titty. He should have thought about that a bit more as he was sat there watching all those women die. He should have thought about it more when he was drawing Pavulon into those syringes. But he didn't.
And he didn't because like almost every person who commits a murder he thought he would get away with it or get off with a lighter sentence, just like Sutcliffe and so many others. This is why the death penalty isn't a deterrent but simply taking a life for a life, simply because hardly any killer considers it as a consequence of their actions. But if we stopped releasing murderers 'because they've served their sentence' and kept them where they belong, securely locked up away from society, it might just send out a very clear message to anybody considering killing anyone.
It's bad enough that the two killers of Liverpool toddler are being prepared for release and a new life in Australia. Each and every time a murderer gets released it sends out that very clear message 'you might be able to get away with it', or 'you might be able to get off lightly' or even 'you only have to serve x number of years in prison'. Crimes don't happen because people are bad, or evil, crimes happen because of reason, motivation, and opportunity, and someone prepared to take that risk.
But to me the whole Yorkshire Ripper case does show up a way of thinking which many people appear to find acceptable and that is to make a value judgment on someone's life. Some would argue that, for example, someone working is more valuable to society than someone unemployed making a judgment based on those two facts alone, without digging deeper and asking the question 'why' and trying to understand the answers.
This is the same argument of those who advocate the death penalty who feel that such a killer 'doesn't deserve to live', and it would appear that at the time to the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police detectives of the Yorkshire Ripper squad in Leeds that the lives of Wilma MacCann, Yvonne Pearson and Patricia Atkinson weren't as important as Jayne MacDonald's, Marguerite Walls or Barbara Leach because they were prostitutes.
However I would much rather people didn't make such value judgments and instead saw this as a matter of responsibility where we all share in making and keeping society as safe as possible. We cannot foist that responsibility onto others or expect individuals to share that responsibility, especially in the case of killers who have failed to shoulder that responsibility to the degree that it has not only cost someone their life, but also cost an entire family one of their members, perhaps a partner to someone else, etc.
Yes I am a humanitarian, and yes, I am saying that the life of a prostitute, a criminal and even a killer is just as valuable as any other because it is life, and that person is a someone to someone, just in the same way we are someone to other people. Do we need to be going down the route of judging, and subsequently condemning people for their actions alone?
I am sorry but I'm not interested in whether Peter Sutcliffe is a danger to society or not. He is responsible for taking the lives of thirteen women, destroying the lives of others who he didn't manage to kill, like Olive Smelt, Barbara Long, not to mention the people in the lives of his victims, their parents, children, and relatives. He has shown repeatedly that he cannot be trusted with the basic responsibilities of being in society and I feel that he should never given that trust or responsibility again.
But I am also very strongly against his release because it sends out a very clear message to women in this country and that message is - you are second class citizens. And I, for one, would never want to be the Home Secretary sending out that message.
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