The police have recently been able to convict two serial killers who were responsible not just for murdering their victims most horribly, but for subjecting the families of those victims to utter misery – perhaps for life, writes our Teen Blogger Rhian.

This has re-ignited the debate about capital punishment.

Maybe there is no room for it in a civilized society anymore, but then perhaps, in the long run, it’s actually crueller to keep a criminal in prison until he or she dies.

I don’t think we will ever have the opportunity to debate the matter properly however, because no government wants to take the lid off that particular Pandora’s box.

Recently though, I saw an email attachment regarding a hostage siege in China where a man was holding a boy captive in the window of a high building and threatening to kill him.

The man was perched on the window ledge and the Chinese police ended the matter quickly and decisively by diverting his attention inside the building whilse an officer shot him from an adjoining window. Unsurprisingly, he released the boy and fell to his death.

The author of this rather macabre attachment observed that in the UK we would have blocked off the street, negotiated for 12 hours, spent £50,000 securing a court conviction and then paid his food and lodgings for life.

Perhaps what is really missing from our criminal justice system and the ability of our police to enforce it – is flexibility.

Maybe we’re so tied up with rules and safeguards that we’ve lost sight of the purpose of it all and tend to fall flat on our faces more often than we achieve our objective.

Certainly, victims of crime do appear to feel betrayed more often than not.