The Death Penalty

[thesneakster]

Well, the death penalty obviously isn't working, is it. (eg, people still do crimes).

Of course, the problem with the death penalty as opposed to life in prison, for me, is the fact that its absolute. Once your dead, your dead. Once you've been thrown in prison for life, you can get released if something new comes to light.

What i'm saying here is, that, by having the death penalty for things (and more things), it places a ****ing huge responsibility to get things right. Otherwise, you know, your doing the whole killing the innocent person thing. Take, for example, Arch's whole "kill all criminals" thing. This means that you'd need to have a full scale forensic investigation into every frigging crime, to make sure that the person wasn't actually in the right, or has been framed, etc. It'd take to much effort.

To top it all off, even if you have the death penalty, and people fear it, the majority of criminals are going to thing "oh, i won't get caught". That's the #1 problem.

 

[Redcoat-Mic]

I prefer to try and rehabilitate them to kill them. No point killing a person who could have been made to be a productive member of society again. And I don't believe anyone truly has the right to take a life. This obviously applies to murderers, but being a **** because someone was a **** doesn't sit right.

 

[Archonsod]

Take, for example, Arch's whole "kill all criminals" thing. This means that you'd need to have a full scale forensic investigation into every frigging crime, to make sure that the person wasn't actually in the right, or has been framed, etc. It'd take to much effort.

Paraphrasing Pratchett the only real problem is the crime they are being hung for may not be the specific crime they committed, however since everyone is guilty of something then in the broadest sense justice is done. Personally I wouldn't be too concerned about absolute proof; if they're in the frame then they're either involved somehow or just plain stupid, neither of which I'd be inclined to be particularly merciful towards.

To top it all off, even if you have the death penalty, and people fear it, the majority of criminals are going to thing "oh, i won't get caught". That's the #1 problem.

The beauty of simply randomly executing inmates. Rehabilitation takes care of itself since anyone dumb enough to persistently offend is going to wind up dead eventually. You don't want to stop crime completely, simply control it's level. Zero crime is incredibly bad for the economy.

 

[Fatman123]

Does anyone here think that rehab for prisoners is a waste of time and money?

Yes

Same here.

For me it depends, I think that Rehabilitation is a good idea under circumstances. A Minimum security inmate jailed because the judge had a bad day and he was done for vandalism or something should have a chance to be offered rehabilitation without decrease in sentence time! That way you separate those that what to change their way from those that don't care.Other wise that Min security inmate can get caught up and end up hating the system and growing from Petty criminal to a ring leader.

I prefer to try and rehabilitate them to kill them. No point killing a person who could have been made to be a productive member of society again. And I don't believe anyone truly has the right to take a life. This obviously applies to murderers, but being a **** because someone was a **** doesn't sit right.

This statement is just morals, of course  nobody has the right to take a life but think of the resources spent on these inmates.
Maximum security prisons have to be built in far of locations to avoid society getting caught up with them, adds to the cost
The prison has to be built, cost money.
The staff at the prison have to be payed, cost money.
the prison has to be up-kept to the extremes to avoid people escaping, costs money.
It all adds up

However i don't think that the death penalty will ever be effective because of the human element in it. A jury can be swayed by their emotions and a good lawyer, a pay-off, so on

I think that judges and jury's should be replaced by computers that way you get clean unbiased executions.

 

[Hersen]

Aye for the death penalty. I'll leave the politicians to draw the boundaries.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Your statements are just morals too Fatman. You're just setting up money as a morally relevant thing.

 

[Bellum]

No, money is a practically relevant thing. We use it to buy things like roads and tanks.


You have to think: We spend a huge amount of money feeding prisoners. No idea how much money it costs to kill prisoners 'humanely' with those lethal injections, but I'm sure it ain't cheap.


I'd rather we get rid of the crime. Big step is to legalize drugs. Waste of our money trying to control it, and it makes our government look like a giant *******.

 

[Pjoo]

You have to think: We spend a huge amount of money feeding prisoners. No idea how much money it costs to kill prisoners 'humanely' with those lethal injections, but I'm sure it ain't cheap.

Execution costs more than life sentence in USA. The costs of carrying out a death sentence is not nearly the price of carrying out a non-death sentence in a comparable case, but appeal costs, investigation costs, trial costs and cost of high security death row with multiple experts makes life sentence far more cheaper.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

Why does everyone think that capital punishment is going to save more money then life imprisonment? Trials for death penalties usually cost much more then the ones for life imprisonment, for some reason the judges think that it is imperative that they are 100% sure that the guy they caught is guilty of the charges.

Of course there is a way around this, that being just whimsically putting the people who are viewed as guilty by the community up against a wall and be done with it, taking out the middle man.

I really think that, if the problem is money, then maybe the community who suffered should be reimbursed by the person charged with the death penalty in some way, perhaps he could be harvested for organs and blood, or be used as a scientific experiment or a cadaver for medical school.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

No, money is a practically relevant thing. We use it to buy things like roads and tanks.

Well, yes. But that has no bearing on the debate unless you think money or its uses are morally relevant. The only real asnwers to these questions are ultimately moral ones.

 

[Moss]

Okay, I think we can pretty much ignore Arch, as we all know he's an evil baby eating bastard. And we can pretty much ignore fatman because he just suggested that a computer was a logical replacement for a jury.

Anyway, the death penalty doesn't work as a deterant, and like Sneaky Pete said, it adds an excessive burden to jury's as the death penalty tends to push what is considered "reasonable doubt" further. Which again, draws out court cases and results in less convictions.

Rehabilitation is the only logical solution, the current system is based on punishment and does nothing to stop people re-offending, infact it practically enforces it. Locking criminals up in a packed together environment for years on end, with only other violent criminals as their primary social contact then release them years later, with no skills, either job skills or really social skills, little to no money and little to no support and you actually expect that **** to work?

If we really want to decrease the cost of imprisonment we should focus more on rehabilitating all prisoners convicted of lesser crimes, teaching them work skills and giving them support after release.

This isn't to say that I completely disagree with the death penalty, I just don't think it's effective, or moral to use it. There are some criminals that can't be rehabilitated (the re-offence rate for pedophiles is somewhere around 80%). There are some people who can never be trusted to be able to reintegrate into society, people whose crimes are either caused by mental illness (serial killers, pedophiles) or are unforgivable (rapists, premeditated murder). My preference would be that they were isolated from the rest of the criminal population and, at least for most of them, put in mental institutions where they belong.

That being said,

Do you people know what criminals are? Honestly. Eugh.

There still ****ing human beings, no one "chooses" to be evil. Even if most can't be rehabilitated, they at least deserve the right. None of this close minded "just world" crap, the real world doesn't work like that. There's a reason that most criminals come from poor, uneducated and disadvantaged families.
Like Silverkatana said it's not like there's such a thing as extenuating circumstances, is there?

 

[Night Ninja]

The rehabilitation is well and good, but in some poorer countries, there's been a trend of people who carry out crimes just to get into prison for long stretches. They get clothed, fed and educated at the state's expense, and best of all, it's seen as punishment. What's not to like for them?

I support the death penalty quite wholeheartedly in certain cases. Repeat offenders for such henious crimes such as rape and kidnapping should be executed. Mentally unbalanced repeat offenders should be locked up, and the key thrown away. Rehabilitation should only be for those who were forced to commit crimes due to circumstances e.g. extreme poverty, sudden need for money for an operation etc.

 

[Bellum]

No, money is a practically relevant thing. We use it to buy things like roads and tanks.

Well, yes. But that has no bearing on the debate unless you think money or its uses are morally relevant. The only real asnwers to these questions are ultimately moral ones.

The moral questions are irrelevant, imo, because morality doesn't exist.

I like having money. I also like having services provided by the government, which cost money. It is beneficial to me for the government to have money. Therefore, wasting so much money on petty crime and impotent punishments is bad for me.

Okay, I think we can pretty much ignore Arch, as we all know he's an evil baby eating bastard.

 

[Rabid Potatoe]

Abolish law, the crime rate would plummet. 

 

[bugman]

Abolish law, the crime rate would plummet. 

Genius.



I'm all for emptying the prisons at random intervals, Give them sticks and chuck them into Iraq telling any who survive get to go free.

We'll need Imperial Guard style commissars though,
And maybe arming murderers and desperate men is a bad idea.

 

[Archonsod]

Rehabilitation is the only logical solution

No, you're confusing the words logic and ethics

There still ****ing human beings, no one "chooses" to be evil. Even if most can't be rehabilitated, they at least deserve the right

If you can show me something that the universe will prevent then you can call it a right, until then it's simply a privilege extended by society to it's members. Why should society continue to extend that privilege to those who've shown they cannot or will not be a member of said society?

 

[Adorno]

The most important argument against death penalty has already been stated: It's absolute.
The extend of corruption within the justice systems (police/court) is enough to reconsider the idea of death penalty.
There are numerous examples of people on death row being found innocent, due to heavy research by impartial organisations (like amnesty).
Both in USA and other savage countries using death penalty. In China hundreds of people are being killed by the government each year,
many of which have committed ridiculously small crimes. And Amnesty International have documented how organs from these people
are being sold. Actually making death penalty a lucrative business 
And in some totalitarian Arab countries the term justice system can't even be applied to the kind of arbitrary punishment taking place (long discussion).

In very liberal countries like the USA prisons are owned by large companies doing extensive lobbying to increase penalties,
putting more and more people in prisons. And a general law is that when penalties rise, then the number of crimes leading to death penalties also rise.
Under such circumstances it is lobbying (read: money) that determine the laws. Can that be considered a 'healthy' justice system?
Should we let privatized companies - wanting to make money - determine who lives and who don't? That's not justice.
All justice systems are flawed and the possibility of reversing a punishment should always be there.
What penalty can the state give itself for having killed an innocent person? In most cases there is no punishment. Just wrong 'procedure'.

Some people think long term prison sentences or even death penalty reduce crime. That's not the case.
Criminal research show - again and again - that the longer time people spend in prison the higher the risk of doing new crime when released.
In prison you simply learn how to become a criminal, just like you learn how to be a doctor by attending medical school.
There's no evidence that harsh penalties lead to low crime. But there's evidence of the opposite (Scandinavia with low crime rates is an example).
The kind of crimes that qualify for death penalty are social problems and can't be dealt with by the police/courts.
Many of the criminals on death row have been physically/mentally/emotionally abused throughout their childhood, and lives in general.
And a way to prevent hideous crimes is to work on social programs, reduce unemployment, reduce drug abuse (incl. alcohol) etc.
And obviously stop making imprisonment a money machine.

Some of you have argued that criminals cost money - but no one (in government) in the USA are interested in spending less money on prisons.
And the money saved by killing a criminal is a very little amount, making the argument of saving money close to pointless.

If you read all this, I salute you 

 

[Moss]

You, dear sir, just won this thread.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

has no bearing on the debate unless you think money or its uses are morally relevant. The only real asnwers to these questions are ultimately moral ones.
I like having money. I also like having services provided by the government, which cost money. It is beneficial to me for the government to have money. Therefore, wasting so much money on petty crime and impotent punishments is bad for me.

See, in my understanding and usage, this constitutes morality. To me, morality just answers the question "what should I do?". Without ethics, I don't see how the concept of a decision can make sense ultimately. It's quite possible I've made some sort of misunderstanding though I suppose.

Why should society continue to extend that privilege to those who've shown they cannot or will not be a member of said society?

Because it's more fun that way.
And against your question, why shouldn't they?
I still don't understand how a nihilist can even argue this stuff, unless you're just acting as an advocate for some other view.

Some people think long term prison sentences or even death penalty reduce crime. That's not the case.
Criminal research show - again and again - that the longer time people spend in prison the higher the risk of doing new crime when released.
In prison you simply learn how to become a criminal, just like you learn how to be a doctor by attending medical school.
There's no evidence that harsh penalties lead to low crime. But there's evidence of the opposite (Scandinavia with low crime rates is an example).

I'm guessing these aren't just correlations? Because there's lots of reasons why those things might co-vary...

In any case, current punishments certainly don't seem to have been designed for deterrence.

 

[BocajacoB]

If I was in the mood, I would read this whole thread, but i'm not in the mood.

    I agree 100% with the death penalty. For minor crimes (Theif, Robbery, Hurting someone severaly etc.) they should have to be put into jail. But for major crimes (Raping, Murdering, Killing another, etc.) they should get the death penalty for all states. Think about it a moment, think how that would be better. Well, it would decrease crime rate; they might think twice before doing a major crime. It would save money for meals; and for minors let's try to make it a living hell for them. Feed them barely any food, make the jail stink like rotten eggs and road kill. Don't pay the damn prisoners for labor, like we're doing today. Also, increasing the death penalty should make less prisoners, which means.. We don't need as much prisoner Guards, less escapes, less fights, etc. Making the job for a prsioner guard a lot easier; Putting the Prisoner Guards in alot less danger, Safety for the Prisoner Guard.