Is Indonesia right to execute drug smugglers?

[Nessie]

The big problem for me is the defence of I was forced to do it by bad people. In this most recent case you have a middle aged woman who claims she had to take the drugs into Bali in a suitcase as she was forced to. Other members of the drugs ring she was in have been given lesser sentences and another's trial is on going. She appears to have been the patsy who had the suitcase, a typical tactic of drugs smugglers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21137649

"A 56-year-old British grandmother has been sentenced to death by firing squad in Indonesia for drug trafficking. Lindsay Sandiford was arrested at Bali's airport in May last year after 4.8kg (10.6lb) of cocaine was found in the lining of her suitcase during a routine customs check."


"Most of the 40 foreigners currently on death row in Indonesia have been convicted of drug offences, according to Australia's Lowy Institute for International Policy. Five foreigners have been executed since 1998, all for drug crimes, but there have been no executions in the country since 2008,..."

I am not comfortable with this at all and I hope her sentence is appealed and reduced.

 

[MikeG]

No. Nobody is right to execute anybody.

Mike

 

[timhau]

The big problem for me is the defence of I was forced to do it by bad people. In this most recent case you have a middle aged woman who claims she had to take the drugs into Bali in a suitcase as she was forced to. Other members of the drugs ring she was in have been given lesser sentences and another's trial is on going. She appears to have been the patsy who had the suitcase, a typical tactic of drugs smugglers.

Do we have any other evidence for this besides her say-so? I assume "The real crooks forced me to do this" is also a popular excuse. Would 10 pounds of coke be the sort of a load drug rings would trust to a newbie amateur they shanghaiied to service?

 

[Nessie]

Do we have any other evidence for this besides her say-so? I assume "The real crooks forced me to do this" is also a popular excuse. Would 10 pounds of coke be the sort of a load drug rings would trust to a newbie amateur they shanghaiied to service?

Quite possibly. There was an instance in Scotland where a big smuggling ring was uncovered where a drugs lord was giving people free holidays to Spain in return for no questions asked about the packages they brought back to Scotland. Most of the people used had no criminal convictions and were used as they were anonymous and unlikely to attract interest of airport security checks.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/168602.stm

It all went wrong as those involved fell out with each other and two were murdered.

Another example is the instance of Thomas McGraw, a Scottish gangster who ran a drug smuggling ring which involved using minibuses used by boys football clubs going on foreign trips. He was found not proven (a Scottish verdict meaning free to go as not enough evidence) of organising the trips.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/LICEN...rdict+in+pounds+2m+drug-running...-a060561045

When a minibus was stopped and searched £263,000 worth of cannabis was found. These are not small amounts and patsies are used to do the transporting.

 

[Praktik]

What should most instructive here is that a place that is so tough on drug crime they make the DEA look like Hamsterdam still has a thriving drug trade with a demand lucrative enough to draw in suppliers and distributors willing to risk a potential death sentence to satisfy it.

So how then, will being "tough on crime" ever end the Drug War?

The answer more and more, to me, is that prohibitionists feel that they are part of an Eternal War that we all should be fighting until the end of time. I am not sure that this is the way the war is sold... with I think a lot of people thinking one day the "Drug Free America" will be realized.

 

[Nessie]

What has happened here and in other instances is that patsies are the ones being hung, not the organisers.

There are many examples all over the world where a death penalty is not a deterrent to some.

My preference would always be to use the patsy to go after the bigger fish.

 

[Praktik]

My preference would always be to use the patsy to go after the bigger fish.

Ya but this means treating people like pawns - I mean I get the game-theory behind it, but in practise it leads to unethical judicial outcomes as the pawn that won't roll takes it on the chin and then we're applying a severe punishment to someone whose minor role really doesn't call for that kind of severity (but you needed to go there to get the leverage to try and flip them). If they don't get crushed by the justice system they are at high risk of reprisal from their formal employers, even if they're not actually flipping (but just for the Big Fish's peace of mind)

I mean all of that is less of an evil we can ascribe to the State than legally murdering someone for being a drug mule, for sure, but I have problems with the ways the Drug War incentivizes this kind of flipping of pawns to get the big fish. Dramatized all over the place but maybe The Wire has some of the most realistic portrayals of this methodology and its outcomes... The big question is what is gained through all that misery?

A temporary dent in the drug trade? maybe not even that!

So what does the misery inherent to this approach really buy society?

 

[Nessie]

Ya but this means treating people like pawns - I mean I get the game-theory behind it, but in practise it leads to unethical judicial outcomes as the pawn that won't roll takes it on the chin and then we're applying a severe punishment to someone whose minor role really doesn't call for that kind of severity (but you needed to go there to get the leverage to try and flip them). If they don't get crushed by the justice system they are at high risk of reprisal from their formal employers, even if they're not actually flipping (but just for the Big Fish's peace of mind)

I mean all of that is less of an evil we can ascribe to the State than legally murdering someone for being a drug mule, for sure, but I have problems with the ways the Drug War incentivizes this kind of flipping of pawns to get the big fish. Dramatized all over the place but maybe The Wire has some of the most realistic portrayals of this methodology and its outcomes... The big question is what is gained through all that misery?

A temporary dent in the drug trade? maybe not even that!

So what does the misery inherent to this approach really buy society?

What I am saying is that the death penalty for this person is harsh and it appears I am not alone

http://news.sky.com/story/1041142/bali-death-penalty-for-british-drug-smuggler

"Prosecutors announced in December that they would be recommending a 15-year prison sentence, after she agreed to co-operate in a sting operation in which police swooped on four other suspects alleged to be her accomplices, including Britons Rachel Dougall, Julian Pounder and Paul Beales."

So she admits her crime, apologises, helps the authorities catch others and yet she is still sentenced to death.

 

[WildCat]

Do we have any other evidence for this besides her say-so? I assume "The real crooks forced me to do this" is also a popular excuse. Would 10 pounds of coke be the sort of a load drug rings would trust to a newbie amateur they shanghaiied to service?

Seeing as her lawyers are claiming she has no money, you have to wonder what a poor Brit is doing vacationing in Bali. I think the most likely explanation is she got a free vacation in exchange for smuggling the cocaine. Probably promised her money too.

The rest is just the idiotic drug prohibition laws that Nessie supports, with a local flavor.

 

[Morrigan]

Even if you're in favour of the death penalty, the only correct answer to the OP is a big scathing NO. Executing people for smuggling drugs is insane and barbaric.

 

[DC]

deathpenalty is barbaric and has no place in the civilized world.

 

[shuize]

Meh. I can't seem to generate much sympathy for people who get caught trafficking drugs into places well known for their strict penalties.

 

[timhau]

Executing people for smuggling drugs is insane and barbaric.

... and only worth attention if they're white females.

 

[angrysoba]

Meh. I can't seem to generate much sympathy for people who get caught trafficking drugs into places well known for their strict penalties.

You don't have to generate any sympathy or believe that she's a bright spark. The question was whether Indonesia is right to execute drugs smugglers; the fact that they do is implied by the question.


I think no, they are not right to do so, but that's because I am against the death penalty in general and particularly so if there is any doubt of someone's guilt.

 

[Giz]

What should most instructive here is that a place that is so tough on drug crime they make the DEA look like Hamsterdam still has a thriving drug trade with a demand lucrative enough to draw in suppliers and distributors willing to risk a potential death sentence to satisfy it.

So how then, will being "tough on crime" ever end the Drug War?

The answer more and more, to me, is that prohibitionists feel that they are part of an Eternal War that we all should be fighting until the end of time. I am not sure that this is the way the war is sold... with I think a lot of people thinking one day the "Drug Free America" will be realized.

Doesn't this same "logic" apply to other crimes too?

i.e. If, despite being tough on murder, with long sentences and even the death penalty, we still still have murderers... maybe we should acknowledge human nature and cease this unworkable prohibition.

 

[Monketi Ghost]

No.

 

[Praktik]

Doesn't this same "logic" apply to other crimes too?

i.e. If, despite being tough on murder, with long sentences and even the death penalty, we still still have murderers... maybe we should acknowledge human nature and cease this unworkable prohibition.

This is the problem.

The moral judgment implicit in your post is that drug use inhabits the same moral frame as murder.

This is an inheritance from our Christianist forefathers and the temperance movement, but is an archaic morality that is on its way out, much like morality equating homosexuality with murder in terms of sinfulness is a relic of a bygone era.

I assert that this is representative of a moral imbalance in the administration of justice, and to the extent that drug use is commensurate with sinfulness like murder, that much of this is introduced by the draconian legal framework that surrounds currently illegal drug.

But yes, the core point in your post i think is logically valid - the same argument could be used for murder. It's just it makes sense to have a prohibition of murder, not so much to criminalize a much more widespread activity that is - in essence - impossible to enforce. By criminalizing the habits of millions of people we multiply the ills - if we are going to make a moral ledger we need to understand what the impact of these ills introduced by prohibition are, so that we can understand what the core sinfulness of smoking a joint or doing a line of coke represents.

It is my position that at the core, drug use is a social, health and psychological issue - and not a matter of sin in the sense that murder or theft, or direct harm to others is.

 

[Janadele]

Yes.

 

[angrysoba]

This is the problem.

The moral judgment implicit in your post is that drug use inhabits the same moral frame as murder.

This is an inheritance from our Christianist forefathers and the temperance movement, but is an archaic morality that is on its way out, much like morality equating homosexuality with murder in terms of sinfulness is a relic of a bygone era.

Those Balinese judges must be real fire-and-brimstone Fundamentalist Christians, then.

 

[Praktik]

Meh. I can't seem to generate much sympathy for people who get caught trafficking drugs into places well known for their strict penalties.

I think there's room for sympathy:

- some are coerced into being drug mules by threats of force
- some are tricked and are actually unknowing drug mules
- some are living lives of economic and social alienation, and desperate enough to consider high-risk activities to survive

- and yes, some people may be doing OK and not coerced or tricked

But given we don't know the full story here, it might be early to consider this individual undeserving of sympathy (and i would posit that the severity of the penalty could lead one to be sympathetic even without those first three contexts being at play here)