Death Penalty/Capital Punishment

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This issue has developed in another thread so I thought we could share our views regarding this very important issue. From my perspective it does not make any sense to kill a human being for killing another human being. If some one murdered everyone I have ever loved I would still forgive them. I would also attempt to determine exactly why they chose to murder and seek a solution. I imagine we may all have varied opinions on this issue.

I see it worse staying in prison for the rest of your life thinking about what you did than being let out the easy way, dying. But I don't agree with someone staying in prison for the rest of their life for any crime, unless it was something extremely serious. I don't think anyone should be in Jail for over 15-20 years, and that's a long time. People do change, no matter the crime. I also do not agree with people getting their revenge through the state by using the death penalty. No one should have the right to put someone to death, even if they feel it's 'justified', I do agree that jail time is required of course, but not as a means of punishment for the rest of the person's life but as a mean of long but not eternal punishment for the person to reflect on what they did.

I am strongly against the death penalty and am a member of an abolitionist campaign group. The death penalty IMO is barbaric and belongs to an era which we should have left behind us several centuries ago. Eye for an eye does not solve anything, it does not bring any lost life back but only takes yet another life. Nobody deserves to be locked up in a human abbatoir, counting the days till death as if he were counting the days till holiday, that is worse to bear than the average crimes for which the death penalty is applied. The state should never support murder, in the name of justice you do not practice what you try to deter.

Also, there are no reasonable arguments for the death penalty.
1) It brings no victims back
2) It gives a wrong sign that the government is totalitarian and degrades human life, thus giving wrong signals to the people
3) The average death penalty trial has so many steps that it costs more money than lifetime imprisonment
4) The family of the victims have their right to grief, not to revenge. Revenge and justice are different things. Besides, every murderer is also somebodys child, and has family too.
5) The death penalty does not deter crime as the only people who are scared are those who have no violent tendencies anyway, a psychopath will not let himself be scared off by the death penalty. Statistics show that within the US, the crime rates are not higher in states without the death penalty. In Europe, most countries have a lower crime rate than in the States, despite the fact that only one European countries has the death penalty (Belarus) while all others abolished it. Within Europe, some countries with very low crime rates dont even have lifetime enprisonment (examples are Norway and Finland, where maximum penalties vary from 14 to 30 years for the most harsh crimes)
6) Science should be used to save lives, not to terminate them. Humane ways of murdering simply dont exist.


Some statistics: only 2 industrialised nations still practice this form of barbarism (USA and Japan). The EU and Council of Europe forbid the death penalty to any member state. 75% of the countries have either de facto or de jure abolished the death penalty, leaving countries such as the US, Japan, China, Saudi Arabia and Iran a rarity. Most governments have realised taking lives is not the way to go in a fair legal system. I personally advocate serious boycots against countries still practicing capital punishment.

This may be surprising coming from a liberal, but I think the death penalty should stay in place, but should only be used for the most heinous atrocities.

I don't believe in the death penalty.

I believe the victims family, etc should be able to come to terms with their grief, but this should not interfere with the judicial process. Retribution justice is the worse kind. The law is for the people of that jurisdiction, not a personal justice. It has to be that way to be fair.

When I hear people talking about ‘closure’ in a court room I am concerned. This is quite a new phrase that you didn’t hear so much before, that has become all the rage in a morbid way. It was something I first heard coming from America, but has crossed the pond. I think such a thing is impossible to define, is a matter of personal opinion, but the role of the court is to enforce the law of the land not he law of the victim. Killing the murdered is not necessarily going to give ‘closure’ anyway.

This does not mean that the affected should not be offered services that they are entitled to, I believe they should be offered support and probably more can be done to help them, but they should not have extra-judicial influence.

I believe that the death penalty comes from a bygone era of an eye for an eye, where personal retribution was often accepted as a form of justice.

Death Penalty.

My opinion: I'd still keep it around as a option but restrict to the most heinous crimes and for the convicted that show no possibility for rehabilitation back into society. Like Hannibal Lecter types, the rare but extremely deranged ones who would always be a danger should be executed and not kept around living well on tax dollars.

That said, the current death penalty do need to be looked at and it does need to be applied very conservatively since we do have some risk of innocents falling into it. In other word, keep it around for those who would obviously try to kill again, not to deter crime but to protect citizens and save some taxpayer dollars.

I support the implementation of the death penalty for murder and rape (over a thousand lashes for homicide and molestation depending on the severity of the crime @ a rate of 25-50/day) as long as there are a minimum of 4 genuine witnesses and/or proper forensic evidence.