Death penalty, for or against?
My feelings on this issue are pretty simple: the death penalty should be reserved for the most evil and unrepentant among us. Applying that can be difficult, due to a variety of factors...but I think most would agree a guy who broke into someone's home while they were away doesn't deserve to die.
People wrongly assume the death penalty is equal to murder, when its not. There's several differences, the biggest of which is a lack of arbitrary decision by the jury. When a psycho kills someone, its a personal choice, done for no other core reason than selfish greed. When a court is convened to decided if a criminal deserves death, many different alternatives are placed on the table, and twelve jurors must vote on the best course of action for all involved in the case.
Personally, I think an even more important issue than the death penalty is the current state of the American penal system. Prison needs to be a place that every criminal fears to go, so much that they'd no longer break the law out of desperation to avoid it. From what I've heard, so many convicts have it better on the inside than law-abiding citizens do on the outside, and I find that sickening. We need to take the TVs and conjugal visits away, along with time outdoors, books, and every other luxury. These people violated the rules of civilized society, and as such, they've forfeited their rights to be treated as decently as the rest of us. Prisons should be the equivalent of permanent isolation for the condemned, to the point they suffer as much as those they hurt or killed. Liberals cry foul about "cruelty", but what do they think earned the criminals their stay in prison?!
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nick007
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Location: was Louisiana but now Vermont in the police state called USA
I think it would be better to spend taxpayer money on social programs that can prevent/reduce violence instead of spending it to keep people locked u or on electricit gas or meds to kill em. Have tean centers in troubled neighborhoods to help them fro turning to crime, gangs or drugs, more & better rehab programs for addiction, more & better mental services so people can get psychatic help or counceling, have job placement services & money mangement services so people won't need to turn to crime to avoid being homeless or anything. Crime in general will go down so less tax money will be needed for prisons & police & the econemy will increase sense more people will be working & they''ll be paying taxes that could br reinvested into the crime prevention.
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Against it as ineffective, inefficient, incompetently and unfairly applied, and irreversible. I'm fine with the killing part, some people certainly deserve that, it's the uncertainty and ruinous expense parts that nix it for me.
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Nevermind - some of the post dissapeared
Last edited by Monolithe on 18 Oct 2013, 1:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
This.
It doesn't reduce murder rates.
It is more expensive than imprisonment.
When mistakes happen (and they do happen), they can't be corrected.
I do also think there's a moral issue. Not hypocrisy, I just don't think killing is right, and you're removing the possibility of reform. I find it strange that those speaking in favour of it are also those who wear their Christianity on their sleeves when rehabilitation and forgiveness is a central theme of Christianity, particularly in the modern day.
That was news to me. I googled it and it does seem to be the case, surprisingly! Of course, the cost is not in the death penalty itself, but in all the extra legal proceedings designed to minimise mistakes. I'll admit I don't know the details, but it's hard to imagine those are always necessary. Does doubling the number of lawyers really ensure a better legal process? Also, this only makes sense if you consider death worse than life imprisonment, which I don't. At the very least those accused who agree with me should be allowed to "opt out" of this "extra" legal process.
This is a commonly-used argument, but it fails to consider the alternative. Life imprisonment can't be corrected, either. Yes, the wrongly convicted person might be freed even after serving 20 years of their life sentence, but that doesn't change the fact that most of their life has been taken away from them. It might have been kinder to kill them, after all.
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That was news to me. I googled it and it does seem to be the case, surprisingly! Of course, the cost is not in the death penalty itself, but in all the extra legal proceedings designed to minimise mistakes. I'll admit I don't know the details, but it's hard to imagine those are always necessary. Does doubling the number of lawyers really ensure a better legal process? Also, this only makes sense if you consider death worse than life imprisonment, which I don't. At the very least those accused who agree with me should be allowed to "opt out" of this "extra" legal process.
This is a commonly-used argument, but it fails to consider the alternative. Life imprisonment can't be corrected, either. Yes, the wrongly convicted person might be freed even after serving 20 years of their life sentence, but that doesn't change the fact that most of their life has been taken away from them. It might have been kinder to kill them, after all.
If murderers would rather die than have life imprisonment, then they don't have to go through all their appeals. I know in America some are compulsory, but I don't think it is compulsory to keep appealing.
Have a look at the numbers that have their conviction overturned. There are diminishing returns, but there are still returns. Reduce the checks and you will execute more innocent people.
Of course, you can never have back time you spent in prison, but you can be given a large sum of money so you can live a life of luxury for the rest of your time. Kinder to kill them? I think that's ridiculous.
bookwyrm
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Many states have laws on the books that effect, compensating the wrongly imprisoned $50,000-80,000 per year of incarceration (Texas, surprisingly, is at the higher end). Of course, prosecutors try to wiggle out of paying this by blocking the complete exoneration sometimes required to collect, an action for which I'd happily apply the death penalty personally.
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