Capital Punishment

damn brb...

I wouldn't feel anything really. If a person is sentenced to death, that's what the law gave the right to do, to execute. If all the years they are waiting and have not proved, appealed their punishment, then it is on them. What happens is, if the person pleads guilty, they get no appeal at all. Of course they are clearing a lot of prisoners because of evidence but if the evidence still points to them then that's how it is.


<Anyways, gotta go work on my car>

the prison system in the usa is now privatized. they are actually paid by the government per prisoner. thanks bush.... that being said, the prison system in the usa does not work anyway so the debate is pointless. arguing which punishment is worse or more costly doesn't matter. however rape is only common in american prisons. so good job on that one. usa=failga at everything. maybe people should stop saying god bless america and start doing things right. obviously the easter bunny isnt listening...

Some crimes are so evil and heinous, that I firmly believe the world is a better place without people guilty of committing such crimes.

thanks to bush in new york you get 7 years for rape and 10 for selling marijuana

Which level of rape is that? And on what scale of selling weed?

All for it.

Idealism vs Realism.

Very difficult to find the right balance between these two. If you abandon one and focus entirely on the other you end up with a non functioning society.

In this particular case, even if you don't like the idea of killing in punishment for killing, you have to take into account all the other factors that go into this.

1. Do we currently have the resources to house such criminals for their entire lives? Have to count not only those on death row currently, but all of the prisoners who would still be alive if they had not been executed and also all those who will be sentenced for crimes yet committed.

2. Should we be more concerned with the rights of the convicted, or the rights of the innocent. If we consider that prisons do have limited resources and limited space, a cell that is taken up by a lifer on death row is now a cell that cannot be used for individuals in prison for shorter terms. The reality of the situation is that when prisons don't have enough room, criminals get released early, which means more active criminals on the streets doing whatever it is that they do. Innocent lives being affected negatively by all those john does taking up space as lifers.

3. Looking at it from a macro perspective instead of a micro one, I think we all agree the reason we have a justice system in place is not to protect everyone's individual rights but to protect the stability and peacefulness of our society as a whole. People on death row are not there because they got in a fight on the playground, or even stole someone's car. They are there because the actions they took were a direct assault on the peacefulness and stability of society. We have to decide if the rights of an individual or group, that have taken action against society as a whole, are greater than society's right to continue in a peaceful and stable way.

Imo, capital punishment is much more than a person being killed. It is a stance by a society to not allow behaviors to exist that threaten to undermine it at its fundamental levels. Certain behaviors cannot be allowed for large groups of people to live peacefully together.

I'm in favor of the death penalty for serial murderers, serial rapists, and human trafficking.
I believe death should be punishment only for the most heinous and deplorable crimes. In those isolated cases, it should be applied with swift and exacting justice.


However, I think it's important to consider the case against capital punishment, too.
In many cases, life in prison without the possibility of parole is a fate worse than death. Sure, you get food and shelter, and maybe some cable TV, books, and some time in the weight room or barbed-wire basketball court. But, let's not forget that prisoners also get no privacy. They also get group showers, "prison sex", and spend most of their hours in a 6 X 10 cubicle with a man, a mattress, and a metal toilet. That may not seem *that* bad for a few days, weeks, or even a few months if you're mentally tough .... but when we're talking *decades* ... well, like I said, it's ultimately a fate worse than death.

Furthermore, you can't make an educated opinion on capital punishment without at least considering the possibility of false convictions. While it is rare, it DOES happen. If the prosecution garners a conviction that is later overturned by new evidence, it's too late for the falsely accused if he's dead from capital punishment.




I don't know if you live in the United States, but if you do, we have this thing called the 8th Amendment.
If you support capital punishment, you have to accept the financial burden of carrying out the expensive procedures.

Make sure they suffer til the last drop of life is gone.
But before you do any of those things.

Be 150% positive that they are GUILTY of ALL said crimes.
Otherwise I'm 150% against the death penalty.

bring back the Death Penalty and USE IT! That will clear up deathrow, save the tax payers thousands of dollars, and if they broadcast live over the internet, can generate a new stream of revenue.

I am 100% for it and I think our system is broken.

1) yes I know there are certain weights and measures to make sure the innocent are not charged and everything is "fair", this is as it should be. But someone who has murdered or done grave bodily harm to another person, has been caught in the act of doing that action, or the police have DNA and other irrefutable evidence (especially in cases of sexual assault) confirming this person has done this act, and is guilty beyond reasonable doubt.I believe This person does not deserve "the benefit of the doubt" as much as someone with a weaker case with more circumstantial evidence.

WE are not executing them to be mean or show we are better than they are. WE are doing this to remove this person from society and to, hopefully, provide a deterant to others not to do the same thing. IMO we fail miserably because many people who have committed violent crimes are paroled for good behavior and go right out re-offend.

2) the chance of false imprisonment NOW is much less than it was 20 years ago so multiple appeals(more than 1 or 2) are unnecessary. Yes you can have a sucky lawyer one time...but 2 or 3 times in a row???..I don't think so.

3)I may be wrong, and if there is someone in the UK that can clarify, I would appreciate it. It's my understanding that in the british system you have one appeal, you have 6 months to pull it together and whatever the outcome it you have to live with it. None of this taking years and years but a finite time.

Related, because kids in trouble later cause more trouble, but slightly off topic:
we need to develop a way to identify Kids and families at risk and provide help to keep the kids OUT of the prison system. Kids that need to be removed from abusive homes aren't and often turn to running away and getting involved in criminal behavior just to survive. These same kids eventually end up in the prison system, when they actually need a safe place to eat sleep and grow up.

WE need to fix the CPS (child protective services). Too many kids are manipulating the system, getting away with breaking the law then threatening parents with CPS and the police if the parents report them. Ex:
**An overheard conversation while in a subway restraunt, 2-16 yr old females:<first speaker> I snuck out last night and stole some booze from my friends house, we went and got drunk, my friend and I broke into an elementary school and trashed the art room. <other person> were you caught??? <first speaker> yeah...they didn't do anything but take me home. <other person> what did your parents say? <first person> (laughing) nothing,,I told them if they did anything I would report them to CPS again and they would be arrested.<other speaker> Wow and what if they find out you are lieing, aren't you afraid of going to juvi again?? <first speaker> why would I be afraid of that..no school, no parents hasseling me, no chores.. it's like a damn vacation, can't wait to get back and see friends". They got up, shoplifted 2 bags of chips and ran out the door**

Guess my point..the whole system is broken and we are too worried about the wrong person's "feelings" to fix it.

Bump now that more people are on

Meh, we lose a lot more lives during wars, friendly fire, etc.

My opinion has reversed itself over the last ~10 years. I used to be quite vociferously in favor, and I still completely understand the traditional arguments for it. However, I consider myself a pragmatist at heart, putting numbers and science ahead of emotion, and I just can't justify the practice anymore.

Factors that went into my reversal:

- Innocence Project and others exonerating hundreds of people, many of whom were on death row, due to errors in laboratory analysis, evidence withheld by prosecutors for political reasons, etc. The human error rate appears to be distressingly high.

- Texas (and others) recently executing convicts the government and district attorneys involved later agreed were almost certainly innocent.

- Increasingly clear science regarding the alarmingly high fallibility of eye-witnesses, confessions, and other traditional methods of evidence.

- Vastly imbalanced racial makeup of those executed versus those convicted and/or charged with violent crime.

- The spiraling cost of executing someone, already way more expensive than life in prison and not going down any time soon.

- 17 states and nearly every developed country eliminating the death penalty and seeing no negative consequences from it.

- Essentially zero conclusive evidence either way that the death penalty has a causative propensity to reduce the rate of violent crime.

Given these factors, I can no longer justify the practice as a matter of public policy, even if I still understand the visceral and cultural/traditional emotional factors that go into inflicting the ultimate punishment for the ultimate crime.

That is a very good question. The moment murder charges are brought up against the government for innocent civilians killed during war, I will reconsider the death penalty.

Good point. You see I'm kind of where you were ten years ago, but I'm starting to see the points that you're bringing up more clearly. Mainly from debates on here that made me rethink my solid stance on the subject.

Whilst I do believe the death penalty, or promise of the death penalty can be a good deterrent to crimes, I don't think it's worth it.

My whole thing is people against the death penalty use the stance of innocent people could be killed. My point is more innocent civilians of other countries alone are killed than 'innocent' people falsely put to death.

I'm against it for many of the same reasons as Jaerik (not that I knew most of those), but also because I don't think the worst criminals deserve the easy way out.

I think if you've committed a crime so atrocious, it's actually a worse punishment for you to have to live with that forever, especially being to forced to live in a horrible nasty place like prison.

Having said that, I've heard that prison life (here in Australia at least) is ridiculously *** cushy. I heard a guy talking on a tram one day who'd been in prison, and he was saying the prisoners get it so easy that he'd have no qualms at all about killing someone and going back to prison.

That's *** up.

What about those who have no remorse for their actions whatsoever and admit to a crime?

So people who have nothing do with a war, who live in a remote village, who have little or no interest in either side, are killed and to make us feel better, it's justified by 'it's war'? Crime is war too I say.

I am personaly in favor of the death penalty and truly wish that Canada would implement it. This is not to say every criminal in every case but in instances of murder, rape,crimes against children etc.

As for the absolutley insane cost of it well for starters eliminate death row and the bravado involved with it. Sentenced to death? Take them out of the courtroom into the basement and put a 10 cent bullet in their head. Problem solved didn't even have to pay for the gas to take em back to prison. I don't see the logic involved with keeping a "dead man walking" for decades before they are finally put down.

Another factor that went into my reversal is the politics surrounding it. I try to be internally consistent in my political arguments, even if it leads to some uncomfortable reversals from previous positions. And I'm naturally wary of platforms that seem to contain contradictions.

In the last few decades, the pro-capital-punishment side has become almost exclusively the political domain of those who also argue the strongest against government overreach.

To me, there is nothing more overreaching than voluntarily granting the government increasingly greater power to kill its own citizens. And I'm baffled by how people can decry the government's inaccuracy and inefficiency on all other matters, but go mysteriously silent at that same government's implementation of capital punishment.