Death row interviews. Was this programme a good idea?

I doubt it was harmful. China has a huge population and their crime and societal problems are several orders of magnitude larger than ours in the US. Here, we might be more genteel and subtle; in a country with 1.5 billion people, they have to use different ways to communicate.

This sort of program may not go over well here, but it is not our place – it would be cultural imperialism – to force our values of what is proper on China and its people.

What would be interesting to learn is whether it had the desired effect (deterring crime).

People in the US interview death row inmates quite often. The high profile cases (Manson, Wuornos) make the news, but shows like LockUp air interviews with all types of inmates in prisons around the country, including those on death row.

Why exactly would it be in bad taste? The interviews are voluntary, I’d assume. If they have something to say, why not let them say it? Who is it hurting?

Call me a weirdo, but I like hearing those stories. (I also like hearing about champion underdogs, but one has nothing to do with the other.)

There’s a certain insight people can gain from hearing these stories. Even someone capable of a horrific crime is still human and achieved that capability somewhere in their life. It’s a psychology lesson.

I love these shows and watch em all the time. The closer to the end they are the more fascinating I find the interview. I’ve been to China, you don’t fuck with crime in China. Sure, they have crazy things happen, but you don’t see someone getting 18 months for manslaughter in China.

There are online versions of that in the US. No harm if that interests you. Might make you a bit anti death penalty if you really get involved, and that is not a bad thing.

One issue in China is it isn’t as much of an execution as it is a process of harvesting donor organs.

I agree with @Taciturnu, I love them and watch them often.

Fascist propaganda, just like how some 80’s and 90’s tv police shows such as Cops and American Detectives would normally show officers searching vehicles without warrants or probable cause right on national tv. It was a way for anti-drug fascists to garner support for their anticonstitutional tactics in the name of a greater cause, the evils of drugs.

To me human rights trump culture, so yes you’ve guessed it, culture means jack to me. Some of those prisoners obviously did some very bad things, but considering the source (fascist China is the execution capital of the world) it just seems to me like the fascists are trying to remind everyone of their immense power.

Personally I find it very difficult to watch programs highlighting the suffering of others. It didn’t take me long to turn the video off. Are many ‘law abiding civilized’ people as bad or worse than many of the prisoners that we allow to be raped, tortured, beaten and executed in our prisons? This issue is way bigger than China here.

@Paradox25 Considering we even have children in prisons for Scared Straight programs, I tend to think the benefits to society outweigh the fascist agenda.

Break the law, you go to jail and it is not fun – it’s a good lesson.

@KNOWITALL I’m not sure if you understand my point. The punishment is supposed to be detention and loss of freedoms, privileges, not rape and torture. Don’t you see the problem, programs like the one you’ve mentioned are really using the fear of being raped and beaten in prison as a deterent, rather than the actual intention of the punishment itself which is supposed to be detention.

Our society over the years has come to accept the rape and torture of its prisoners as the ‘norm’ one faces in prison. This attitude has lead to a chain of events, such as ignoring human rights violations in many prisons, along with justifying this indifferent attitude. No wonder many criminals return to prison after release.

@Paradox25 I’d answer that if you CHOOSE to do a crime, you CHOOSE to lose your rights. A deterent is a deterent, and those thing’s do happen.

When the prisoners take care of a child molester or a meth-head that killed his grandparents, I won’t be shedding a tear.

@KNOWITALL All of us are potential criminals, and anyone of our family members can go to prison too. All it takes is that one night where we drank too much and got pulled over for a DUI, that day I got caught with weed, or that evening where I had punched a guy in the face for insulting my girlfriend, to land us in jail.

No, you don’t lose your rights to be treated as a human being when convicted of a crime and sentenced to to do time in prison/jail, and this even appears to be true according to our own Constitution. Most people will be released from prison too, but I’m not so sure that a person traumatized by such a horrible experience behind bars will make a model citizen.

We’re not telling kids to avoid jail so they don’t have to do time, but so they can avoid rape or assault. I expect some lower elements to be found in prison by default, so yes shit can and does happen. That’s not my argument though, because what I’m mad about is the fact that our society accepts rape and assaults in prison as the norm, and as an acceptable part of the punishment.

@Paradox25 I know, I thought of that after I posted, ‘there but by the Grace of God go I’, and you’re right. But don’t you think the innocent civilians deserve our care more than prisoners?

All you can do is try to change it, because most people don’t care about criminals who have been convicted.

@Paradox25 We are not all potential criminals, at least not in the way you put it.

”...that one night where we drank too much and got pulled over for a DUI…”

If you don’t break the law by drinking and driving, you don’t get busted for DUI. This can’t happen to “anyone,” just those stupid enough to get behind the wheel after drinking.

”...that day I got caught with weed…”

We all know weed is illegal. You wouldn’t get caught if you weren’t in possession of an illegal substance. Again, can’t happen to “anyone.”

”...that evening where I had punched a guy in the face for insulting my girlfriend…”

Oy…you big man, you. If my husband let his testosterone (and fists) solve a problem with some idiot and ended up in jail, I’d be way more pissed off than if he had simply said something to the guy. Luckily, my husband isn’t going to assault someone for just saying something insulting.

The only people that are potential criminals, in this sense, are the ones that knowingly and willingly CHOOSE to break the law.

I do agree, however, that criminals don’t give away all of their human rights when they break the law. But it’s not because we’re all potential criminals.

@livelaughlove21 I stated the above wrong. I meant ‘I’ in reference to others, not myself. I’m not violent and never got a DUI, nor do I have a criminal record.

I think it would be foolish to believe that all of us will know ahead of time how we will behave in drastic situations, or even situations that we don’t currently envision, so in that sense I really do believe that all of us are potential criminals. It has nothing to do with choice, and I’m not argueing your points there, but I think the potential is there. Potential exists whether we want it to or not.

@Paradox25 There is potential for all (or most) of us to commit crimes in extreme circumstances. Stealing food to feed your family when the alternative is death, for instance, but DUIs and getting busted with drugs is not an extreme circumstance; it’s the consequence of being stupid and making bad decisions.

And it all depends on who you’d call a “criminal,” as well.

@Paradox Why does it bother you so much?

^^ Because regardless of how self-righteous people may think they are, anybody can go to jail. Someone can pick a fight with you, and attack you, and you can still go to jail (I’ve seen this happen several times). It bothers me how our society condones rape and torture in prison. I’ve read about many horrible cases of rape and torture in prison, and many of these people were in for nonviolent crimes.