Discuss...

For me, mostly yes.

I am in favor of the death penalty in certain crimes that are proven without a doubt. I guess it is tough to say without a doubt. We have not had a mailbox at our house for the past 15 years because people smash them, I believe the people that smash mail boxes for no reason should get the death penalty.

This issue is not a worry for me. For whatever reason, I don't really care either way. I feel justice should be served, sometimes I feel a little on the ropes about it... It's a whatever for me.

I support the death of this thread.
jk

I don't believe in punishment just for the sake of punishment. What we do should be about protecting ourselves and fixing the miscreants that we think can be fixed. Sticking it to someone beyond that, while it may satisfy a political or emotional agenda, just isn't something we can afford. We kill to make a statement, and piss off the world. We jail to make a statement, and piss away money.

Most people sentenced to death are fucked in the head, with a history of formative abuse and neglect, often in conjunction with other untreated (and perhaps untreatable) psychological defectiveness. Do you punish a retard for fucking up if they can't help it? If they can't help being violent, are there any reasonable alternatives besides putting them down? Does putting a nutjob in a prison for a long time as an alternative fix them or make them worse? How about for a short time?

I was acquainted with someone who was homicidal, but was forced to take really fucking strong meds, and is now basically a bloated zombie. He's probably minimally productive, might be addicted to those drugs these days for all I know or perhaps there are other side effects, but that's a damn sight better than where he was before. Do you go with the Clockwork Orange-type solutions? What's so bad about "unusual" punishments if they are in fact "effective"?

Out of our vast prison population, only a tiny fraction face the death penalty. I would prefer to spend the tax dollars, apply whatever fixes to the system are necessary and house those inmates for life rather than face the certainty of a system that will make a mistake from time to time and kill the wrong guy.

The death penalty is just a crass way to appease the mob. We're better than that... or at least we should aspire to be.

Death penalty for guys who leave their barky ass dogs out all night.
Death penalty for people who are always showing pictures of their kids.

Other then those two cases, people are capable of being rehabilitated.

Sentencing someone for life bugs me.

If they absolutely did the heinous crime, and if returned to the general population would clearly just do it again, what's the point of keeping them around? It's a waste of resources on someone we can't rehabilitate.

If it's not clear that they absolutely did the heinous crime, then it's hard to assert canonically that they'd do it again, so why sentence them for life and not try to rehabilitate?

There's this complex mess of things we expect "prison" to be, and the end result is a big mess. I don't think it's reasonable to discuss the death penalty without talking about the alternatives.

The point of "keeping them around" is that I don't want to be in the business of executing people. Incarceration satisfies both punishment and public safety. What does execution satisfy that makes it a necessary thing?

Rehabilitation is really a completely different topic.

Rehabilitation isn't a different topic, because the same resources and $$$ that goes to holding prisoners goes to rehabilitating them.

Holding the dangerous prisoner for life is a costly and dangerous affair. The supermax prisons where "death penalty"-level miscreants belong cost $40-50k per prisoner per year. Incarcerating one person for life who should arguably be killed can easily be $1-2+ million bucks just for the facility alone. Multiply by the 3000 or so folks currently on death row (some of whom shouldn't be there, but there's probably others that should), and you're talking big bucks even though it's only a "tiny fraction" of the overall prison population. Acts of god, shuffling in and out of the facility for legal or medical procedures, etc. adds risk to what is already a risky proposition in dealing with the general population prisoners.

Those are costs I don't want to bear for the prisoners who absolutely did heinous stuff, can't seemingly be rehabilitated, and would do it again if released. Whoever wants to see such people live instead of die should fork over the dollars for their handling, Maybe there should be some sort of charity where the prisoners die once funding stops? I dunno. Mercy costs. I'd rather our government spend its limited money, time, and resources on "saving" people who aren't hopeless.

If there's even a twinge of doubt on whether they did the crime, or any reasonable doubt on their rehabilitation prospects at the time, then they shouldn't be sentenced to life imprisonment OR the death penalty, and the legal system should be fixed to reflect that. The notion that "we keep them forever on the off chance that maybe they didn't do it" is bullshit -- both are too extreme. The notion that "we keep them forever because maybe we find some way to rehabilitate them down the road and maybe they get free" is too much of a long-shot and simply hasn't happened in the real world AFAICT.

eye for an eye?

it really depends on the crime. cold blooded murder of a family sure what the fuck. Sticking his ass in prison for life isn't gonna change shit, just waste money and tax everyone's ass for nothing.

fuck the death stnence really is a piece of shit. watch the green mile, just watched a few scenes several times because its on tv but yeah this is a really good topic. im off to sleep..fucking SATS tmrw fuck

eye for an eye is a self righteous theory imo. Cant say i endorse death penalty until i endorse a legit judicial system that doesnt fuck up as much as ours does, which would require a serious change in society, which is probably never.

eye for an eye makes sense only if it works, meaning deterrance. i agree, people who look for it to feed their revenge are pretty f'd up themselves, imo, and should be working with don corleone rather than the US gov.

im not a utilitarian myself. i think killing is wrong, and always wrong. the state can not legitimize it, imo.

They're all wrong answers in my book. It's about choosing the lesser of many evils. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

i always thought it was ironic to be "pro-life" and "pro-death penalty" at the same time. kind of the downside of making talking points your argument.

i always thought it was ironic to be "pro-life" and "pro-death penalty" at the same time. kind of the downside of making talking points your argument.



give me a hundred grand, give me your watch, give me your chain
that's your girl, bitch get over here, give me some brain
I'll bust off on her face, and right after the segment
she'll propably rub it in her pussy, trying to get herself pregnant
I said it I meant it, that's the way I deal with enemies
like pro lifers, that support the death penalty

Seems that Mike Wallace got hold of bdiddy at the spa in Bermuda, and got this interesting take in between a massage, a colonic, and a pedicure:



I always thought it was ironic to be "pro-life" and "pro-death penalty" at the same time. But hell! [snicker] I own a company that makes abortion clinic protest signs, a comppany that makes church donation baskets, and I own three comopanies that make A) the poison for lethal injections, straps for when the guy..HEY! Maurice, I'm a little tender there from some nude sunbathing on the Riviera...anyway, the straps for when the condemned man needs to be held down for the injection, and the syringes for the injection itself. I mean (looks wistfully at a 22 year old Brazilian babe jumping into the pool), you can ba all 'harrumph hrrumph!' and all that, but dammit! There's money to be made these days! Maurice, let's be careful with that hose for the colonic, OK?...As I was saying Morley, Hu? It's Mike? Whatever. But listen Marv, is there really that big a difference between a Big Mac and a Whopper? See, that's what I'm talking about. There are times when I don't even want to go there, but I do.

I have no clue what you and diddy are doing, but I'm sure it'll be entertaining.

Rehabilitation isn't a different topic, because the same resources and $$$ that goes to holding prisoners goes to rehabilitating them.


The reason I say it's a different topic is that rehabilitation is something that happens in addition to, concurrent with a prison sentence. Regardless of whether you're sentenced to 6 months or 99 years... your time is your time. Rehab is about what happens during your time... and a seperate issue from life sentence vs death penalty.

Death penalty only if its 100% positive the person did it. Like if you went on a shooting spree in public and everyone saw you doing it.

i think the law pretty much concedes its never 100% certain.

Even if there are 45 people in a room, one pulls out a gun and starts pulling the trigger?

"wasnt me"

"i was insane"

"i was coerced"

etc.

Forgot about the insane one. That'll get ya.

If they're "insane" and, barring extreme lockup, will do heinous things, should they be treated differently than the NOT-"insane" heinous sort?

Is there a "too fucked up to live" threshhold?

no.

Mental institutions. They just put you in a padded room, or they strap you to something so you can't hurt yourself or anyone else. Then they force-feed you a bunch of anti-psychotics until they feel you're rehabilitated and can rejoin society without concern.

The Death Penalty Worldwide

According to Amnesty International, 135 countries have abolished the death penalty. During 2006 25 countries, 91% in China, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, and the United States alone, executed 1,591 people compared to 2,148 in 2005. More than 3,861 people were sentenced to death in 55 countries. More than 20,000 prisoners are on death row across the world

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777460.html

I've read that some of these countries that 'abolished' the death penalty, just take peeps outside and shoot them...no judge, no jury, but lots of so called justice according to some of these countries.

I will not be able to find that article, so take it fwiw.

The death penalty is a terrible, terrible mistake. It deters nothing, and only fosters a habit of punitive incarceration.

Yup. There's often the claim that the prisoner was "resisting authority" and "they had no choice". It's easier than dealing with the flak for publicly killing the bastard.