Should Death Row Inmates Be Used for Experiments?

[Scarim Coral]

No since I think it's inhumane even to these evil crimials. I don't think it's justify to experiment on these people as the whole experiment itself would be an evil act.
Beside I would fear for the day when it came biting us in the ass when we accidently give this murderous crimial superpowers (well it's unlikely but that how some science superhero/ villain came to be).

 

[[zonking great]]

I say, why not? Let's face it. America has the death penalty. There's nothing sane people can do about that. From what I recently read, the whole sherade can take up to 40 years. That is 40 years you have to feed, house and clothe an inmate. 40 years of one person's life that is in some cases better than other poor people who have not committed crimes. So why not experiment on the bastards?

People who object to this, be aware:
Today's space program of both the NASA and the ESA? Made with technology that was invented by Nazis. Lye? Originally made out of the ashes of burnt bodies. Tons of "advancements" we now use on a daily basis owe their existance to original intended use in warfare. Am I saying that this is necessarily a good thing? No. But let's face it, by experimenting on these criminals, they are in some way helping to better the world they wronged.

 

[imnot]

I would like to remark that Shirō Ishii got out of being punished for his War Crimes by selling his results to the US.

So the question if the United States want to sink to that level isn't realy accuarte. A more interesting question would be, what they did to justify such a purchase.

Maybe I am too harsh, after all World War II wasn't exactly moral high ground for anyone. But I sometimes have the feeling that the US tend to see themselves as the good guys and Hitler and Stalin as the bad guys.

But Hitler and Stalin Where bad guys!

OT: eh as long as it wast to wierd and creepy I dont see why not.

 

[FallenTraveler]

I suppose it depends, if it is someone who can be proven 100% guilty then maybe. But there have been plenty of people on death row who were wrongly charged. I wouldn't want it for an innocent caught in the game of police and lawyers.

 

[Ethan Asia]

Well.... why not? If the experiments are for the betterment of mankind...

If they've been proven to have done something worthy of capital punishment completely beyond doubt, then yes. As far as I'm concerned, they're just bodies while they're on death row.

 

[kasperbbs]

Only if they agree to it, they might be on deathrow, but spending their last days being tortured is pretty fucked up.

 

[Wintermoot]

Congratulations, you are now on the moral level of this man:

not entirely if we would apply some morals (like no vivisections and only drug testing that has been tested on animals before) I would agree with it.

 

[relevantcore]

Well.... why not? If the experiments are for the betterment of mankind...

If they've been proven to have done something worthy of capital punishment completely beyond doubt, then yes. As far as I'm concerned, they're just bodies while they're on death row.

No, they're still humans with choices. Also, this would be every flavor of unethical, and sounds like the beginning of a dystopian society movie.

 

[kouriichi]

EDIT: OK, for the record, I'm not insisting we go out right now and take some of the people on the back of the line of death row, kicking and screaming, and inject them with a dozen diseases "For Science." Obviously, consents would have to be given, considerations would have to be made, and some laws would have to be changed. My point is they're not going anywhere, and appeals aside some death row inmates are simply sitting because the line is massive and they only go through so many injections a day. Again, they're going to be killed anyway, so why not give their deaths some meaning?

Dont worry bud.
It seems like you type something, and anyone who doesnt agree wants to bite your head off.

I can agree with you 100%. Just killing them doesn't do anything to help the community. The fact they got to get free meals, and a place to live at the expense of innocent people is bad enough. Now they get off the hook without giving anything back?

 

[teisjm]

How bout offering inmates, not just lifetime/deathrow, the chance to voluntarily participate in the experiments, and get paid for it. Money they could either get when they were released, or have sent to their famillies.

That way no-one would be forced, and inmates would have a chance to help support their famillies from behind bars, or have some funds when they got released, as to help them establish a legal way of life. And science would have volunteer guineapigs.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Also, to throw in a scientific argument.

You cannot base a medical experiment on one or two cases, it's not viable. There's a reason unit 731 consumed so many people and that's because (unlike Mengle, who was a lone psycho) they were scientifically rigorous.

In order to make your research effective, you'd need to send more people to death row. A lot more. You wouldn't want to just take what you can get, you'd want a good sample with a range of traits and conditions, which means a you'd need a big prison population to choose from. In fact, to conduct effective trials, you'd have to pretty much reduce the justice system to the role of procurement.

I mean, what would you test anyway? What can you learn from a healthy human body which hasn't been learned before?

And before anyone says 'psychological research'. No. Just no. Drawing samples for psychological research from the prison population is methodological suicide.

But Hitler and Stalin Where bad guys!

Do you really think the guy who sat there and read reports about prisoners having their limbs frozen solid, cut off without anaesthetic and their mutilated torsos used for drug trials until they died and decided 'yup, we'll give these people immunity in exchange for this research' was a 'good guy'?

Exterminas point was that we need to give up on the idea of good guys and bad guys in relation to that time. Everyone was horrible.

 

[Cenequus]

This has been a thought that's rested at the back of my head for quite a while now, and suddenly came back to bite hard at me today. If you've never seen the series Full Metal Alchemist, there's an episode where they enter a supposedly empty research facility and find that it's not only in full operation, but that they've been using inmates from a next-door corrections facility to perform experiments. As draconian as this may sound, it's nonetheless an interestingly controversial subject to consider.

Most death row inmates, AFAIK, have no chance of parole, and sit in their cells for years waiting for their own personally sterilized lethal injection (ironic). Now, while some of these inmates are possibly innocent, most have probably openly admitted to performing unspeakable acts that they cannot or will not possibly atone for within their lifetimes. What I'm wondering is, could we not use these inmates for various experiments, such as testing cures for diseases or maybe just using them for incredibly dangerous procedures a la Aperture Science? Obviously, all necessary measures would have to be taken to ensure the safety of those involved, and to make sure the inmate can't escape.

IMO, these are people who are just taking up space in prisons across the country/world. If we really intend to kill them, why not make their deaths meaningful/beneficial in some way?

EDIT: OK, for the record, I'm not insisting we go out right now and take some of the people on the back of the line of death row, kicking and screaming, and inject them with a dozen diseases "For Science." Obviously, consents would have to be given, considerations would have to be made, and some laws would have to be changed. My point is they're not going anywhere, and appeals aside some death row inmates are simply sitting because the line is massive and they only go through so many injections a day. Again, they're going to be killed anyway, so why not give their deaths some meaning?

EDIT2: Since so many people seem to immediately shout their opposition of the Death Penalty, allow me to add an extra clause: Should people who have been given a Life Sentence (or more) in prison be allowed to consent to experimentation? For those who don't know, depending on where you live in the world, a Life Sentence can be anywhere from 15-30 years before having a chance at parole, with some places having a max sentence of as little as 25 to as many as 50 years. The Consent would come with a small payment that would go to an outside source, and possible consideration of early parole. And obviously, the experiments don't HAVE to be life-threatening, even for the Death Row inmates.

You are't saying something new,until the '40 they we're doing stuff like that testing medicines,profumes,conservants you name it. But with the Ginevra threaty it got kinda illegal you might aswell change your flag emblem to a svastika. Thing is even if death penalty is a delicate issue(UN voted to have it stopped in all countries that are part of UN)a prisoner even a life senteced one only loses his freedom not his dignity as a human beeing. So yeah no humiliation,torture,experiments,testing etc. Going back 100 years I'll call it devolution not evolution.

 

[kouriichi]

Well.... why not? If the experiments are for the betterment of mankind...

If they've been proven to have done something worthy of capital punishment completely beyond doubt, then yes. As far as I'm concerned, they're just bodies while they're on death row.

No, they're still humans with choices. Also, this would be every flavor of unethical, and sounds like the beginning of a dystopian society movie.

If theyre on death row, its for a reason.
Humans are animals, we just forget we are.

A dog bites and injures someone? We put it down. Dogs have choice. They feel pain and can suffer.

What they did to begin with is unethical. :/
Its like the idea that "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind". I doesnt. Youd only have 2 blind people then. Not the entire population. Were to lenient with our punishment these days. Theres no reason for them to not commit a crime. They get free food, a place to live, and TV.

Most of them live better then people i know. And were supposed to call THEM human? After they raped/murdered/butchered/tortured people themselves?

 

[DanielDeFig]

I don't approve of Capital Punishment in the first place, it goes against the most basic human right to live.

So in response to Edit 2 of the OP:

As long as it can be proven that the prisoners consented, and weren't "encouraged" by outside sources (wardens, family, government, etc.), then I think they would have as much right as anyone to volunteer/consent to experimentation.

In fact, I think that as long as it can be psychologically proven that an individual actually consents (without being insane, or persuaded by others), then there should be no restrictions whatsoever as to what kind of experiments we may perform on other human beings.
The problem is, I don't think psychology as a field is advanced enough yet to be able to determine that a person willingly consents to a test that has any real possibility of killing them, without being influenced by their own psychological imbalances, or outside sources.

 

[Chad Hyou]

Would that really make us any better than them?

Receiving the death penalty for a serious crime against humanity is one thing, but using them as test subjects is undervaluing them as human beings, which puts us on the same level as them

 

[Ethan Asia]

Well.... why not? If the experiments are for the betterment of mankind...

If they've been proven to have done something worthy of capital punishment completely beyond doubt, then yes. As far as I'm concerned, they're just bodies while they're on death row.

No, they're still humans with choices. Also, this would be every flavor of unethical, and sounds like the beginning of a dystopian society movie.

What about the people they wronged? Did they consider *them* to be 'humans with choices'?

 

[imnot]

Also, to throw in a scientific argument.

You cannot base a medical experiment on one or two cases, it's not viable. There's a reason unit 731 consumed so many people and that's because (unlike Mengle, who was a lone psycho) they were scientifically rigorous.

In order to make your research effective, you'd need to send more people to death row. A lot more. You wouldn't want to just take what you can get, you'd want a good sample with a range of traits and conditions, which means a you'd need a big prison population to choose from.

I mean, what would you test anyway? What can you learn from a healthy human body which hasn't been learned before?

And before anyone says 'psychological research'. No. Just no. Drawing samples for psychological research from the prison population is methodological suicide.

But Hitler and Stalin Where bad guys!

Do you really think the guy who sat there and read reports about prisoners having their limbs frozen solid, cut off without anaesthetic and their mutilated torsos used for drug trials until they died and decided 'yup, we'll give these people immunity in exchange for this research' was a 'good guy'?

Exterminas point was that we need to give up on the idea of good guys and bad guys in relation to that time. Everyone was horrible.

Oh I misunderstood I tohught you where liek Hitler and Stalin where lovley guys! we are having tea with each other later
But yeah everyone was pretty dicky about then.

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

No, what if we create a criminal super-human!
OH GOD THE HUMANITY!

No, it's sadistic and cruel, if we do this, then were to we draw the line?
Using people who are fataly ill for target practice?
(of course not, but you get my drift, but they might be used for even more experiments.)

 

[FolkLikePanda]

Yes, yes, yes and whats the word I'm looking for I think it's... YES! They should suffer after all they have caused suffering to someone else. You can say its what the Nazis did but the Nazis did this to innocent people this is what is could happen to people who are guilty. But then theres the doubt factor of whether the persons guilty. But if there was someway to show that someone is 100% guilty then yes let them be the guinea pig to make innocent peoples lives better because quite frankly I couldn't give two flying sexual thrusts towards them.

 

[kouriichi]

Would that really make us any better than them?

Receiving the death penalty for a serious crime against humanity is one thing, but using them as test subjects is undervaluing them as human beings, which puts us on the same level as them

No it doesnt. They raped/murdered/butchered/tortured for no reason other then self gain.
They killed for no reason other then greed/anger/stupidity.

:/ Humans beings are animals. No matter how much we want to deny it, we eat/sleep/poop/f*ck just like almost any other animal on this planet. Yet for some reason we have this special rule that "Humans are better then everything else", when all we do is destroy the world, kill each other in interesting ways, and call everything else inferior.

Look at how we treat animals. You talk about us being on their level, when really, there is no level to be on. Were all animals. Animals kill each other. At least their death ((which normally would be completely pointless)) is giving something back to the community.