Death Penalty?

I honesty feel that death penalty is right the action for wrong. The person will not learn anything from their action or mistakes cause them to get the death penalty. Two wrong do not make a right.

In some states prisoner pay for $10 - $50 a day they are in prison, I think if they are working pay to be in prison they will learn the from it.

 

In what way? It doesn't work as a deterrent and causes the loss of innocent lives.

As someone else put it so eloquently: "You killed someone, therefore we are going to kill you" isn't rational in any way. It's rather hypocritical actually.

---------- Post added 25th Apr 2012 at 10:01 AM ----------

You're still left with the chance of killing an innocent person.

---------- Post added 25th Apr 2012 at 10:03 AM ----------

I'll see of I can find the studies, but this is what the facts tell us right now.
Edit* Here's one example: COSTS: Death Penalty Costs in Texas Outweigh Life Imprisonment | Death Penalty Information Center

 

Well, I don't have the exact financials, but I do know some of the reasons that make it more expensive:

- Separate, maximum security detention. Let's face it: once you give someone the death penalty, you just created a desperate man, who has nothing to lose. I'm not saying all of them, or even a majority of them would commit mass murder to escape, or start stabbing fellow inmates to death for the fun of it, but you have to take into account that it could conceivably happen. So you need extra infrastructure, more guards per inmate, stricter procedures etc...

- Drawn-out legal procedures. Again: if the alternative is death, then you're going to exhaust all of your options. And we rightfully demand of the state to make absolutely sure we punish the right persons. This, in turn, leads to extremely drawn-out appeals, appeals to the appeals etc. Sometimes entire investigations get done, redone and redone yet again to make absolutely sure there is no shimmer of a doubt. That takes time, money, and effort. Essentially, you're doing the same case five times over, where a person who gets life might often relent and accept to live in prison.


It's very hard to not incur such costs. Not if you keep insisting on the right to a fair trial and maximum assumption of innocense. A right, which according to most Western jurisprudence, is not contingent on how much it costs or how much of a hassle it is to guarantee.

 

I think that the death penalty is wrong, in every case. The irriversability of it is what really gets to me.

 

When I last checked my country, South Africa, had the 7th highest crime rate in the world. I don't agree with the death penalty, but I think it might be one of the only things that can bring our crime rates down. And those who say that it does not work as a deterrent to crime, keep in mind that it differs from country to country.

 

The states in the U.S. with the death penalty have higher murder rates than several states without the death penalty. Study after study concludes that it isn't effective as a deterrent.

 

Dude, I study criminolgy.. I'm talking about South Africa. When the death penalty was still in order here, crime rates were low. It might not work in the US, but we're not the US!

 

The point remains that the death penalty isn't a guaranteed deterrent.
More-over that still leaves the prospect of executing innocent people.

 

I sometimes wonder if the statistics regarding crime rate vs death penalty are skewed in some way, or if there are not other contributing factors to the numbers. Perhaps its just dumb luck.

While I do not know much about human psychology, however if you are the type of person to commit horrible crimes, and you selfishly put yourself above your victims, and the law, then you are pretty narcisistic. Would you not value yourself enough to not want the death penalty?

Sure people kill for many different reasons, but if this final solution was implemented across a country, and perhaps used more liberally, I think the shock and fear that it would send to people weighing the options of doing what they want vs death, might straighten a few people out. There are a few people that I've interacted with my in life that I could easily fantasize about removing from this Earth myself, however I value my own life, and that of those I love enough to never act on those urges.

Here in Canada we have this messy little thing called the Youth Justice Act, which to the best of my knowledge, serves nothing more than to apply leniancy to criminals under the age of 18, regardless of how harsh their crimes are. So even if a murder is committed, the murderer (because of their age) will serve less time, and be given special considerations. I'm sorry, but I knew it was wrong to 'kill' things when I was 10, probably even before that. I would like to see it done away with.

Yes 200 years ago, public executions did not keep people from committing crimes, however the legal system was not the same, and the odds of getting caught were significantly lower. There is no way to abolish crime and murder. However is it so wrong to seek harsher, permanent solutions to the very small percentage of us that care to little for his/her fellow man? I think not.

As for the supposed $1 Million Dollars in expense, I'm sure reasonable changes could be made to bring the cost down.

 

As someone who has studied criminal justice for the last three years, and coming from the perspective I've gotten from my internship, I support the death penalty. I used to be opposed to it, but after seeing so many criminals up close and personal, after watching criminals fail rehabilitation, it's hard to not support it.

I look at it like abortion. Something to be used only in the absolute minimal amount of cases, but should still remain an option on the table should we need to seek it. Some people are truly just sick, and nothing available to us today, short of a lobotomy, is going to help them.

 

Hmm, now I'm wondering, though... SA did away with capital punishment in 1989 (well, technically in 1995 but last execution was in 1989).
However... at that time, abolishing death penalty was not the only change the country went through. After Apartheid, SA moved to a substantially less controlled and repressive state completely.

Is there any data to decouple the effect of the death penalty from the end of apartheid?

 

I always think about Gandalf when it comes to capital punishment.
,,Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."

 

Again how do you justify killing someone for committing murder?
Especially if they are mentally ill.
The death penalty isn't the only option, life imprisonment is also a possibility.

 

There is a couple of factors that contribute to our high crime rates. But one of the major reasons is that criminals in SA do not fear the punishment they receive. Some even prefer to stay in prisons by assaulting or killing guards or fellow inmates. So why not increase their sentences? Our prisons and courtrooms are full. I believe the death penalty will shock South Africans. They do not give someone the death penalty without being certain of his/her crime. And if an innocent person was executed, think of the many that will be saved. Death penalty will remove criminals from our streets and lighten the load on our prisons. I honestly don't believe that someone has the right to decide who lives or dies, but something has to be done and there aren't many other options left.

 

These are dangerous people. They pose a risk to correctional officers and other inmates. Unless you're suggesting that we keep them in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives--which could be 50+ years or even longer--I cannot agree with what you're saying.

 

keeping a inmate on death row can cost tens of millions of dollars. it can take ten-twenty years for the execution to go through. the cost of keeping them on death row, and the cost of legal challanges and appeals and such is staggering.

Funny that the people who are loud mouth proponants praising the death penalty are also people who lie, claiming they are christians. in the most famous bible scene of all time, jesus comes across a group of people who have decided to stone a woman to death, and he stops them. Jesus speaks out against the death penalty.

Maybe he knew how dangerous and damaging it ultimately would be for a society to have it, so he said "ugh, when I said murder is a sin, thats universal."

 

Personally, I am in favor of the death penalty.

 

against it for several reasons

1 - it is immoral, whether one is religious or not
2 - it does not act as a deterrent (this has been shown in several studies)
3 - in most cases it is called for in the name of vengeance, not justice
4 - ... relates to the following quote:

4 - counter-intuitively, it is more expensive than keeping someone in prison for life.

 

heard that connecticut got rid of its death penalty yesterday. :eusa_danc

but there was something that i read just now concerning an inmate who killed a 25 year old student back in 1992 being executed by lethal injection yesterday in arizona. you know, i'm against the death penalty and all as i said before but i find it hard to feel sorry for the executed inmate when his last words were "i regret nothing". you know, it's really hard to be sympathic to someone who is that cold blooded. i read that during his execution when he was getting the drugs injected into him, that he was shaking violently as a reaction to the drugs. his lawyer was outraged saying that his execution was botched where he possibly felt pain. well, looking back at his last words, i really don't care how much pain he was in when he was being put to death being that he said that he still had no remorse 20 years later.

another thing i forgot to add, some of these people that are on death row. it's hard to argue on why they shouldn't be there. some of these people have killed numerous times before or still kill other inmates while incarcerated. they are clearly dangers to society which simply can't be reformed no matter what you give to them. some of them are dangerous violent sociopaths that simply are just wired that way. what else can you do with them besides toss them in a cage for the rest of their lives? they're a danger to anybody who they come across so if there is a death penalty, why not just save them and the people that have to deal with them? hate to say it but it is what it is.

don't know if we can post links in here but Executed inmate’s last words: ‘I regret nothing’ | Arizona Capitol Times

 

it sounds to me that that was all based on the emotional feeling toward the issue, not the practicality, morality, or judicial efficacy of it, all of which should be considered prior to how one feels about the concept, i think.