Capital punishment

[Saki]

I don't believe in capital punishment. What I do believe in is rehabilitation. I believe in it over jail as well. I truly have faith that people can be rehabilitated and reintroduced into society (even if it takes a long time) for almost any crime. I think that a lot of extreme criminal activity is related to poor mental health and circumstances. I reside in Canada and I do not like nor approve of the jail system we have adopted. All jail does it harden people further and separate them from their possible dependants - everyone ends up punished and unhappy. We truly need a change.

Also I kind of think that capital punishment is hypocritical :P

 

[Nah]

Personally I don't mind that the death penalty exists. I'm not going to argue whether or not it's a good crime deterrent or if it's morally justifiable (though I would like to point out how no one's mentioned soldiers). I just don't believe that every person can truly be rehabilitated, and why should space and money be wasted on keeping someone in a prison cell for the rest of their life?

Though the one thing I don't get about the death penalty is why we use methods that are expensive and are known to not always work so well to execute people. It might sound backwards or barbaric to some of you, but a guy with an axe sounds like a much cheaper and more reliable execution method to me than the chair or lethal injection.

And as for the "too many innocent people get killed by the death penalty" thing, that's not an issue with the death penalty itself, but rather with the investigation and trial part of the justice system. That innocent person probably would've never been on death row in the first place if a more thorough investigation was conducted or the trial wasn't fucked up.

 

[Light Espeon]

A common point made in regards to capital punishment is dealing with the "worst of the worst in society", however what does constitute as "worst of the worst". If Person A went on a killing spree in a mall and left six people dead and Person B killed their spouse after a lengthy period of inflicting domestic violence upon them, then they've both taken away lives. The tragic thing about homicides is that while Person A committed an overall worse crime, all homicides involve the death of others where the killer had no right to take that right to live away from them (unless it's justified self-defense).

So why should we try to rehabilitate someone who knew what they were doing was wrong and they ended up killing someone anyway. Even if you have say an 18-year old accompanying three friends in a robbery and one of the friends shoots and kills a stock clerk, that 18-year old still made the choice to assist in committing a felony, and as a result someone was killed. In some US states that will get you the death penalty, even if you were just an accomplice. At the very least life imprisonment is fine, where with parole you're basically saying that if you commit a murder and prove that you can be a good inmate for 25 years, you can live your life while your victim remains deceased.

I do support the death penalty where the killer has no regards for the lives of others and poses a significant threat to reoffend, or has a lengthy criminal history aside from the murder conviction. As brought up earlier in the thread, the issue with the judicial process is how someone is found guilty and sentenced to death. Perhaps there should be a requirement on evidence presented of someone's guilt before a convicted murderer is put to death (DNA, surveillance images, fingerprints, multiple witnesses, etc). The only other issue is how the appeal process works in the US, and how it can take multiple decades before an inmate gets an execution warrant, that isn't managed all that well and it depends on the feelings of the Governor.

 

[Saki]

So why should we try to rehabilitate someone who knew what they were doing was wrong and they ended up killing someone anyway.

That's the thing. Doesn't it seem incredibly wrong that they think it's okay? There are countries that do not have jails and who rely on rehabilitation. When the rehabilitation works the individuals are released/reintroduced, etc. It's shown to work.

In my eyes murder is murder. Whether it's killing someone in cold blood, or enacting the death penalty. Often times the people who prepare people for the death penalty and/or do the injections end up mentally scarred and need rehabilitation themselves. It's cruel in my eyes to ask a human being to do that.

Anyone can become or be born mentally unhealthy, I think anyone can be fixed or at least work on mending themselves/kept safe/public kept safe from them in a constructive way that is not the "jail" format. We are used to the jail format and we think it's justice, but it doesn't work as intended. Why do we send people to jail? Because they did something wrong and we don't want them to do it again. But the statistics show a huge chance of reoffending.

Anyway, I do agree that some people may not be fully rehabilitated, but I don't think that points to taking their lives. It points to assisting them in managing their lives in a safe manner, IMO.

Regardless, I respect people's opinions who are for capital punishment... and I can definitely see why you are for it. :)

 

[Light Espeon]

That's the thing. Doesn't it seem incredibly wrong that they think it's okay? There are countries that do not have jails and who rely on rehabilitation. When the rehabilitation works the individuals are released/reintroduced, etc. It's shown to work.

In my eyes murder is murder. Whether it's killing someone in cold blood, or enacting the death penalty. Often times the people who prepare people for the death penalty and/or do the injections end up mentally scarred and need rehabilitation themselves. It's cruel in my eyes to ask a human being to do that.

Anyone can become or be born mentally unhealthy, I think anyone can be fixed or at least work on mending themselves/kept safe/public kept safe from them in a constructive way that is not the "jail" format. We are used to the jail format and we think it's justice, but it doesn't work as intended. Why do we send people to jail? Because they did something wrong and we don't want them to do it again. But the statistics show a huge chance of reoffending.

Anyway, I do agree that some people may not be fully rehabilitated, but I don't think that points to taking their lives. It points to assisting them in managing their lives in a safe manner, IMO.

Regardless, I respect people's opinions who are for capital punishment... and I can definitely see why you are for it. :)

Thank you for replying Saki with a thoughtful and interesting post. :)

I have no issue with attempting to rehabilitate youthful offenders, non-violent offenders or even those convicted of say armed robbery. With the youth, they need to realize that the criminal path they may decide to choose doesn't lead them to anything decent in life. Programs to give them hobbies, mentors and school support can go a long way and I wish this was implemented further. The problem is that the youth in troubled situations needs to have the drive to make something better of their lives. If they succeed then that's wonderful. Non-violent offenders need to have the desire to make something of their lives as well but if they can remain out of trouble after being released and do something productive then that's wonderful as well.

When you start to want to rehabilitate a convicted murderer then you have to consider what the family of the victim thinks of that. If the murderer can be rehabilitated then great, but it doesn't excuse the fact that he or she took a life that they did not have the right to do so. That family doesn't have that parent, child, sibling or other type of relative anymore because of the actions of the convicted murderer. It has to be brought up that is it respectful to the murder victim(s) if the perpetrator is given a second chance in life? Those victims don't have the opportunity to live their lives.

If there's one point you and I will certainly agree on, is that if there was more support for at-risk offenders, there would be less murders in society. Even so, you have to serve at least some time in prison for serious crimes as a consequence of your actions. But afterwards, rehabilitation can work, but the offender has to be willing to live a better life.

 

[Lawandorder]

Yeah, rehabilitation and all as a moral ideal is nice, but is clearly it's not the objective of prisions, much less in the US where running a prision is less about rehabilitation than it is about making money of it, prision was concieved from the very begginings of the idea as a punishment, and society views it like that, statitistic also show that prisions are more aptly described as "crime colleges" than as "rehabilitation facilities", is just not possible on the current system to even dream of rehabilitating non-risk felons, much less murderers, the very impossibility of ir, coupled with the lack of faith in the method (seriously, go ask to random people on the street if they believe a murderer can be rehabilitated, they'll insult your) makes rehabilitation of felons an utopía, not an actual solution (sorry for the somewhat off-topic diatribe, it's just that I had to write it).

 

[Ivysaur]

My morals say that killing people is wrong, and therefore nobody should murder other people- not even the State. I find myself unable to dehumanize assassins to the point where they are just "monsters" that can be murdered in return without issue. Even if they did murder X people, they are still humans and killing humans is wrong, even if they don't share that same view. Not to mention murder as a punishment feels solely as revenge. When you have to sink as low as the criminal, that's not justice.

There is also the insane risk of miscarriage of justice. In a regular prison/fine case, you can always publicly apologize, return the honour to their name and pay the person back for the fine/time they served undeservedly. If a person who has been murdered by the state is proven innocent at a later stage, welp- now you have two innocent victims instead of just one. The risk is just too great.

 

[Saki]

Thank you for replying Saki with a thoughtful and interesting post. :)

I have no issue with attempting to rehabilitate youthful offenders, non-violent offenders or even those convicted of say armed robbery. With the youth, they need to realize that the criminal path they may decide to choose doesn't lead them to anything decent in life. Programs to give them hobbies, mentors and school support can go a long way and I wish this was implemented further. The problem is that the youth in troubled situations needs to have the drive to make something better of their lives. If they succeed then that's wonderful. Non-violent offenders need to have the desire to make something of their lives as well but if they can remain out of trouble after being released and do something productive then that's wonderful as well.

When you start to want to rehabilitate a convicted murderer then you have to consider what the family of the victim thinks of that. If the murderer can be rehabilitated then great, but it doesn't excuse the fact that he or she took a life that they did not have the right to do so. That family doesn't have that parent, child, sibling or other type of relative anymore because of the actions of the convicted murderer. It has to be brought up that is it respectful to the murder victim(s) if the perpetrator is given a second chance in life? Those victims don't have the opportunity to live their lives.

If there's one point you and I will certainly agree on, is that if there was more support for at-risk offenders, there would be less murders in society. Even so, you have to serve at least some time in prison for serious crimes as a consequence of your actions. But afterwards, rehabilitation can work, but the offender has to be willing to live a better life.

It's true, the offender must be willing to mend themselves, change, etc. I agree it cannot always work! But I still have a lot of faith.

The one thing I wanted to comment on though was that I'm not extremely fond of the "there needs to be justice" approach to criminals. I am 100% fine with the people who agree with it - it's the vast majority of USA and Canada afaik, but to me it doesn't make a lot of sense. When we were all young we were taught two wrongs don't make a right, we were taught that if our friend hit us and we felt sad about it we got an apology. Some might put our friend in a timeout to think about things, but the results are fairly harmless. The desired result is our friend recognizing what they did and realizing it was wrong, and not doing it in the future. I think the belief that families require some sort of punishment to be inflicted on the murderer is straying from the point of things. I think it follows natural human emotion to be a bit spiteful in this sort of circumstance, but do these families truly feel better if capital punishment is executed on a murderer? I don't know the answer but I think it would be better to create a society that is happy to see either people change, or on rare occasions people being removed from the public. To me the victims deserve to be remembered like any human being in death, but what they suffered doesn't exactly need to be inflicted on others. That's a viscous cycle in a way.

But I may just be living in the clouds~

Yeah, rehabilitation and all as a moral ideal is nice, but is clearly it's not the objective of prisions, much less in the US where running a prision is less about rehabilitation than it is about making money of it, prision was concieved from the very begginings of the idea as a punishment, and society views it like that, statitistic also show that prisions are more aptly described as "crime colleges" than as "rehabilitation facilities", is just not possible on the current system to even dream of rehabilitating non-risk felons, much less murderers, the very impossibility of ir, coupled with the lack of faith in the method (seriously, go ask to random people on the street if they believe a murderer can be rehabilitated, they'll insult your) makes rehabilitation of felons an utopía, not an actual solution (sorry for the somewhat off-topic diatribe, it's just that I had to write it).

I think a system of rehabilitation, allowing "criminals" to function in society but be tagged electronically for a specific amount of time with restrictions (they can go to work, etc), and having them pay to be in jail (by the day), works fairly well.

Change takes a long time, and it may not always work, but I don't think it's completely hopeless especially since other countries have done well with it. Then again those countries are filled with people who think differently in a lot of respects. I truly cannot predict an outcome but I think it's worth theorying over on this forum haha. ^_^ I definitely can see your points~

My morals say that killing people is wrong, and therefore nobody should murder other people- not even the State. I find myself unable to dehumanize assassins to the point where they are just "monsters" that can be murdered in return without issue. Even if they did murder X people, they are still humans and killing humans is wrong, even if they don't share that same view. Not to mention murder as a punishment feels solely as revenge. When you have to sink as low as the criminal, that's not justice.

There is also the insane risk of miscarriage of justice. In a regular prison/fine case, you can always publicly apologize, return the honour to their name and pay the person back for the fine/time they served undeservedly. If a person who has been murdered by the state is proven innocent at a later stage, welp- now you have two innocent victims instead of just one. The risk is just too great.

I agree with your points. Sometimes I find it difficult to understand why someone not okay with murder is okay with capital punishment. I do recognize we are all different people and think differently though... you and I just happen to think close to the same :)