Capital Punishment

[Kanzler]

I think it's easier to lock up political prisoners than kill them, however. I don't know if the apartheid government of South Africa could have gotten away with killing Nelson Mandela - even though they did give him life imprisonment and kept him there for almost thirty years. If a government needs to get rid of someone, they can do it quietly and with reasonable doubt through assassination. Capital punishment, on the other hand, needs a trial and a sentence. If you kill someone in your custody, that's just drawing way too much attention. If you really do need to kill someone important, you don't have to make it official.

 

[CoffeeDrink]

Nice, koff~

The US has all sorts of nasty little bugs that can slice your skin open and lay their nasty little bugs in your wound; and from this wound they grow, and consume you. Question: Would you rather die, or be put in a hole for the rest of your life? No sunlight. No human contact. Nothing but your own mind to keep you company. Is this more humane than just taking the needle. To emphasize this little quiz, here is a fun fact: The United States Government operates at least twenty secret prisons within the US (I'll have to find my source, as I lost the paper. Don't worry, once I find it I'll update it for you.)? This means that they can throw you in a hole forever and never give you the time of day. Just because they can. Don't be fooled, the death penalty as it is can be considered a mercy. A lot of pain and sorrow can pour through a man's mind in a tiny little box with no one to talk to. He'll most likely drive himself insane in the many years he has left. What's that? Sixty, seventy years? Ever wonder where "You'll never take me alive!" comes from? Depending on who you talk to, the death penalty can be considered a mercy granted to those who won't ever get to be outside ever again. Never see their family, be all alone. Think about that, koffi~

 

[twocows]

I like this response, not because I agree with it, but you choose to actually lay down the philosophical underpinnings of the criminal justice system. In this thread, there has been three such views methinks:

1. Psychological rehabilitation for the murderer
2. As a deterrent for other possible murderers
3. As retribution, where retribution is an irreducible virtue.

So I think when debating principles of capital punishment, one should specify which of the above she adopts, and why in her opinion the other views are incorrect. I am a proponent of (2), and while I don't think the other views are incorrect, I think (2) is better than them, in terms of the social values brought about.

So, I have to say I'm somewhat of a consequentialist on the matter.

EDIT: Sorry, apparently there's another view about minimizing future threats posed by the same offender. I think this is relevant, if not reducible, to (1) above.

There's some quibble over whether more extreme punishment even serves as a deterrent at all. The rationale is that a good share of crimes (especially more violent crimes) are committed out of perceived necessity; people feel that they have no other choice. No amount of deterrence is going to stop that.

Also, past a certain point, I think people already figure "my life is over if I get caught doing this." Getting 20 years in prison, for example, is a quarter of an average life (a third for someone who is already 20). If I get 20 years in prison, the world's going to be a vastly different place when I get out and I probably won't have the necessary skills to make it. At the very least, it would have a significant and irreversible impact on the remainder of my life.

That said, I do understand that there is a need for at least some level of deterrence, and I'm not opposed to punishment being a part of the criminal justice system. It should, however, be fair. And I think that it should be secondary to the goal of rehabilitating offenders.

 

[KittenKoder]

There's some quibble over whether more extreme punishment even serves as a deterrent at all. The rationale is that a good share of crimes (especially more violent crimes) are committed out of perceived necessity; people feel that they have no other choice. No amount of deterrence is going to stop that.

Also, past a certain point, I think people already figure "my life is over if I get caught doing this." Getting 20 years in prison, for example, is a quarter of an average life (a third for someone who is already 20). If I get 20 years in prison, the world's going to be a vastly different place when I get out and I probably won't have the necessary skills to make it. At the very least, it would have a significant and irreversible impact on the remainder of my life.

That said, I do understand that there is a need for at least some level of deterrence, and I'm not opposed to punishment being a part of the criminal justice system. It should, however, be fair. And I think that it should be secondary to the goal of rehabilitating offenders.

You touched on a very important issue that people often ignore, deterrents don't work, generally. Look at a kid, you tell them not to go into the spooky forest, where do you find them the next day? In that spooky forest. As we grow up we tend to lose the rebellious edge, but the deterrent still fails to do much more than keep people in line who are already willing to obey the law.

However, that all being said, I do feel capital punishment is still a necessity. Sometimes the person is simply unable to function in society without being a threat to that same society, in which case it's more a matter of mercy than punishment. The flaw is that many people abuse such an option, using it in the same manner they did during the witch hunts and other various dark times. So I am against the current method of judgment for such matters.

If we had a perfect justice system then I would support the method of removing people who are truly dangerous to the species, but that's not the case at this time. I also agree with twocows, most people who break the law do so because they don't see another way to survive, not because they are inherently or willingly endangering other people. They have done experiments in the past on what a living organism, even humans, is willing to do in a moment of desperation, and most humans will be monsters if the situation is desperate enough.

We have to make accommodations for every contingency before deciding that the only method of improving the situation is to remove them from existence completely.

 

[PokemonLeagueChamp]

For serial killers, a definite yes. They've proven by being serial killers that they will just keep killing if they are allowed to be free. Give them a life sentence? What good does that do? All they end up doing is sitting in a cell waiting to die for a few decades. That almost seems more inhumane than just killing them.

For murderers, I'm not as set in a yes, unless of course they're getting a life sentence.

Honestly, anyone who gets a life sentence with no parole option should be executed because, really, what purpose is served by keeping them alive?