SIR – The news that Peter Sutcliffe (pictured) now has a ‘whole of life’ prison tariff will certainly be welcomed by many with memory of his appalling crimes and their effect on his victims, their families and the area.
No doubt many will maintain that crimes such as his validate a call for the return of the death penalty, rather than allowing him to survive while costing the rest of us £40,000 a year until he expires naturally.
However, realism says that the death penalty will never return, regardless of public opinion or revulsion at particular offenders, so perhaps an alternative should be considered.
Whenever the criminal justice process has been exhausted and produced a ‘whole of life’ sentence, maybe that lifetime detainee should then be offered the option of a sponsored trip to the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland, enabling that individual’s period in detention to be shortened and society’s long-term cost-penalty to be mitigated?
If only half of the 39 prisoners currently under that sentence were to take up the offer, that alone would save the Treasury over £20m in keeping those lifers alive.
In the current state of the national finances, that’s got to be worth a look.
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