A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
Pro-death penalty supporters argue that capital punishment permanently removes the criminal from society, creating a safer community. Others bring up the matter of cost, claiming that resources that might be used on feeding and keeping alive life prisoners could be better used on other sectors of the country, such as education or the old. Some point out that a serious punishment such as the death sentence would act as a deterrent, thus reducing crime rates within the society.
Most simply believe in “lex talionis”, or more commonly known as “an eye for an eye”. The punishment should fit the crime, and the death penalty is the only punishment befitting that of a mass murderer, for example.
Before we start nodding along to these points and think “yeah that does kind of make sense”, let’s ask ourselves just how valid these “pros” are.
I doubt anyone is saying to let loose the killers and criminals into society, and I agree there are some people who have done despicable things and truly deserve the worst punishment inflicted upon them, to die even.
But, surely to punish someone with the very same act they’re being punished for is the height of hypocrisy?
We are always taught to take the high road. “Let it go”, “don’t sink to their level” and “”be the bigger person” are all familiar pieces of advice that I’m sure all of us have heard before.
This is what children are taught, so how can their role models - adults, lawmakers, and the government – not “walk the talk” on the large scale?
In the heart of morality is the sanctity of human life. No one person has the right to take another’s life, and neither a title before a name, nor majority votes should give any human body the power to kill.
In terms of costs, according to Amnesty International USA, the cost of carrying out capital punishment was actually calculated to be more than the cost of lifetime imprisonment. In Maryland, death penalty cases were found to cost 3 times more than non-death penalty cases and in Kansas, a 2003 legislative audit found that it cost 70% more to carry out a death penalty case than a comparable non-death penalty case.
Yes, this is because of the endless appeals and bureaucracy that goes into a death row case, but to suggest that the red tape be cut would be trivialising the human life at a whole new level.
Furthermore, capital punishment is not a decision that leaves any room for error, and we all know to err is human. Any wrongful conviction would be a permanent scar on everyone involved - an irreversible fact.
If I were to be honest, if someone were to hurt anyone I cared about, I would probably wish the worst upon him or her. I won’t pretend to be superior or lacking in the purely selfish need to see justice being done. But an offender’s sufferings end when his heart stops beating, at least to my knowledge. I would much rather know he’d be waking up to steel bars, grey walls and no real hope for all his years to come, wouldn’t you?
interesting article 
simple and well written. 
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