Is it futile or contradictory to try to make Capital Punishment more humane?

Despite my objections to the practice, I think it’s probably best to make capital punishment as humane as possible. It was recently shown in the documentary How To Kill A Human Being that it’s quite possible for executions to be completely painless. It’s supposed to be about killing the person, not torturing them.

And really, the lethal injection is not what I’d call ‘humane’.

Does anyone really care? if a criminal entered your house and killed your parents and is convicted of the crime, would a normal person really care how this criminal is executed? most people would say no. did the criminal care about the pain he made your parents suffer, before they died? no. case closed.

In a perfectly sane society, people who have problems with violence would be identified early and prevented from inflicting pain on others. We do not live in a perfectly sane society. The death penalty is barbaric, but so are the crimes which result in the death penalty. Until we can identify and treat those prone to violence against others, we will most likely continue to have the death penalty.

If some one raped, tortured and than beaten your husband, your child, your wife or any family or friend to death, do you really think you are going to care about how that person will be executed? The only thing to make it humane is to do it fast.

It doesn’t matter to me as long as they’re out of the picture. The best thing would be knowing that one particular person would no longer be able to hurt anyone else. The downside, of course, is that it would have to be the right person being executed.

i don’t believe in capital punishment, but since it i the law of the land, it makes sense to make it more humane.

Sometimes, you have to put an individual down in order to put society out of it’s misery, that could be construde as a humane act in it self, dependent upon the individual and the society. Crucifixion is inhumane regardless of the background circumstances.

Lethal injection is the most humane way of execution going on today, you are given drugs to relax you and then drugs to lose consciousness and then the drugs to stop your heart, to me the worst thing about this method is the person being executed thinking about dying before it happens.

My brother-in-law was murdered; shot in the head. The murderer was given life in prison. I would prefer that he get the death penalty. My brother-in-law was a good man, had a son, was very generous to everyone around him.

If his murder were to get the death penalty, I would prefer that his last moments be spent thinking that he was going to die for doing something senseless that sent out ripples of pain to my family and his own.

My objection to the death penalty is based on its inconsistency. Generally it is poor people and/or members of minority groups that get the death sentence. Years of expensive appeals based on technicalities rather than actual guilt waste societies resources. If the penalty was handed out consistently, fairly and carried out swiftly I would have no objection to it.
As to the method used; did the criminal care how much suffering was inflicted on the victim(s)? I don’t think the state should show any greater level of concern. Instead of hiding it away, executions should be televised. A description of the crime, sentence read, the victims family should be allowed to make a statement and the criminal allowed a final statement. Any reasonably swift method is acceptable; a bullet, a noose, lethal injection, whatever. A public execution might increase the deterrant value of the death sentence.

I don’t think the death penalty should be used as “punishment” per say, not in the eye for an eye sense anyways. I mean, punishment has never been a very effective means of reforming behavior and its guaranteed not to have a lick of effect on their behavior if they’re dead. And since I’m an moral person I don’t think punishment should be allowed to become vengeance or retribution. Neither of those have anything to do with justice.

Therefore the death penalty should only be used when a person is unquestionably beyond reform. Serial child murders and such not. It should function only as a permanent means of removing the risk they pose to there community. I think that to maintain the separation between execution and vengeance the execution must be as humane as possible.

I am against capital punishment. I think it is barbaric and to even talk about making it humane is an oxymoron.

Now to those who will inevitably ask whether I would like to see someone who hurt someone I love in unspeakable ways be killed for their crimes, let me say: I have had a family member murdered in a horrific fashion, my grandfather’s life was altered forever by a violent crime, and I have been personally victimized. However, I do not wish death on any of those perpetrators, to wish that is simply inconsistent with my beliefs. Do I want to see these people put away forever so they can’t ever devastate anyone else they way they have me and my family? Yes. Murdered? No.

@SuperMouse In a practical sense, your suggestion is superior. Lock them away permanently, no possibility of release, only the minimum necessities of life, 24/7 lockdown.

Lethal Injection is abous as HUMANE as you’ll get besides letting them watch old news shows of george W. making speeches and that would bore them to death…

Personally; I am for bringing back HANGING in the public square or center of town…

Anybody who has been put under for surgery knows how fast and physically painless it is.There is always some difficulty with coming to terms with the possibility of not waking up’ Accepting death is part of the human condition——even for those of us who haven’t taken innocent lives.

I don’t know where I stand on the whole capital punishment subject. I think I am against it but, as others have said here, if someone I loved was brutally murdered I think I would wish death on the person who murdered them. I wish I was more like @SuperMouse but, if I am honest with myself, I doubt I am. However, even if I were for the death penalty I still believe it should be humane. Just get it over and done with, quickly and as painless as possible. I don’t believe in torture at all.

@HighShaman Agree. +GA Do it publicly for the deterrent value.

Don’t discount the value of retribution, or the value of permanently removing scum from the gene pool.

The destination is the same regardless of the road you take.

Any other societal species on this planet would eliminate one of it’s own that was detrimental to the well being of the whole. Why is such a simple decision so hard for “superior” beings such as ourselves?

For those who prefer LIFE in Prison without Parole ; Do YOU want your taxes RAISED to take care of them for the rest of their lives ?

I don’t ! I can barely pay the taxes i pay now…. so why not Hang them or even get a guillotine and cut off their heads ; right in the center of town ..

BOTH are quick DEADLY…. I think a lot of people would think TWICE if they even THOUGHT this would be their punishment !!

@HighShaman Unless the appeals process is greatly streamlined and not allowed to proceed on technicalities, it is actually more expensive to execute someone than to keep him locked up for life. If we can somehow get to a point where only the evidence is reviewed and the procedural hair-splitting stopped the death penalty would become cost-effective and a deterrant to the worst kind of crimes.

Since the courts and legislatures are composed of lawyers, who love straining at gnats and pushing camels through the eyes of needles (on billable hours of course), I don’t see any resolution to this.

Perhaps the best we can expect is the Supreme Court to lower the standards of what is considered constitutionally acceptable imprisonment. Where offenders can be kept locked up without access to anything but basic nutrition, solitary, 24/7, for life, as an alternative to the death penalty. Basically just a warehouse of boxed criminals aging to death.

@CaptainHarley, @Leanne1986, @mrentropy, @antimatter & @john65pennington

desiring retribution when someone has done something terrible to you or those your care about is natural. However there is a difference between wishing for someone to suffer to satisfy your pain and actual justice. It is not the job of the state to appease the desire or assuage the pain of the masses or of individual victims. It is there job to see that justice is carried out for the guilty as well as the innocent.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land solitary confinement (particularly long term) tends to drive people mad. Until inducing insanity is seen as an acceptable means of prisoner rehabilitation I wouldn’t suggest increasing it’s use.

@fundevogel The offenders that I am referring to are those who cannot be rehabilitated, either due to their hardened nature or the notoriety of the crime committed. The mental condition of such prisoners is of no concern; this is only proposed as a cost-effective alternative to the death penalty.

The entire purpose, historically, of a formal justice system is to substitute state retribution for individual, family or tribal retribution. If a justice system strays too far from that basic purpose, leaving peoples need for retribution unfulfilled it only erncourages people to seek individual vengeance and leading back into blood feuds.

Even with offenses not warranting death or lifetime imprisonment, there must be an element of punishment as well as restitution and rehabilitation. The victim must have that need satisfied by the justice system.

@fundevogel… “Justice?” The very meaning of justice is retributive in nature. Would you have the animal control people attempt to “rehabilitate” a rabid dog? Both rabid animals and those who knowingly and with premeditation commit crimes of violence are a menace to society. It disturbs me not one whit to dispose of either in the least expensive, most expeditious way possible.

@CaptainHarley Well stated. +GA

Criminal cases are not about victim or survivor retribution. Every criminal case is the State vs the offender. We have decided as a part of the social contract that only the State, representing us all. has the right to take the life, liberty or property of those who break that contract. The victim’s or survivors’ satisfaction legally has nothing to do with it.

@galileogirl

In a democracy, I am the state. The state has the responsibility to seek collective retribution on the part of all involved in the “social contract.”

@galileogirl If the social contract does not satisfy basic human needs, retribution being one of these, the contract is flawed and will either be revised or circumvented.

@fundevogel I never said that it was. I said that if he had gotten a death penalty then I have no problem with him thinking only of his own impending death and reflecting on the matter that all he had to do was not pull the trigger and he wouldn’t be about to die. I think that’s more than fair.

I also think a death penalty is more than fair provided the correct person is being executed. I don’t necessarily think the death should be painful or drawn out (I might feel differently if it were my own, close, relation) but they shouldn’t be deprived of knowing they were going to die and why they were going to die.

And for the record I don’t see it as a deterrent to others. I don’t see it as lowering myself to murderous standards. I see it as a way of stopping that person from ever killing again. As far as I’m concerned that is justice done to a person who felt that life for others was unimportant, and justice for anyone who might have been the next victim.

The problem comes, as I mentioned, when an innocent person is convicted and sentenced to life or execution. Sometimes it can take a very long time for that to come to light.

Get your facts straight @stranger_in_a_strange_land Retribution is a want, not a need. Remember 12th grade Social Studies?

@galileogirl I’ll revise to “strong want” but it is still strongly enough felt that if the state does not provide it, people will take it into their own hands. In the same way that people in the US are sick and tired of healthcare not being considered a right and are demanding that the social contract be altered. I’m an engineer and retired Army officer, not a sociologist. I don’t recall having a course in anything like that until grad school and the scale of needs vs. wants was treated as variable and controversial.(BTW, congrats on the 10k)

justice =/= retribution

check it out.

@CaptainHarley Your rabid dog example has nothing to do with retribution (or justice). Animals aren’t given an opportunity to have their guilt or innocence determined by an impartial judge. But ignoring that, animal control isn’t tasked with killing animals to make them pay for their wrongs. Animals could not fully understand why they are being punished after all. Animal control puts animals down to eliminate the risk they pose. This is purely a practical function.

The idea that putting an rabid animal down is justice is especially ludicrous since his actions are the product of a disease rather than his own freewill.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land I’m not a fan of the death penalty or the penal system as it currently exists so I certainly agree that further consideration needs to be put into how we deal with the worst of the worst. However I don’t see how allowing a person’s body to continue living while committing them to treatment that would further destroy their already screwy mind is an improvement. That’s not particularly merciful or just. That’s a halfassed solution to an adminstrative problem and people, even terrible ones, deserve more consideration than where we can file them away until their number’s up.

@mrentropy my apologies I’m not sure why I included you in that post now we seem to be on pretty much the same page My bad.

@fundevogel

You’ve stretched the analogy beyond its breaking point. You came close to the purpose of it though, with, “Animal control puts animals down to eliminate the risk they pose. This is purely a practical function.” Which is largely the same reason the state disposes of violent criminals.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land The state doesn’t and shouldn’t provide all our wants no matter how strong. Get your own gf and 52” TV, Since we have a right to life, today that means a right to the means that give us life. So healthcare is a need not a want along with food.

Need vs wants should have been introduced in 12th grade econ. When I introduce the subject and ask my students about specific items, cell phones are almost always needs as in “What if there was an emergency, and someone needs to call me?” That variable, it ain’t!!

@galileogirl

Yes, we have a right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” but that speaks to the state not having the right to deprive anyone of life without just cause, or without a fair trial.

It is the duty of the state to provide a society where people are able to pursue happiness. It is not the duty of the state to provide people’s happiness. Similarly, it’s the state’s responsibility to provide a society where people can pursue long life, but not the state’s responsibility to provide long life itself. At the end of THAT road lurks a despotic socalism.

@CaptainHarley I didn’t break it, it was a flawed analogy to begin with. You’re comparing apples and oranges.

You can just put animals down because our culture (and more specifically our government) doesn’t presume them to have human rights. A criminal’s membership in the human race means his rights have to be considered, not just whether or not we’d all be better off without him.

Killing criminals can’t just be a practical function so long as the concept of human rights and impartial justice exist. Just because it’s practical, doesn’t make it just. Our system attempts to uphold justice, not practicality.

@fundevogel

Fine. I’ll try to come up with another analogy that you can feel more at ease with. : )

The thid natural right is property. Thanks for agreeing with me. The state not the victim has the right. . .

oh MY…just no…no…
no
NO
Capital Punishment is disgusting

So is repeately raping a young woman, then cutting off her breasts and pouring caustic soda in her chest through the holes, and killling her by beating her mangled body. And your point??

@lynneblundell I sincerely hope that no one in your family gets RAPED like my 78 year old grandmother was .

OR; no one in your family gets brutally MURDERED like my 45 year old uncle was when they hung him with a meathook under his chin as he was still alive with his hands tied behind his back…

I do hope you have no young children who get KIDNAPPED , maybe raped and sodamized… before they are found DEAD….

No Capitol Punishment ? BS ; we need MORE of it .. Hang them or behead them ; that is the question.

@galileogirl

I never stated that the victim had a right to retribution, except by means of the state. It is only when the state is hijacked by people with all the backbone of a damp sponge that people begin to take the law, and thus retributive justice, into their own hands.

@HighShaman I don’t actually think your hopes are very sincere at all there… by the way that you are saying it, you are implying that I would have to go through it to be able to feel what it is like order to understand that Capital Punishment is necessary. I thoroughly disagree and do take offence as I do have elderly relatives and a young child that I would be mortified if any awful thing happened to them…of course. But it is still not my place to take another man’s life…full stop. Now…if you want to get into the torture debate…that’s a whole different ball game… but please don’t shout at me and try to use scare and shock tactics…. it gets me a little bit pissed off.

…and perhaps the same to @CaptainHarley but I couldn’t tell who the comment was aimed at

@lynneblundell . . . THAT WAS VERY WELL PUT!

@lynneblundell Take note that I was refering to my own grandmother who WAS raped and tortured by some guy…

It WAS my own uncle that i refered to that was hung by his neck while he was still alive as his hands were tied behind his back as he bled to death…

It was my cousin’s 5 year old son who was kidnapped, raped etc… and left DEAD in a swamp….

So don’t YOU evn dare to be Pissed because I spoke the truth… When there is POSITAVE PROOF such as DNA and two or more eye witneses etc…. even hanging or beheading is too damm good for some of these people….

You say it isn’t your place to take their lives and I agree . However ; it IS the place of our Justice System to make sure these insane Kilers etc are put to death and that they never bother another innocent person again ..yours or mine !!

@lynneblundell

My example was taken from a recent actual incident. It’s hard enough for some of us to restrain ourselves when this sort of thing happens without having the state tell us that justice is somehow served by locking these animals up instead of killing them.

ok… @HighShaman I can certainly feel that your pain is still very present and that you are very angry and rightly so… I’m not trying to make any enemies here, I’m sorry for what has happened to those that you love…really truly very sorry and it’s horrendous

…but killing the people that did it to them will not change anything and it will not take the pain away… you might think it will for a while… but really it won’t… what happened still happened and it will still be replayed in your mind every which way you choose it whether they are dead or alive.

…as I say it isn’t my place and it isn’t your place…to judge… and you say that it is the justice systems place… but they are really only people like you or I… you know… who have their own history and depending on the circumstance ..their lives and loves, whether their breakfast was cooked right, whether they had a bad childhood, whether they have depressive disorders or fire on all cylinders every day…., whether their car wouldn’t start and their kid was screaming at them that morning… could make a slightly different decision depending on the circumstances…

we are only human and we don’t have the right to kill.

I truly am sorry for yours and your family’s pain

@lynneblundell ,I promise you, your tune will change if and when it happens to you, why put people in jail when they commit a crime? It isn’t my place to judge them after all we are just people too.

Well; there are none so blind as those who will not see….

We EXECUTE certain people so they don’t end up getting loose and doing the same horrific crimes to others…. and as a deterant so that others don’t do these crimes .

As a deterrent the death penalty lacks credibility. What really deters is the speed of retribution. A Muslim couple, visiting Saudi Arabia (they were from Trinidad) were very struck by the absence of street crime, even in the busiest cities. When the call to prayer was heard, everybody ran away to the mosque, leaving shops, etc. unattended. We subsequently learned that justice, in Saudi Arabia, is very swift. The arrest, the charge, the trial, the verdict, and the sentence (in the case of a guilty verdict), are counted in days.

Edit: since the death penalty is useless as a deterrent, and as a punishment, pointless: why bother? Make it humane (we are not savages). But it would be so much better if retribution were both accurate (we got the right malefactor) and swift – from arrest to verdict should take weeks, not years.

I found a lot more emotion than I bargained for. A least no one cares about this. Check back to see if this reaches everyone.

[mod says] This is a sensitive topic with great potential for emotional turmoil. Please remember to keep the discussion civil and avoid personal attacks.

@syz

Indeed. My apologies if I exceeded the bounds of good taste.

The question of making the death penalty more “humane” is just another macabre part of the larger picture. There is nothing humane about the death penalty. I find it quite sad, that a country that considers itself the epitome of civilisation (yeah right) practices and talks about making something more “humane”, that in its entire history did nothing to reduce crime, nothing to make society safer, but instead only cost the life of countless humans, many of them innocent, to satisfy society’s need not for justice, but for simple and pure revenge, even if they like to kid themselves into thinking otherwise. By killing someone for his supposed crime, society lowers itself to the level of the criminal, by doing the same thing they want to punish the criminal for. It really throws society off its moral high horse.
The death penalty is ineffective. It does not even work as a deterrent. It can not work as a deterrant, because criminals do not think about the punishment when they commit a crime. They assume they will not get caught in the first place. Certainly, you make sure that the criminal gets no chance to commit another crime. But so would life long imprisonment. It would be cheaper,too, you would avoid taking the lives of those who are wrongfully convicted and society could remain on its moral pedestral.
What is justice? It is about making the culprit give something back to society in return for his wrongdoings. Does the death penalty achieve this? No, it does not, apart from satiating thirst for revenge. In fact, it does the opposite. It takes away the chance of the criminal to pay back to society, by taking away his/her existence. When someone breaks the property of someone else, we do not execute them, but make them pay money. If we executed them, we would deprive the criminal and us from proper repayment of damages.
Many people of deathrow acted in affect or are suffering from a mental illness. For these cases, it would be much more appropriate to put them into therapy and thenmake them become a valuable member of society, providing services and products to the rest of us. That would at least partially repay their debt to society. That would be justice. Killing them would not. It would achieve nothing.
And for those who are too dangerous to be rehabilitated, put chains on their feet and make them build roads, power lines, hospitals, schools, houses and other products that are useful for society. This would partially repay their debt. This would be justice. Killing them would not.
And it would keep open the possibility of them having an eventual change of heart.

And it would cost less than the death penalty.

As long as the proof is absolute, I don’t care who they are, what color they are or their economic circumstances, execution of justice should be swift and sure.

All other people in jail should be required to work, as @ragingloli said, chain them up and let them go on road gangs as was done in the years before the ACLU took over. I am tired of paying taxes so healthy young criminals can sit around and watch dvd’s and pump iron.

@CaptainHarley thank you for the compliment, I’ve never heard such heartfelt comments described as ’mindless drivel’ before… I envy your objectivity.

@Mandomike it is a good thing indeed that you can’t actually promise me that my tune will change…unless you’ve discovered time travel of course and it might be worth noting that not everyone that these kinds of terrible things happen to, end up feelings like the perpetrators should be executed… like ragingloli says there are other ways of retribution

@ragingloli well said, great answer

@lynneblundell

“Let’s feel all sorry for the poor criminals” is not a position I consider to be anything other than mindless. They crossed the line. They initiated the violence. They and their behavior and their genetic makeup need to be eliminated from the gene pool… permanently.

@ragingloli

Ok then, how about we incarcerate them at hard labor for the rest of their lives? Put them to work in a uranium mine, or some other form of highly hazardous work. None of this BS about color televisions and computers. I have no love for the French, but at least they knew enough to not make prison a frakkin’ holiday.

@CaptainHarley
Any work they would do must be held to the same standards as any other type of work in the civilised world, which means, adequate safety, regular breaks, no excessive work times. If I wanted to be some kind of barbarian slave driver I might consider your suggestions. But we are not in the middle east, are we?

@ragingloli

Any work they would do should be work that no one else wants to do. Criminals should never take work away from non-criminals on top of having taken life away from non-criminals. Hell, bring back chain gangs!

<sigh>

For all those saying that being the victim of a violent crime will automatically make someone an advocate for the death penalty – the more violent means of killing the better – I am here to say you are are wrong. As mentioned above, I have been victimized as have close family members and I see nothing but futility in the death penalty.

Is the death penalty cheaper than lifelong incarceration? The current data is mixed, but the facts point toward no. Does the death penalty as a a deterrent for other potential criminals? Again, the answer is not clear cut, but studies point to no.

It seems to me that death penalty advocates – some in this very thread – are more interested in vengeance than justice. I have no problem at all with sentencing violent or life long criminals to hard labor at low wages as a way to help pay for their keep and a way of paying back their debt to society. I do think it is counterproductive having them do jobs that will kill or maim them – that is just a slower form of the death penalty.

Lock criminals up, lock them up for good. Take away their luxuries. Get them some kind of mental health treatment. But don’t treat them as if they are sub-human by killing them, subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishment such as torture or lifelong solitary confinement. Judge society on the way they treat the least of their own. Blood lust solves nothing.

@CaptainHarley in regards to your uranium mine plan

Practically speaking, it is in the best interests of the prison and society that the prisoners are treated like people. This would minimize the animosity between prisoners and their keepers making the whole situation less dangerous and stressful for both prisoners and guards. It would also mean that fewer prisoners with non life or death sentences would spend years getting their hate and distrust of the system (and by extension the society that put them in it) reinforced. This of course would give them a better shot at successfully integrating with society once their time is up.

Treating them like slaves is a sure way to take people that are already dangerous or potentially dangerous and turning them into hardened, unsympathetic outsiders with even better reasons to hate and lash out at society. As it is it’s widely accepted that criminals are frequently worse after they’ve been in the system than when they got into it. Clearly the term “Correctional Facility” is used loosely.

@CaptainHarley , Man I with you on this one, if you can’t do the time then don’t do the crime! Prison should be a terrible place that no one wants to be, rehabilitation should be done outside of prison.

There is a uranium mine in the national park where I live. The miners are a very healthy and well paid group.

Requiring prisoners to work is not treating them as slaves in my mind, it is allowing them to be like the taxpayers who are supporting them. If that alienates them, I think it is an indicator that there is something wrong with the way they think, not the system. We have to decide if people are in jail to be punished for a crime against society or going to the Betty Ford clinic.

I personally believe that when you make the choice to commit a crime against your fellow humans, you deserve to be punished. That is the first order of business.

Those who say punishments are not deterrents have never lived inside my head. There have been many times in my life where temptations to try anything from shop lifting as a kid to serious stealing as an adult have been quelled by fear of being caught and going to jail, public humiliation, etc.. It is a deterrent to the average person.

As I said above at my age I am tired of paying taxes so healthy young criminals can sit around and watch dvd’s and pump iron.

@rooeytoo
I’m unfamiliar with uranium mining and I would hope that serious safety measures are taken to prevent radiation exposure. However I got the impression that CaptainHarley’s mention of uranium mining was selected specifically because he though exposing prisoners to serious levels of radiation was an attractive means of punishing them and a potential means of killing them. That is what I object to, deliberately endangering their well being and essentially saying that the state can do whatever they want with the lives of prisoners.

If person’s wellbeing and life is in the hands of another,
and their freedom is moot,
and they’re required to work hard, dangerous jobs,
without regard for their safety
I’d say that they’re a slave.

And that sort of slavery has been employed before by at least some state governments. I’m looking at you Mississippi.

After the end of slavery in America there was a vast shortage of labor in the south. It was determined that convicts could replace slave labor, picking cotton and so on. They called the farms where convicts were forced into service work farms. The most notorious one was Parchman Farm. Obviously it was hard work and though most of the prisoners weren’t serving anything even remotely close to life sentences it was rare for a prisoner to survive their sentence. They were quite literally being worked to death.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the prisoners were in variably pretty much all black. They were after all just a new batch of slaves in everything but name. And it didn’t take long for the crooked law to start arresting black men simply to put them to work at places like Parchman.

Sorry for the history tangent. Ultimately my point is I don’t object to prisoner labor, but I strongly object to prisoners being exploited or deliberately endangered which is what it sounds like CaptainHarley is endorsing.

@fundevogel – here is the part I find difficult to understand, if there is a job, any job, and OSHA says conditions are acceptable, but it is hard dirty boring (insert any undesirable adjective) work so prisoners should not be forced to do it because it might further alienate them from society. But the average tax paying non criminal person just trying to make ends meet does it and that is okay because he has the choice.

There are people doing all kinds of unpleasant jobs in this world, some even get killed on the job. I get tired of hearing about how demeaning it would be for the poor prisoners to be forced to do this labor. If they don’t like it, they should study hard and become brain surgeons and not get sent to jail.

@rooeytoo
The tax-paying non-criminals have a choice of whether or not they work those jobs. Just because we’re not forcing dangerous jobs on criminals doesn’t mean that they’re being forced on the rest of us. If there is a reasonable safety objection, as there is with dangerous jobs, nobody, not even criminals should be forced to do them. Nobody but your own sweet self should be permitted to accept risks to your health or life.

If a job is simply too bad for anyone to do without being forced into it then it needs to be seriously reformed and shouldn’t be anyone’s job until it is.

@fundevogel – based on your response, I don’t think you read what I said.

@rooeytoo – I can assure I read it. Once before my answer and few more times as I wrote it. Did you read mine?

I have not once stated a prisoner should be exempted from labor except when the labor involved a risk to his health or life. You ignored that and trivialized the issue by suggesting that this was all just about sparing them a little dirt and tedium. It isn’t. It’s about a worker’s right to judge personal risk and protect the health of their body.

Just because OSHA ok’s the job doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hold a risk. There are still coal miners, firefighters and deep sea welders. Don’t you think those jobs pose risks? Deadly risks even? The Sago Mine disaster didn’t happen so long ago, 12 out of the 13 men died while trapped underground. It was a terrible thing, but those men at least weren’t forced by their government to take up the work that killed them.

Don’t you think that there is something fundamentally wrong with an outside party accepting physical and possibly deadly risk to a person’s body without any say from the person whose body is on the line?

My mind just doesn’t work the way yours apparently does. I think if a job is okay for a tax paying non-criminal, it should be okay for a criminal. If the criminal wants to decide for himself what kind of a job he wants then he should not be a criminal. He didn’t give his victims a choice about putting their body on the line. Jail time might be more of a deterrent if it were hard time.

It is a shame honest working people can’t designate where their tax dollars are spent. You could sponsor a criminal so he could lounge and pump iron. I could sponsor cancer research or rehabilitation for the person your criminal raped, or counseling for the family of the person your criminal murdered.

Then we could all be happy.

I get that you think prisoners deserve to be punished. And you think, “hey, they’re bad guys, they deserved to be punished, why shouldn’t it be with risky jobs?” But here’s the thing, they are already being punished. Punished according to the law. You can’t just stack additional punishment on them once their trial is over. That’s pretty much a jailhouse version of a bill of attainder and that is unconstitutional.

If making them work jobs that present a health risk is punishment for their crimes, it would need to be part of their actual sentence. And at risk of invoking Godwin’s Law, that’s something I can’t imagine a developed country adopting. It simply doesn’t reflect the human rights countries like America (and Australia) work to protect.

If this isn’t about punishing the prisoners, if it’s simply about getting jobs done, well, I’ve already said an awful lot about what I think of that.

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“It is a shame honest working people can’t designate where their tax dollars are spent. You could sponsor a criminal so he could lounge and pump iron. I could sponsor cancer research or rehabilitation for the person your criminal raped, or counseling for the family of the person your criminal murdered.

This is just insulting. I’ve told you my position in ample detail and clarity, now you’re just shoving words in to my mouth and a position I have already explicitly said I wasn’t arguing. I find your insistence on misrepresenting me juvenile and pointless. Clearly you must not have any response to my actual position or you wouldn’t feel the need to ignore my points and attack fictional ones.

I am truly chastened that you find my position juvenile and pointless.

I should have asked what sort of employment do you find suitable for a criminal? Perhaps a pastry chef, although it does get hot and sweaty around those ovens. And you could burn yourself, that is a definite health hazard.

I maintain my position, if a job is deemed safe by OSHA, it’s fair game for anyone. I am tired of coddling criminals while I as a tax payer work a dangerous job 7 days a week to subsidize them.

You want to educate and rehabilitate, that is fine, do it at night after work. The way college students who are working their way through college have done for years.

If the way it is being done were working and recidivism was low then I would say your way is great, let’s keep up the good work. I don’t see it happening, maybe it is time to try a different less enlightened style of punishment.

My admonishment was not of your position but of your continued deceit in your representation of my position. The arguments you’ve been ignoring are my response to your position.

Prehaps you’ve heard the Strawman?

I haven’t berated you, I didn’t say your position was pointless and juvenile.

I asked you what sort of employment you do find suitable, you don’t answer.

I am stating what I think, if you don’t like it I guess that is your problem.

For the sake of brevity I’m only going to address your second statement. My two previous statements have already addressed your other two and I’m not interested in spending energy repeating myself.

“I asked you what sort of employment you do find suitable, you don’t answer.”

I said,

“I don’t object to prisoner labor, but I strongly object to prisoners being exploited or deliberately endangered.”

“I have not once stated a prisoner should be exempted from labor except when the labor involved a risk to his health or life.”

I thought these statements made it clear that I approved of any job the state gave inmates that didn’t pose a health risk. That leaves a cornucopia of jobs for inmates to do, many of them dirty and tedious.

But more the point, you didn’t ask me what jobs I thought were appropriate. You made a snide comment with an inappropriate question mark:

“I should have asked what sort of employment do you find suitable for a criminal? Perhaps a pastry chef, although it does get hot and sweaty around those ovens. And you could burn yourself, that is a definite health hazard.”

I chose to ignore this since it was clearly intended to do no more than bait me. Which is an example of a juvenile and pointless statement.

There we go, once again you have said my opinions are juvenile and pointless because they don’t agree with yours?

Why are you berating me?