Should Death Row Inmates Be Used for Experiments?

[Secret world leader (shhh)]

If they consent then I don't see any problems with this.

 

[darkonnis]

This is a very touchy subject, the trouble with it being that it would take a "someone" to define the difference between being humane and beneficial to science and just out right torturing someone.
To my mind, if someone had a disease or cancer then if they consent they should be able to try experimental drugs or operations. Giving someone a disease to then try and cure it isn't right just as forcing surgery on someone who doesnt need it isn't. That would be my distinction. But then i don't agree with animal testing either unless the drug is to cure animals.
I don't believe that they should wait so long, those facing the death penalty should wait a maximum of 1 year before their final punishment is enacted unless a judge specifically states otherwise.

 

[Woodsey]

some of these inmates are possibly innocent,

You've answered the question yourself. And the answer as to why death row shouldn't exist.

 

[zerobudgetgamer]

Human experiments on prisoners? Sure, why not torture them too?
I am against the death penalty, and against torture of prisoners so there's a big fat no on this question.

Also regarding your edits. You should do some research. Shortest complete life sentence is 16 years with parole after 8.

Yes, but it's not the average. Most countries seem to run a general average of 15-25 years before parole, with a LOT of places not having a maximum limit. 8-16 is only in Iceland. And for that matter, it is possible to have multiple life sentences, IIRC, and to have life sentences without parole, so even Iceland lifers would be forced into 16 years.

some of these inmates are possibly innocent,

You've answered the question yourself. And the answer as to why death row shouldn't exist.

Once again, not debating the validity of death row. I understand a lot of people don't like it, and the alternative would probably be having to serve (multiple) life terms, which is why I added the second Edit, and emphasized that the experiments don't have to be lethal. However, even if someone might be innocent doesn't give my idea any less merit. As I've said, a potentially innocent man could consent to non-lethal experimentation, help it succeed, and might be able to use that as leverage to either get off death row or push his appeal to prove his innocence. I may not know much about the justice system, so I don't know how well that would go through, but I'm being at least slightly optimistic that the system would see his volunteering in a positive light.

 

[John the Gamer]

No. Never. We wouldn't want to have a convicted criminal turned into a supersoldier by accident now would we? That would go wrong in many different ways.

Bur seriously, if it is to test medicine or operations then I guess it's okay with their consent. Like using a experimental cancer-removal procedure on an inmate with cancer.

Just keep the kill-switch within an arms lenght in case the subject starts to show symptoms of sudden mutation, muscle growth or strange eye-colorations etc.

Spoiler

But honestly folks, I'd say that we should only do it with inmates that are going to die soon anyways, with their consent and only to test drugs/medication/cures/etc that could cure life-threatening decease like aids or cancer.

 

[Mustang678]

Testing on people is bad science. If we started testing on the dregs of society it'd only be a matter of time before innocent people were being tested too

 

[Periodic]

I'm against the death penalty in the first place. I don't see a reason to make it even more despicable.

 

[StANDY1338]

Well I hate to point this out but it occured to me. America already uses these prisoners as a form of slave labour. Is using them for experiments really that far off. I mean who would know never mind care if they were.

 

[kouriichi]

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.

"Anything that can be done to a rat can be done to a human being, and we can do almost anything to rats." (William Gibson)

Stop for a moment and think about what you're saying.

Is it 'rational' in the strictest sense to treat humans as any different from rats. No, maybe not, but consider what you lose.. what we all lose by erasing that difference. Because Gibson is absolutely right there, anything which can be done to a rat can be done to you or me, and you know as well as I do what is being done to rats right now.

You can't opt out of being human, no matter how hard you try. It doesn't matter that you just want to experiment on the 'bad people', because the above statement could read: 'Anything that can be done to a convict can be done to you, and we can do almost anything to a convict' and it would not lose its meaning. We could all be on the vivisection table being sliced up without anesthetic right now and the universe would not bat an eyelid, the only thing protecting anyone from that is social prohibition. Don't be so quick to throw that social prohibition away in the name of 'rationality'.

If you stop believing that human life (all human life) has value and dignity, then you have forfeited your right to live with that dignity, and that's not necessarily a world you want to live in.

I never said the experiments had to only have death row inmates/convicts. If anything, I'm saying we should add their results to the "normal" members of society that volunteer for these things. I think there can be a certain amount of benefit juxtaposing the results of a convict with a "normal" member of society, depending on the project. Of course, as I said, procedures would have to be made to ensure the safety of all, including the regular volunteers, the researchers, even the convicts volunteering.

Not really..

This isn't the 19th century. Hereditary criminality has been debunked. All you get by mixing the prison population into a sample is an extremely questionable sample.

Im not saying human life isnt important. But there IS a limit.
Why do you think the prison populations are getting so high in the United States?
The threat of, "Were gunna give you food and shelter for free, because your a human and we dont want to harm you" doesnt stop violence from happening. It doesnt stop rape, murder, theft and arson.

A line has to be drawn. Many countries have SEVERE laws. In them, you steal, you lose a hand and get sent home. Here, you get rewarded with what you were trying to steal in the first place. Hell, most gang think your "the sh*t" if you kill someone and go to jail.
They get out, and people worship them.

An eye for an eye doesnt make the whole world blind. A person only has 2 eyes to poke out. YOu poke my eyes out, i poke yours, cycle ends. Everyone sees how much being blind sucks, and they stop doing it.

 

[SextusMaximus]

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

OMG Jackie Chan...seriously who the hell is that.

But OT- No that is awful. Just awful.

I'm guessing something to do with Unit 731.

Look it up.

Or rather... don't.

 

[Cenequus]

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.

I know it kinda got hidden under all that text, but I did mention "Consent" somewhere in my post. If anything, what I'm proposing is giving some of a prisoner's freedom back to him. This would allow prisoners to choose to do something with their lives while they're stuck in prison. For the case of Death Row Inmates and potentially lethal experiments, it would allow them to choose their own death as opposed to letting the justice system do it for them. I've also said it plenty of times now, I'm not trying to condone the outright torture of convicts. Perfectly normal members of society join medical trials and suffer the same "torturous" side effects of the things they try. All I'm saying is we give convicts the opportunity to serve humanity by undergoing the same tests and trials, and obviously receive the same consideration that a "normal" person would should something go awry.

As I said the only right a convict has removed is their freedom, which means they can already volunteer as subjects to medicine testing etc just like a normal citizen. I really don't see what you propose beyond that really.

 

[maninahat]

In regards to the OPS recent edits, I think there already is an option for inmates to submit themselves to experimentation if they wish, though I can't be certain. Even if that isn't the case, I don't see the point of introducing that system seeing as how we already provide opportunities for ordinary members of the public to offer themselves up for experimentation.

Alright, let us try a different avenue. Is it right that prisoners should be made to work long hours without receiving a minimum wage? America, for instance, specifically refuses to accept imports made by slave labour (no, sweat shops don't count and no, it isn't anything like slave labour), yet the country is heavily reliant on prison labour. Prisoners work many hours for only a tiny wage. As prisoners, they have no choice in the matter. The US prisoners manufacture a huge number of products for the public - is that not slave labour? Is that ethical? At what point does a punishment shift from justice to exploitation?

 

[Zeetchmen]

I think they should be used as gladiators personally, would be fun \o/

 

[ImprovizoR]

There should be no death row.

 

[Brad Calkins]

Just not the ones that are expected to create supervillains, you know they're coming

 

[Ren3004]

Should they? No. Do I mind if they are? Not at all, assuming it's voluntary.

Actually, it would be an interesting idea, letting criminals perform some sort of community service in exchange for a lighter sentence. This, of course, after they've served a good part of it and are deemed fit to leave the prison for a bit.

 

[xXGeckoXx]

I'm against the death penalty in the first place, but even so... No.

Just because they're prisoners, doesn't mean they're not people. That sort of logic is used in chinese sweatshops looking for free labour.

What if they consent. Like in terminator salvation but without the skynet. You are going to die and you can potentially make one last meaningful contribution to science. I would donate myself in an instant as long as there was no/little pain involved.

 

[Stalydan]

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.

I don't mind it. It's good use of them rather than just keeping them in a cell for years. It's practical and if they are kept safe then it's not morally wrong either.

 

[zerobudgetgamer]

As I said the only right a convict has removed is their freedom, which means they can already volunteer as subjects to medicine testing etc just like a normal citizen. I really don't see what you propose beyond that really.

Well, to be quite honest, I don't really know where one goes to find positions available in medical testing; doesn't exactly sound like something you could just go to CareerBuilder and search for, though I'd be surprised if you really could. What I'm proposing, I guess, is having those options clearly spelled out for them, kinda like a job board in the middle of the grounds or something. For Death Row inmates, they'd be "hand-selected" certain positions that need testers but have somewhat higher risks. Again, it may seem morbid to purposefully put them into these sorts of tests, but if they're going to be killed anyway, better as a guinea pig than with just another vial of poison.

In regards to the OPS revent edits, I think there already is an option for inmates to submit themselves to experimentation if they wish, though I can't be certain. Even if that isn't the case, I don't see the point of introducing that system seeing as how we already provide opportunities for ordinary members of the public to offer themselves up for experimentation.

Alright, let us try a different avenue. Is it right that prisoners should be made to work long hours without receiving a minimum wage? America, for instance, specifically refuses to accept imports made by slave labour (no, sweat shops don't count and no, it isn't anything like slave labour), yet the country is heavily reliant on prison labour. Prisoners work many hours for only a tiny wage. As prisoners, they have no choice in the matter. The US prisoners manufacture a huge number of products for the public - is that not slave labour? Is that ethical? At what point does a punishment shift from justice to exploitation?

Well, I can't say I know much about the prison system, so if there's already a system, then my bad for thinking there wasn't, but as for "forced" labor, well, can you think of a better alternative?

These are people who have been sentenced to several years in prison, which is a place where all you do is eat, sleep, sh*t, and walk around a gravel pit for a couple hours a day, maybe do a bit of weight lifting or ball playing depending on what the prison supplies you. The whole concept of prison labor was an excuse to give these lazing louts something productive to do, to help pay for the meals they eat and the utilities that power their new "homes." They lost their entitlement to a regular wage when they committed the crime that got them in there, so it's only natural that, when they're allowed to leave the prison and go work somewhere, that they not be paid a regular wage. While I will agree that it's a fine line the current system is walking across, it's hardly exploitation if you're utilizing man-hours that would otherwise go unused in the prisons.