Death Sentences

I don't think that the death penalty fits for anyone. If I were in a jury, voting either in favor or the death penalty or something else, I would never choose the death penalty no matter what the situation was.

If a person committed something that bad and that terrible to deserve a death penalty, then shouldn't they just live the rest of their lives in a place of suffering? Prison isn't exactly a land full of unicorns and rainbows. Death is just the easy way out. Suffering in prison is the exact punishment they deserve if they were rapists or murderers, or some other person of foul deeds.

I think some people deserve to die for their crimes. However, it's very difficult to make rules or laws than determine who deserves to die. That's my quandary with the death penalty. While I'm not completely against the idea, I am against it in most cases.

Kill one innocent person out of one thousand murderers, it's not worth it. It is impossible to have 100% accuracy when it comes to to the death penalty. Life in jail is a big enough punishment as is.

I really don't believe in it.

I know that it may be highly inaccurate, but wouldn't justifying death sentences be the same as justifying euthanasia/aided suicide/suicide, in a way? I mean - if a judge, jury and people (strangers, really) have the right to determine a death sentence, then shouldn't a person have the right to determine the length of his/her own life?

Killing someone for what they've done isn't justice being served. It's just another, legalized (in some states) method of revenge. I think. Also, if someone is found guilty and convicted of a crime, then wouldn't it be more punishment to let him live in a cell for the rest of his life?

coconut ninja:

I know that it may be highly inaccurate, but wouldn't justifying death sentences be the same as justifying euthanasia/aided suicide/suicide, in a way? I mean - if a judge, jury and people (strangers, really) have the right to determine a death sentence, then shouldn't a person have the right to determine the length of his/her own life?

Allowing someone the freedom of making their own decision about their quality of life and forcefully ending someone's life outside of their control are completely separate, incomparable issues.

In my opinion, the only logical argument for the Death Sentence I have ever heard, is the economic one. i.e the high cost of housing prisoners and the fact that prisons are already over populated. However this argument is illogical, as I don't believe in the death penalty, as a much easier way to cut down on the amount of prisoners is to lower the sentence for less dangerous prisoners, such as youth offenders.

Help the next generation and the one that follows will to an extent will also be helped.

A Drop On the Window:

In my opinion, the only logical argument for the Death Sentence I have ever heard, is the economic one. i.e the high cost of housing prisoners and the fact that prisons are already over populated. However this argument is illogical, as I don't believe in the death penalty, as a much easier way to cut down on the amount of prisoners is to lower the sentence for less dangerous prisoners, such as youth offenders.

Help the next generation and the one that follows will to an extent will also be helped.

I also find it detestable that people would value financial benefit over a human's life.

Alex; schmetterling!:

I also find it detestable that people would value financial benefit over a human's life.

I don't believe it's about personal financial benefit, more like economic benefit, and the idea of the opportunity cost of having so many people in prison, such as if the government didn't have to pay so much for housing prisoners, they could improve other public sectors like education.

Although considering that, I agree with you. One cannot breach Human rights, and {In my country} one can not simply breach the bill of rights, more specifically the "right to life" section, merely for the slight benefit for others.

A Drop On the Window:

I don't believe it's about personal financial benefit, more like economic benefit, and the idea of the opportunity cost of having so many people in prison, such as if the government didn't have to pay so much for housing prisoners, they could improve other public sectors like education.

That's what I meant, sorry if I worded it badly, hehe. :)

Alex; schmetterling!:

That's what I meant, sorry if I worded it badly, hehe. :)

I think that we overall, yourself and I, have the same view. That there is no logical reason to enforce a death penalty. As the benefits come nowhere near to outweighing the costs. The benefits being the lower cost of corrections, and the costs being breaching a humans basic rights as if we do this through legislation {allowing the death penalty} we over ride the bill of rights and effectively Murder for revenge of a crime would subsequently have to be also seen as legal.

What is the difference between the state killing someone for their crimes and a citizen doing the same thing?

A Drop On the Window:

I think that we overall, yourself and I, have the same view. That there is no logical reason to enforce a death penalty. As the benefits come nowhere near to outweighing the costs. The benefits being the lower cost of corrections, and the costs being breaching a humans basic rights as if we do this through legislation {allowing the death penalty} we over ride the bill of rights and effectively Murder for revenge of a crime would subsequently have to be also seen as legal.

What is the difference between the state killing someone for their crimes and a citizen doing the same thing?

i suppose it would be interesting to say that in the US, the death penalty usually costs far, far more than keeping the prisoner alive. It's only in countries like Saudi Arabia and the like in which the death penalty reduces overall costs. It seems to follow that the death penalty only "works" in countries who either have vastly corrupt justice systems or are totalitarian to a high degree.

I found this graphic really interesting:



I'm against the death penalty, since if someone has done something that you think is worth taking away their life for, it seems a lot better to make them try to repay that social debt, rather than taking away a human life. There are so many reasons why the death penalty is just a bad idea - ethically, who are we to be the judge of life and death, and how does killing prove killing is wrong? Philosophically/socially, should the justice system be about revenge, and should we encourage/support revenge by taking a life for a life? (Other uses of the justice system include social protection, deterrence, education, rehabilitation, in some places labour.) Logically, if a person has committed a crime which will bring them the death penalty, why shouldn't they kill all witnesses and fight police to the death rather than be brought in? Statistically, juries prefer to free someone who has a lot of evidence against them if the death penalty is the alternative, which leads to a dangerous skewing of our attempts at justice.

Keep dangerous/violent persons in prison working on tasks which benefit society. Release criminals who have not done anyone physical harm, and are not a danger to society, and allow them to work back whatever debt they created (and/or whatever punishment you choose to give them.) Since the non-violent are, what, 90% of prisoners, this massively lowers prison numbers/costs and allows issues like prison crime (rape, violence) to be addressed (for now, not only are they rife and perhaps systemic, they are ignored for the purpose of providing a deterrent - people avoid crime [or, being caught] because they do not want to be raped in prison.)

Killing a person does not bring back a life, and it probably won't provide more than a temporary, poisonous relief to someone's grief. Death is so permanent. If there's any chance the court is wrong, there is no fix for an execution. -shrug- but maybe I would feel differently if someone I know was terribly hurt by a person. I like to think I wouldn't want their death (even if I wished death/suffering on them). And if you do want them to suffer, and if humanity means something, most people who have committed a terrible crime (excluding actual sociopaths) would probably suffer more from dwelling on their actions and having to live with them (/their consequences) than by (a relatively quick) execution.

The Master.:

i suppose it would be interesting to say that in the US, the death penalty usually costs far, far more than keeping the prisoner alive. It's only in countries like Saudi Arabia and the like in which the death penalty reduces overall costs. It seems to follow that the death penalty only "works" in countries who either have vastly corrupt justice systems or are totalitarian to a high degree.

^

Far more expensive to kill someone than to leave them in prison. Saying it's cheaper to use the death penalty is a myth.

Ahhhhhron:

^

Far more expensive to kill someone than to leave them in prison. Saying it's cheaper to use the death penalty is a myth.

Are you agreeing with me?

Apparently

I don't agree with the death penalty. I think it's wrong that a judge or a jury has the power to decide who lives and who dies. However, I think that the prison system for serious offenders (such as murderers, rapists, etc.) needs to be changed. At the moment, here in England, many prisons are far too luxurious in my opinion. For instance, a few years ago, there was a story in the news that, in England, more money was being spent on the average prisoner's meal than was being spent on the average school child's meal, which I think is appalling. I think that a serious offender should have to spend the rest of their life in prison - not get let out after ten or twelve years because of 'good behaviour,' and that prisons should not be as luxurious as they are now. If this was the case, I think that prison would almost be a bigger punishment than death, because the offender would have to live with what they've done for the rest of their life.

amaranthine.:

I don't agree with the death penalty. I think it's wrong that a judge or a jury has the power to decide who lives and who dies. However, I think that the prison system for serious offenders (such as murderers, rapists, etc.) needs to be changed. At the moment, here in England, many prisons are far too luxurious in my opinion. For instance, a few years ago, there was a story in the news that, in England, more money was being spent on the average prisoner's meal than was being spent on the average school child's meal, which I think is appalling. I think that a serious offender should have to spend the rest of their life in prison - not get let out after ten or twelve years because of 'good behaviour,' and that prisons should not be as luxurious as they are now. If this was the case, I think that prison would almost be a bigger punishment than death, because the offender would have to live with what they've done for the rest of their life.

Prison is not luxurious, as far as I am aware, anywhere. If that news story was accurate, that could suggest inefficiency in planning / purchasing / producing prisoner meals, or low standards in school lunches. And do most schoolchildren only eat lunch? (Or was this from those schools where kids board?) Because the average of breakfast, lunch and dinner might well be more expensive than just lunch. Not to mention that a grown man needs more food (/energy /nutrition) in his meal compared to a child. (As in, thousands of kjs more.) It would probably be criminally negligent to feed adult prisoners schoolchildren-equivalent meals.

Prison is expensive. The prison system in most countries is super expensive. This is because the public likes the government / judicial system to seem "tough on crime" so far too many people are sent to prison. The vast majority of these people are not threats to the community and should not be wasting state money - I think in the UK, about 38,000 pounds per year per prisoner - and the cost more than triples as the prisoner ages (beyond 55 years old). The solution to this wasted money is not to keep people in prison longer - even if they save a bit of money doing more efficient meals, that's a fraction of costs. The solution is to not imprison people for nonviolent crimes - make them pay back the victim, pay back society for the wasted court time, maybe community service if a fine doesn't seem punishment enough. Even with violent crimes - some are just stupid mistakes, and if the justice system is based more on atoning for crime, paying back society, rehabilitation, etc, prison is not the best solution. There are people who are a danger to society, and they should be kept away from it, yes. But, also, did you know recidivism (reoffence) occurs at a 50% rate for every crime? Except one - murder. (Which has a much, much lower rate of reoffence.) Anyway, you seem to be focusing on "rapists and murderers" and I assume either that you mean people who will reoffence, or that you believe that people should be punished for a crime even if that punishment doesn't change what happened. (Lots of people think that, I'm not saying it's strange or unpopular.) I'm not sure how crime-free UK prisons are, but in the US there are such high assault (particularly sexual assault) rates, that this acts as one of the more powerful deterrents (if we are to say that deterrent effects exist at all; certainly the death penalty is not really one, since people still commit the crimes that get the death penalty, and that the offender then has reason to kill any witnesses / police since they are facing the chance of execution, and juries exonerate at a far higher rate because they don't like sentencing people to death, which means letting murderers free, and anyway most crimes are not done after weighing up the consequences, they are either done out of desperation or opportunity) so prison rape supposedly acts as a deterrent, so the authorities are disinclined to try and create a safer environment. Which is terrible. Making prison a cruel, dehumanising place seems like a great idea (maybe) (to some people) but all those not-threats-to-society I was talking about, go in as people who made mistakes, and come out probably more angry, hurt, violent, abused, resentful; those that are raped may be suffering depression, PSTD, stress and anxiety disorders, etc, but since 'the man' put them into that situation, and since criminals face such stigma in society ("they are evil people who make choices to hurt people" etc) they are probably less inclined to seek professional help (if they could even afford to) and more inclined to further acts of greater brutality, perhaps worse than what had originally landed them in prison. The amount of prisoner suicides, the measures that authorities have to take to prevent it, does not to me suggest 'luxury'.

Of course, economically, the death penalty is not really better than the crippling financial burden of life imprisonment because the sentenced person gets to appeal, the system has to check all sorts of boxes to do things correctly, it can take years and years and if multiple appeals are happening - I don't know how much you know about legal costs, but they can be hundreds of thousands for ordinary assault or defamation cases, let alone cases of extreme violence and/or involving whatever defence the accused used and whatever experts might be required for that as well as witnesses if there were any and character witnesses if that's relevant - the state won't get that money back even if they win, because the person will be dead. So I am not saying "imprisonment is expensive, kill them instead." (I agree it is a better punishment to make them live with what they've done, not to mention the moral ramifications of killing someone to demonstrate that killing is wrong.) I am definitely still saying "maybe we should stop throwing everyone in prison and increasing penalties and refusing to let people out." I don't think that keeping someone in prison forever and them knowing it is forever is a just punishment because spending millions of dollars over that person's lifetime does not to me smack of justice - and if they kill themselves because they know they will be in prison forever with no chance of being let out, the state has essentially executed them - whether with a needle or by denying them hope (the spark of humanity) is irrelevant. Yes? I think the person should have to do things to actually help their victims (the victim him/herself, or their family, or whoever was affected by their death) (or, if no individual was affected, they should be put to work on some sort of charitable / community endeavour) though of course if the victim (or family) never wants to see their face (even if the criminal would like to apologise, because they are remorseful) they should have the right to that space, but there are so many ways that a criminal could actually begin to work off their debt to society without this limited understanding of a "punishment" that we seem to think is the best way to get "justice" (i.e. revenge) (which is, I think, a natural reaction, I don't deny that) this punishment of putting them into a box with awful lighting grey surroundings little space to move and, most importantly, surrounded by others who are more and less 'bad' than they, I can't see what we are doing there besides really raising the average level of of criminality. If we are saying some people are too dangerous to be around other people, that should be any people; not all criminals are created equally.

Also if we put the not-particularly-dangerous people back into society more, maybe we'd be able to shift the destructive stigma that attaches to criminals. There is a difference between crime and someone who commits a crime, because one is wrong and one is someone who did something wrong - a human being who did something wrong. Most people do things that they know are wrong, and maybe in the same circumstances they would do something criminal; having a criminal record does not invalidate a person's rights. Neither does being sick, which is another huge problem - the mentally ill that are sentenced to prison. But I feel like I've rambled enough on this, basically I disagree that prisons are luxurious and I am highly skeptical of 'news articles' that seek to tell people how luxurious prisons are, just by comparing numerical figures - it reminds me vividly of the Australian media's treatment of asylum seekers, describing them as living in penthouse luxury costing so-and-so tens of thousands of tax payer dollars my goodness contributing to social demonisation - through resentment (I don't get so many benefits, I pay taxes, I work hard) and outrage (what children are going hungry while this is happening outrageous) - and maybe if we worked more on social cohesion than divisiveness we wouldn't have so much crime. Treating certain people as criminal and treating criminals as subhuman does more harm than good. It's been noted time and time again. Recently, in my state, the police minister was humiliated because he authorised a three-day "intensification" of police presence and action to "crack down on crime" and crime went up over the three days. What the people think is a good idea is not necessarily a good idea. (See: higher sentences; mandatory sentencing; the death penalty; etc.) But the media tends to make things worse so I'm not really blaming individuals completely for this. (And it is also the fault of those in positions of authority who should know better - because they have research/evidence/information on such things - but instead pander to dumb mobs of voters calling for things they don't understand the implications of.) (I'm going to abruptly stop now.)

^I hate to bump threads without actual contributions, but I have to say how much I agree with this.

Prisons have esentially become either moral black holes or criminal factories, pumping out more hard core criminals on the street than first entered them.

Prisons shouldn't be exclusively used as punishemnt camps, rape centers for weak or non criminal people or where we send pedos to get shanked. More than anything else, they should be rehabilitation centers, where criminals or potential criminals would be introduced to programs which would attempt to make them into non-criminals, or at least reduce the likeliness of them repeating their crimes.

^I hate to bump threads without actual contributions, but I have to say how much I agree with this.

Prisons have esentially become either moral black holes or criminal factories, pumping out more hard core criminals on the street than first entered them.

Prisons shouldn't be exclusively used as punishemnt camps, rape centers for weak or non criminal people or where we send pedos to get shanked. More than anything else, they should be rehabilitation centers, where criminals or potential criminals would be introduced to programs which would attempt to make them into non-criminals, or at least reduce the likeliness of them repeating their crimes.

If people have time, they should check out this article on Halden, a Norwegian prison. Interesting idea/execution.