Poll: How do you feel about death penalty?
- Thread starter Rattja
- Start date
This sums it up quite right
People in prison should pay for their stay there, i am sure some do, but how many is anyones guess
People in prison should pay for their stay there, i am sure some do, but how many is anyones guess
Because the costs of appeals and extra court time are substantial, and usually (depending on the country in question, one imagines) end up costing more than it would have to keep the criminal in prison for the rest of his life:cloroxbb said:
http://www.law.du.edu/documents/criminal-law-review/issues/v03-1/Cost-of-Death-Penalty.pdf
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2011/09/22/death-and-taxes-the-real-cost-of-the-death-penalty/
Death for murderers and castration for sex offenders. Those are things we need to do but can't.
The sentencing of criminals is not about punishing the guilty, it's about ensuring that the guilty are prevented from visiting further harm on the innocent.
Prisoners can escape. Corpses cannot.
Prisoners must eat food provided by your taxes. Corpses must not.
Prisoners can murder the guards who imprison them. Corpses cannot.
HOWEVER!
Until we can clean up our "justice" system, the death penalty isn't feasible. There are just as many innocent people sentenced as there are guilty people pardoned, because the facts involved in the case simply aren't held in as high regard as they should be during trials and investigations. It's less about finding out if the defendant is guilty and more about finding out which lawyer can tell the most lies, make the most appeals to emotion, without getting caught committing perjury. Else, how would OJ Simpson have been acquitted? It was even found later that he was indefensibly guilty - there was no chance that he could have been innocent, yet that monster of a man was protected by the statute of limitations. It wasn't until he did something ~else~ that they were able to lock him up.
The sentencing of criminals is not about punishing the guilty, it's about ensuring that the guilty are prevented from visiting further harm on the innocent.
Prisoners can escape. Corpses cannot.
Prisoners must eat food provided by your taxes. Corpses must not.
Prisoners can murder the guards who imprison them. Corpses cannot.
HOWEVER!
Until we can clean up our "justice" system, the death penalty isn't feasible. There are just as many innocent people sentenced as there are guilty people pardoned, because the facts involved in the case simply aren't held in as high regard as they should be during trials and investigations. It's less about finding out if the defendant is guilty and more about finding out which lawyer can tell the most lies, make the most appeals to emotion, without getting caught committing perjury. Else, how would OJ Simpson have been acquitted? It was even found later that he was indefensibly guilty - there was no chance that he could have been innocent, yet that monster of a man was protected by the statute of limitations. It wasn't until he did something ~else~ that they were able to lock him up.
I support the death penalty for a couple of scenarios. But Ultimately I think we need to rethink our use of it and prison in general. Namely because I don't like the definition we use for the penal system.
Here's the way my brain works. Prison, and the death penalty are all about removing people from our society that don't fit in with the established way our society works. But we approach the penalty as a punishment for a crime, not as a solution to the problem.
The way I think it should work, at least at some point, is really more of a three stage system based on the severity of the infraction and the plausibility of reintegration into society of the individual. For instance, robbery (or other first offense crimes) should probably continue to be a crime where prison/rehabilitation is the solution. But then we get into territory where I think the system does not work because we can only re-incarcerate someone for repeat offense, or a failure to reintegrate into society. So repeat offenders or offenders with more severe infractions just keep coming back. This is where I would put in an intermediary step between incarceration and execution for very serious crimes (murder, rape, manslaughter, things like that). I would do what the British did, and send them away from our society. Preferably to somewhere like Somalia where there is no acting government to reject the person. Thus avoiding the problem of offending people by state execution or allowing them to become a burden on society by paying for them to be in prison or returning them to society where they can offend again.
As for execution, I think it needs to be kept around for some scenarios. An offender who simply lacks the ability to be changed. Someone truly deranged or insane. Someone like charles manson or some truly sick sociopath. Someone who doesn't just not fit with our society, but does not fit with humanity at large, a war criminal, a monster.
Here's the way my brain works. Prison, and the death penalty are all about removing people from our society that don't fit in with the established way our society works. But we approach the penalty as a punishment for a crime, not as a solution to the problem.
The way I think it should work, at least at some point, is really more of a three stage system based on the severity of the infraction and the plausibility of reintegration into society of the individual. For instance, robbery (or other first offense crimes) should probably continue to be a crime where prison/rehabilitation is the solution. But then we get into territory where I think the system does not work because we can only re-incarcerate someone for repeat offense, or a failure to reintegrate into society. So repeat offenders or offenders with more severe infractions just keep coming back. This is where I would put in an intermediary step between incarceration and execution for very serious crimes (murder, rape, manslaughter, things like that). I would do what the British did, and send them away from our society. Preferably to somewhere like Somalia where there is no acting government to reject the person. Thus avoiding the problem of offending people by state execution or allowing them to become a burden on society by paying for them to be in prison or returning them to society where they can offend again.
As for execution, I think it needs to be kept around for some scenarios. An offender who simply lacks the ability to be changed. Someone truly deranged or insane. Someone like charles manson or some truly sick sociopath. Someone who doesn't just not fit with our society, but does not fit with humanity at large, a war criminal, a monster.
I fully support it.
I say, if someone violates the human rights of another, their own are forfeit.
I say, if someone violates the human rights of another, their own are forfeit.