Finally, a really interesting topic.
My opinion is that there should be a death penalty. In some cases, when the criminal is left alive, it's more like a life sentence for the victims - they're doomed to live with fear or anger for the rest of their lives. Moreover, the death penalty serves as an example and stops crime before it happens. It's a barbaric measure, but we're still a barbaric imperfect world.
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I oppose the death penalty for many reasons. First of all, there will almost inevitably be miscarriages of justice. Many innocent people like the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four or Rubin Carter would have been killed had the death penalty been applied. In fact people have been killed who later turned out to be innocent, I heard of a case where a guy was in the gas chamber and new evidence in his favour came in when it was already too late to let him out. I think the fact that there will always be human error, or perhaps even abuse of the justice system, means irreversible punishments should never be applied.
Secondly, studies have shown it doesn't really work as a deterrent. Studies of states next to each other, one with the death penalty and one without, often show an almost equal murder rate. In most cases of murder the person is in a state of mind where they are not thinking of the consequences of their actions, basically, most murders cannot be prevented.
And there is the issue of the rights of the friends and family of the murderer. They are completely innocent people and their right to visit their friend or family member is permanently taken away even though they have committed no wrong themselves. Even if they are a bad person, there might still be people who sees good in them, and they are being put through the same horror that the murderer inflicted on the family of their victim.
I believe a justice system should aim to do two things, try to rehabilitate the criminal so that they do not offend again, and protect society until they are rehabilitated, and it should not try to do anymore. The death penalty makes no effort to try to make the person better, it just destroys them. On the second point, while there are escapes they are usually rare occurances. In most cases a prisoner will never be able to get out of the prison so I believe imprisonment is adaquate for the protection of society and it is not necessary to kill the murderer.
I believe violence in self defence or the defence of others is the only justification for its use. Perhaps if a prisoner escaped from their cell and picked up some kind of weapon then maybe then it would be justified to injure them or if necessary kill them. But when a prisoner is chained up with walls and hundreds of guards around them I do not believe it is justifiable to kill them.
And finally, someone's going to have to kill the prisoner, by gas or lethal injection etc., and having to do this will surely have a negative impact on them mentally.
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Yes, the death penalty shouldn't be used so often, but I think it should exist as an extreme, extreme measure. You're right that in a country like America, where crime is at such a high level, where murders happen on a daily basis, there is a probability that innocent people may be executed. I'm sorry to have to use this example again, but the communist system has managed to eliminate social crime and the rest of the world should ignore the faults of this system learn from the former communist nations. Communism didn't need the death penalty. In that matter, communism was close to perfection. Today's world isn't perfect and needs the death penalty. This is a very very intereting and complicated topic. I'm happy there's finally a good discussion going on in this forum.
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Yes, the death penalty shouldn't be used so often, but*
I think it should exist as an extreme, extreme measure.*
But I personally do NOT want to pay for such an "extreme, extreme" measure.
I don't want to pay for anybody's death.
Communism didn't need the death penalty.*
In that matter, communism was close to perfection.*
Today's world isn't perfect and needs the death penalty.*
No offense, but the argument of "the world isn't perfect and needs _____"
doesn't really satisfy me. The argument isn't whether the world is perfect or not, but whether the death penalty is reasonable.
The United States generally has harsher punishments than
European countries and Japan, and unlike all of them, imposes the death
penalty in some places.
The death penalty does NOT deter criminal activity.
But if we are to have it, I do NOT want to pay for it.
That's my compromise, and I think it's reasonable.
Grandpa h.
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If we manage to eliminate crime we won't need to use the death penalty. I think the shortest cut to that is if we learned from social systems that already managed to solve that problem and create a new system with the best of both worlds.
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