Do you think a life imprisonment is more humane than a quick death?

No, that’s why I like it.

I don’t think we are the right people to ask, we should be asking people who are spending live in prison.
What’s the purpose of capital punishment? To prevent these atrophies from happening, this doesn’t work (I’d love to find a video explaining why) So what is it for? Getting what they deserve? Maybe I think getting satisfaction from death is negative doesn’t matter what they did, people can be reformed.

Atrocities…?

@Myndecho Do you think reform is the correct approach for a sociopath who killed a raped a bunch of people? Is it more just to kill somebody like that, or to charge society hundreds of thousands of dollars incarcerating/treating him and then to let him out where maybe he’ll kill and rape again. Is that a fair sense of justice to society?

killing isn’t the answer.

On top, life time incarceration is less costly than the appeals process afforded to a person sentenced to death

@TaoSan That’s something of a catch-22 answer. “It’s way more expensive because we made it way more expensive” Federal and state courts have assured that someone sentenced to death has a right to a mind boggling number of appeals in a huge number of separate courts. We could seriously trim that process at make execution far more cost effective

@TheIowaCynic

Based on your other threads and your capability to express yourself I doubt that such an ignorant statement is meant seriously.

But you know what, we’d save a little more if we let the cops execute on the spot, how’s that for savings?

@TaoSan I’m 100% serious. I’m not talking about denying somebody a fair trial, or even a fair appeal in their own states highest court. What I’m suggesting is eliminating this gargantuan legal process. We have a flawed legal system, not doubt and occasionally innocent people get in trouble. There is no way to entirely eradicate that problem. That being said…...if you thought about this broadly…...a person sentenced to death could be offered an appeal in their state supreme court. If that fails on Monday, they get shot/hung/gassed/electrocuted/injected on Tuesday. We’ve made this a far more complicated and lawyer friendly process than it should be.

I would refer you to the definition of “humane”:
“marked by compassion, sympathy, or consideration for humans or animals”. In other words, the humane thing to do is what you would want done to you in the same circumstances. I’m pretty sure that If you were to offer all lifers the choice of opting for the death penalty instead, you wouldn’t have many takers.

Is your real concern here finding the most humane way of dealing with these people? Honestly?

@TheIowaCynic

Your reasoning is compelling, if somewhat naive. State judges are mostly voted, not appointed. I leave it up to your imagination what this may cause in “unpopular” cases.

Further, as long as you express the willingness to “having to break some eggs for the omelette”, meaning the willingness to risk even one innocent person being executed, you value life just as much as those you seek to terminate.

Violence begets violence, regardless of it being state-sponsored or not.

@TaoSan I have to disagree with you wholesale, both about the value I put on life and my naivete. I’m well aware of the consequences of a more streamlined, responsive and decisive process. This “better to let 1000 guilty free than convict one innocent man,” concept is decidedly modern and completely nonsensical. There’s no way to prevent innocent men from occasionally being convicted. That being said, I see no benefit to this drawn-out legal process. One of the things it does is effectively take the sense of punishment and justice out of the hands of the people…...and puts it into this world of abstract courts and legal theory. If the people of Ohio are angered by the rape and murder of some child in their community, they find the guy and convict him, than the people of Ohio have a right to expect they’re going to see this man swiftly brought to justice.

This relationships between a sense of justice and the community is as old as humanity. We’ve removed it and told the people that “If you want to be good, you need to surrender that sense of justice to all these lawyers.” I think it’s crap and it dehumanizes people. They have a sense and a right to justice.

@Harp Yes! People who murder and rape don’t tend to be the best decision makers. That’s where society comes in. We decide what to do with them. I’m sure that, given the choice, they’d prefer to be back out on the street.

I am not at all saying let anyone go free, I’m just saying death is irreversible.

Administering justice is intentionally not in the hands of the people, because in other words you confirm what I am saying, when the mob wants to see blood, give them blood.

At no point have I advocated leniency towards heinous criminals. What you are doing here though is acknowledging the “brokenness” of the system, but offering the solution of removing even more oversight from it.

Justice is not “state administered revenge”. Justice is not feeding the aggravated mob with the blood it wants to see.

I wouldn’t let 1000 go free, not even one, I simply wouldn’t resort to a practice that is barbarian, abandoned by the rest of the civilized world, and first and foremost irreversible.

Innocent people die, that fact is unacceptable, simple as that.

@TheIowaCynic
What do we gain from killing them?
Money, I don’t mind paying taxes to pay for these people. As long as we help them.

@Myndecho

i wouldn’t go as far as to say I want to help or rehabilitate a heinous child rapist, there is a line. I’m generally just against killing.

Some crimes are so unspeakable they really cry for the worst punishment possible.

@TaoSan
Same here, I don’t know if my arguments stand up, but I know I don’t want people dying.

@Myndecho

agreed

@Myndecho you and I see things differently. This idea that “everbody is redeemable” is decidedly new and I think has more to do with us feeling good about ourselves, and being relatively safe, than administering justice. I have no interest in helping a murdering child rapist. In fact, I feel offended at having to breath the same air as they do

@TheIowaCynic

We can agree on that

I don’t think any of us have good arguments on this topic at the moment, but I’m willing to agree to disagree.

I think my arguments are great ^^

Asmonet said it for me: No. That’s why I like it.

@TheIowaCynic That’s exactly why this can’t be framed as a “humanitarian” question. This isn’t about being kind to the perp; it’s a question of whether society should be in the business of killing people.

If your concern is the protection of the society, then why wouldn’t “life without parole” be the ideal solution? The perp is off the streets for good; society doesn’t risk killing an innocent person; and there’s still an opportunity for personal redemption, if such a thing is possible.

But there’s something about that that just doesn’t satisfy some folks, and I believe that’s because it doesn’t scratch the “hate” itch. I understand the “hate” element, but I don’t think there’s any place at all for it in our governmental institutions.

@Harp A dog would not willingly submit to being Euthanized. That doesn’t mean it’s not more humane.

you’re correct in holding me to the concept of “humane,” because that is how I framed the question, but since you brought it up:

The desire for justice is something that has been recognized in every culture since the beginning of time. I’m not sure that qualifies as “scratching the hate itch”

in the last 2,500 years, governments have taken the place of the citizenry and mobs in choosing to be the dispensers of justice. The implicit contract has been

“Folks, you’re not going to use mob violence. In exchange, we the government will prosecute this justice in a more fair and orderly manner”

So governments not only have a right to seek out the justice of the people. they have a duty to do so.

@TheIowaCynic

your logic seems to be Justice=Killing

@TaoSan Not always, but sometimes it can.

I do not at all imply that there aren’t plenty of people who “deserve” to die. I merely hold that we as a society “deserve” to be better than perceiving justice only if someone gets killed.

And by the way, being Jose’s “girlfriend” without the option of parole is much more punishment than a one-bunk Hilton on dead-row anyways.

Seriously, if someone were to do something horrible to my kid I’d have much more satisfaction picturing him under the Mexican freight train than in a single cell with social worker to help him through. Kill ‘em, and for them it’s over.

Tougher punishment, more dignity for society, get rid of the dead penalty all are well served.

No, I don’t think it’s more humane. I also don’t support life imprisonment for particular offenders, there are inexpensive bullets for them.

In my opinion the only two crimes that warrant death are murder and rape/molestation.

I do agree with the long list of appeals people faced with a death sentence have, because as recent times are showing a lot of people we have/are convicting end up being innocent (nowhere near the majority, but a significant enough amount to justify the appeals).

And frankly, I think a life sentence is probably a worse punishment than execution (especially since we have only “humane” forms of execution).

The problem with our prison system today, is that it doesn’t “fix the problem” that causes the offenders to commit crimes. We basically just put them in a cage for a set amount of time and then let them out (often in worse economic/social/mental states than they were upon imprisonment), and expect them not to commit more crimes. We need to go back to a system that actually rehabilitates prisoners who will see the light of day again. I just hope that people who murder and rape WON’T see the light of day again.

@TheIowaCynic Sure, it’s the government’s role to implement justice. But I think your idea of justice as the executioner of the people’s vengeance is due for an update. Almost all of the countries we consider “advanced” have moved beyond that simple idea of frontier justice, and look at our continuation of capital punishment as an anachronous barbarism. The citizens of those countries seem to feel that justice is being done without killing people; are they just not as enlightened about justice as we (and China and Saudi Arabia) are?

I don’t expect our government to play to our baser motives, even if I myself am subject to them from time to time.

Depends on the prison, surely.

@Harp I guess that where we disagree is that I don’t associate a lack of capital punishment with advance thinking any more than I associate the wonderful treatment of criminals with civilization. These are very “fashionable,” ideas these days but I don’t see them as being on a trajectory towards a better world.

Take a look at this article about the Finnish penal system. The Finns go way to the other extreme in how they deal with offenders. I’m not proposing that this is how we should do things, but when you consider that the US per capita incarceration rate is 13.5 times the rate in Finland, it makes you wonder whether our “get tough on crime” policies that sound so good to an angry public haven’t just made things worse.

@Harp The Swedes are very similar. Have you ever been to Scandinavian countries? They’re ethnically homogeneous and the people are as docile and polite a group of folks as anywhere on the planet. It’s often suggested that, in Norway, Sweden or Finland, you almost don’t need laws. People behave nicely and properly without having to be told. I suspect they would change their way of doing things rather quickly if they had Drugs and Gang problems like we do.

do we really need to discuss the death penalty’s potential to deter crime?

What more do we need to connect the dots?

Most draconian penalties including capital punishment in the civilized world ->
Highest crime rates in the world

But then, you can’t argue that to those who prefer primal revenge instincts over a progressive working penal system.

@TaoSan China and Saudi Arabia make very liberal use of the death penalty and have very low crime rates.

Do you want to be in the same boat with China and Saudi Arabia?

So you suggest that we either become an oppressive regime or a monarchy. Other than that, if the Chinese say it rains, I’ll walk to the window and check.

You really bend arguments to suit your need.

@TaoSan The point I’m making, is that the argument that the death penalty is no deterrent is not correct. It’s not a deterrent when only 1 out of 500 murders is executed. It is a deterrent when half them are.

you present no reference to anything remotely scientific, you just promote personal opinion.

No offense intended.

This MO is rather typical for death penalty proponents.

@TaoSan China and Saudi Arabia execute a far higher percentage of their criminals than do we. The crime rate in Saudi Arabia is rather low. This is a very logical if-therefore-than type of thing. One cannot empirically prove the deterrent effect of any type of punishment…....this doesn’t mean there isn’t any.

Thanks for commenting on my ‘MO’ but commenting on ‘MO’ or providing analysis of the “type” of person who would put forward “that kind of argument,” is generally the “MO” of people with no substantive response.

sigh

so you are saying we should look to a muslim monarchy and an oppressive socialist government for options?

You get so caught up you don’t know what you’re saying.

THE CHINESE AND THE SAUDIS HELLOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! KNOCK KNOCK

@TaoSan I’m saying something obvious and simple, so as to illustrate an obvious and simple point. You’re taking this illustration to a false-logical extreme.

The Chinese and Saudis successfully demonstrate the harsh punishment and liberal use of the death penalty have proved effective measures in producing lower crime rates.

Hence, the idea that the death penalty and/or harsh punishment does not serve as an effective deterrent is not an empirically provable point…......much to the contrary.

Pointing this out does not suggest that one is advocating China or Saudi Arabia as ideal societies.

it’s hopeless…

@TaoSan: Finally, welcome to the good side. :)