Death Penalty

[Mr Skeptic]

Severian, unless you intend to do an evolutionary experiment to genetically decrease violence, or simply want very harsh punishments, you death penalty for any violent crime seems excessive. Many people commit crimes in the passion of the moment, or because they do not believe they will be caught... the severity of punishment will have little effect here. Many of them are unlikely to reoffend, so killing them will have little effect. Meanwhile, we lose some potentially good citizens.

 

Certainly, when dead they cannot reoffend. But, they also cannot contribute in any positive way to society or the economy, and of course still did commit that first offense.

 

And what is punishment for? It does not, of itself, help society, the victim, nor the criminal. The real objective is the side effects. The victim and society might feel more satisfied if they feel that justice has been served, and more at ease if they feel the criminal will not re-offend. Potential pre-meditated crimes may be prevented by the threat of punishment (society's feeling of justice being served). The criminal presumably "learns their lesson" and presumably should be less likely to re-offend. Also significant is the portion of people who get away with a crime.

 

Overpunishment, on the other hand, will have people hating the government, especially if innocents are caught in the crossfire. This will breed a general distrust and disrespect of the government, which can increase crime and make it harder to catch. The criminals, as well, if they feel over-punished may seek vengeance for the punishment, instead of being less criminal. Even the victim, might be less likely to report a crime if the punishment is over-harsh, especially if it is someone they know (which is quite frequently).

 

In my view, the purpose of punishment is to promote a feeling of justice having been served, which will also act as a deterrent. Not to prevent recurrence: that is the job of rehabilitation. I suspect that it is this last bit about the purpose of punishment that is the major difference in opinions overall, and also the comparative value of a criminal's life to an innocent's. My view on this is that a criminal's life is worth between 0 and 1 innocent's life, depending on the crime, but for the most part close to 1 for a non-career criminal.

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The fact is, a stringent death penalty would save lives.

 

At best it would save innocent lives, and even then only if only the sentencing is highly accurate. Sure, for serial killers and the like a death penalty would prevent more deaths than it causes.

[Pangloss]

This thread is amazingly full of logical fallacies. Slippery slope arguments and appeals to emotion are all here in abundance. I have yet to see a compelling argument against the death penalty other than a 'ohhh - its wrong!'

 

If you don't mind my backing up a bit, what about the argument that points out the number of cases of people who have been found guilty, only to have direct scientific evidence later prove them innocent?

[The Bear's Key]

This thread is amazingly full of logical fallacies. Slippery slope arguments and appeals to emotion are all here in abundance. I have yet to see a compelling argument against the death penalty other than a 'ohhh - its wrong!'

Have you so quickly forgotten...

 

I was once a strong advocate for the reintroduction of the Death Penalty in Australia for much the same reasons as Severian listed. I changed my mind.

200 years ago the English used both the Death Penalty for "major" crimes and "Transportation for Life" for minor ones like stealing a loaf of bread. As a lot of people came to Australia this way I think that itis fair to say that it had no deterrent effect.

In fact, since the DP has existed for all of recorded history and we still have problems its "deterrence" effect must be very small if existant at all.

Severian, you haven't qualified your opinions with facts. JohnB took great lengths to supply examples, and others have linked to data to support opinions. Then you mosey in, perhaps after readers have forgotten, and make easy claims totally without being specific.

 

In essence -- and I'm not saying you're doing it purposefully -- the same tactics by climate instability wanna-be "debunkers".

 

As a strategy fan, I recognize what implication that effect has for legitimate opinions. And I'm going to put the effect/result in slightly mathematical terms.

 

If you make inaccurate statements, the energy into research is much lower than the energy people have to put into research for debunking what you said. Thus the reason why oil companies' spending (i.e. energy input) for their propaganda against climate instability is far less than organizations dedicated to maintaining facts and databasing them.

 

So easy propaganda, followed by more work to combat it, followed by the same propaganda, ad infinitum, etc, will result in the propaganda eventually having a cheaper budget.

 

 

Sometimes tough decisions need to be made in order to improve society.

In that case, you might support any ideology, healthcare paid in bulk for cheapness to all, spending temporarily increased to fortify system and infrastructure, tons of money to upgrade public schools, no death penalty, for sometimes tough decisions need to be made in order to improve society.

 

Cool

 

 

I am quite prepared to shoulder the moral responsibility for the innocent lives that are lost accidentally through wrongful convictions, but the death penalty opposers wash their hands of the responsibility they bear for the rapes, abuse and deaths caused by re-offenders they have put back on the street.

And the death penalty supporters wash their hands of the responsibility they bear for potentially corrupting our system of government.

 

 

The fact is, a stringent death penalty would save lives.

Correction....the fiction is, what you just said above. Check out Kyrisch's link in the OP.

 

Within 30 years (recent) of executions...

 

Northeast: 4 death penalties. Murder rate: 4.2 (per 100,000 people)

Midwest: 134 death penalties. Murder rate: 4.9 (per 100,000 people)

West: 67 death penalties. Murder rate: 5.5 (per 100,000 people)

South: 970 death penalties. Murder rate: 6.7 (per 100,000 people)

 

 

Explain yourself.

 

From the many data contradicting the supposedly "obvious", it's fairly easy to see why the right-winged politicians hate "big" government also: the neatly ordered statistics put their invented reality under the spotlight's focus.

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Also of interest, look at Japan's capital punishment activities, which have been effecively suspended a few months ago in 2009.

 

The following is a description from 2003-2004.

 

 

http://www.japansociety.org/content.cfm?page=a_secret_theater

The gallows are used about

twice a year

in Japan

.....

Japan and the U.S. are the only two industrial democracies that regularly carry out the death penalty.

........

when a Japanese prison guard is told to carry out an execution, he may not refuse, even if he has a conscientious objection to the death penalty.

.....

Prosecutors, too, are required to serve as witnesses if assigned to do so. Upon returning from this close encounter with death, however, a prosecutor may find the floor of his office strewn with salt, a co-worker's thoughtful act of

ritual purification

.

.....

Probably the biggest difference between the death penalty in Japan and the death penalty in the U.S. is that the entire process in Japan is

shrouded in secrecy

.

.....

visits limited to a bare minimum of family members and defense counsel. No press is allowed, ever. Indeed, it took a group of anti-death penalty members of the Diet five years to negotiate a visit to the Tokyo Detention Center gallows--not to see an actual execution, but just to see the place

.....

The lawmakers were not permitted to take photographs.

........

executions themselves are

closed to the press and public

. Until 1998, they were not even officially announced after the fact

........

According to the government, a blanket of isolation and quiet must cover death row to assist those who are to be executed in coming to terms with their inevitable fate. Any other policy, I was told, would result in

psychological damage

. Additionally, publicity about individuals on death row would invade the privacy of their families on the outside, who might feel shamed or ostracized by their communities.

........

Japanese defendants in capital murder cases have far fewer procedural rights than do their U.S. counterparts.

...

No Japanese suspect, even in an ordinary criminal case, has a right to the assistance of an attorney during police questioning, for example. Nor are there jury trials; the judges who sit on trials are employees of the same Ministry of Justice for which the prosecutors, products of the same law-school social network, also work. Nor must prosecutors disclose all information in their files to the defense. The conviction rate in Japanese criminal trials is 99 percent.

........

supporters are

loath to expose

any aspect of the death penalty to

public scrutiny

, and opponents do not wish to legitimize the punishment by arguing over how it should be carried out.

.....

Japanese prosecutors are far from indiscriminate in recommending the death penalty. They are, in fact, guided by a 1983 Supreme Court opinion which urged that capital punishment be reserved for certain particularly heinous offenders, such as those who commit

multiple murders at once

.

........

Japan appears to be

increasing its use

of capital punishment, whereas the U.S. trend is moving the other way. In 1992, Japan sentenced just one person to death; 10 years later, as I mentioned, 18 people were condemned.

........

crime in general is rising

in Japan, while it is falling in the United States.

...

While Japan is still much safer than America--so safe that I felt no qualms about letting my

seven-year-old child

run freely through the subway tunnels

at all hours

--it is, by all indications, far less safe than it used to be.

.....

Pay extra close attention to the bolded for thinking about.

 

 

Secrecy is apparently one main key for why the public allows so-called "tougher" measures by government, i.e. to premeditate death.

 

The rise in capital punishments by Japan is matched by increase in crime.

 

And Japan has both a lower rate of crime and fewer death sentences than the U.S.

Edited February 16, 2010 by The Bear's Key

[Mr Skeptic]

Also, I forgot to add, a stringent death penalty will produce many criminals with nothing-to-lose syndrome. Why not kill witnesses, go down shooting?

[JohnB]

Sometimes tough decisions need to be made in order to improve society.

And sometimes even tougher ones are needed in order to improve government.

 

They are not the same thing at all. One is lawful killing,the other is not. It is perfectly well defined.

Ah, so the lesson is that only governments can engage in premeditated murder?

As I said above, the objective is simply to prevent re-offending. I can guarantee that a dead person won't re-offend

That is possibly the dumbest argument I've ever heard. Talk about being able to be used to justify anything.

 

Cutting off a thief's hand will also prevent his re-offending.

 

You could use it to save on dentistry. Pull out everybody's teeth and the cavity rate will drop to nothing.

 

Can't you come up with a better reason than "Me not like! Kill! Kill!"?

 

The bottom line of your argument is that it is alright for the government to decide who is "expendable" and kill them.

 

The bottom line for me is that it is not.

 

Call it a philosophical argument if you want, but I believe that killing defencless prisoners is always wrong. You don't. You're quite happy to kill defencless people so long as it's "within the rules".

 

While it is possible that someone might kill a prisoner anyway and abuse their position, under my way they do so in the full knowledge that the law is against them. Under your system they figure that with a good lawyer they might get away with it. Besides, wasn't "The State" going to kill them anyway?

 

iNow talks of hypocrisy, but I think the hypocrisy is in the camp of those who oppose the death penalty. I am quite prepared to shoulder the moral responsibility for the innocent lives that are lost accidentally through wrongful convictions, but the death penalty opposers wash their hands of the responsibility they bear for the rapes, abuse and deaths caused by re-offenders they have put back on the street.

Wrong. I am quite happy to pay taxes so that those who need it can be incarcerated "for the term of their natural lives". Unless you are going to institute the DP for every crime there will always be re-offenders. Your argument is invalid.

 

The fact is, a stringent death penalty would save lives.

Prove it. It shouldn't be hard. The US with the DP has a national murder rate of 4.2 per 100,000 while Australia without it has a rate of 1.5 per 100,000.

 

So obviously the DP has led to the much lower rate in the US...... Oh, oh.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

http://www.sgc.wa.gov/PUBS/Recidivism/Adult_Recidivism_CY04.pdf

 

In Washington state, the recidivism (re-offense) rate was highest, at 66%, for property-related felonies, and lowest, between 26% and 35%, for sex- and violence-related charges of murder, manslaughter, and rape. (Although assault was higher, I'm not sure what constitutes assault in Washington. Punching someone in the face may count.)

 

Not every murderer will murder more people when released. In fact, only a minority will. But we should kill all of them?

 

If a third of murderers re-offend, they'd have to kill more than two people each to outweigh the number of deaths from a kill-everyone system.

[vordhosbn]

Punishing people for what they might do, does not seem to be just in any way.

[Severian]

I have been trying not to get too involved in this discussion, but I think I should probably respond to that last one, since it was a bit confrontational.

 

Ah, so the lesson is that only governments can engage in premeditated murder?

 

It is not 'murder' if it is lawful. Remember that laws are not made by the government - they are made by the people via representative democracy. If you think a policy is wrong, don't vote for it.

 

It is also illegal for me to lock you up in my basement. But it is not illegal for the government to lock you up if you are found guilty of a crime.

 

So this is a straw-man argument.

 

That is possibly the dumbest argument I've ever heard. Talk about being able to be used to justify anything.

Why is it dumb? It is clearly true - dead people don't re-offend.

 

Interestingly this brings to the fore the fundamental difference between our two positions: the end objective of the exercise.

 

My position is that our justice system should not be about revenge or punishment - it should be about protecting society, so that society functions in the optimal way without constructive law-abiding citizens being hampered (or killed!) by crime.

 

If I was aware of a crime committed abut was 100% sure that the criminal would not re-offend, then I would be happy to let him be 'unpunished'. It is not quite so stark a choice in reality though, since you can never be 100% sure and no penalty at all would encourage others to do it too. (As an example, if I have been the judge on that recent case where a mother killed her son who was dieing and in pain, I would have let her off.)

 

On the other hand, it seems to me that you are more interested in punishment. A criminal needs to 'pay his due' and suddenly everything is forgiven and forgotten.

 

Cutting off a thief's hand will also prevent his re-offending.

Theft is not a violent crime, so this is completely outside the discussion. Another straw man. (And cutting off a thief's hand probably doesn't prevent his re-offending.)

 

You could use it to save on dentistry. Pull out everybody's teeth and the cavity rate will drop to nothing.

If you pull out all the teeth, the mouth does not function well. The objective would be to pull out the bad ones. If it is just a cavity, your dentist can fill it, but if the decay is down to the root, would you not want it removed? I think you need to find a new dentist.

 

Can't you come up with a better reason than "Me not like! Kill! Kill!"?

Who said anything about 'like'? I have nothing against these people personally. I have just weighed up the facts, and realised that society would function more optimally without them.

 

The bottom line of your argument is that it is alright for the government to decide who is "expendable" and kill them.

 

The bottom line for me is that it is not.

That's democracy!

 

Call it a philosophical argument if you want, but I believe that killing defencless prisoners is always wrong. You don't. You're quite happy to kill defencless people so long as it's "within the rules".

Actually, I also think it is wrong to kill under any circumstances. But this is a moral stance. Government should not be enforcing moral stances on us - it should be determining the policies that lead to the 'best' (however one defines that) running of society and then allow us to choose between options by democratic vote.

 

I don't understand how you think "killing defencless prisoners is always wrong" (sic) but locking them up in a hell-hole isn't.

 

Wrong. I am quite happy to pay taxes so that those who need it can be incarcerated "for the term of their natural lives". Unless you are going to institute the DP for every crime there will always be re-offenders. Your argument is invalid.

The number of people who are locked up until they die (of old age) is tiny. Most violent criminals are free in a few years and go back to committing violent crimes again. So the current system does not do what you advertise. If you were to lock up the people "for the term of their natural lives" who need to be locked up, it would be prohibitively expensive.

 

Furthermore, I am not happy for government to take money from poor families in order to provide for and protect society from violent offenders.

 

Also, you are wrong with the last statement. If you execute all violent offenders, the re-offending rate would be zero. People who didn't commit violent crimes and then did would not be "re-offending" since they hadn't offended in the first place!

 

Prove it. It shouldn't be hard.

Isn't it obvious? The majority of murders are committed by people who had been previously convicted of violent crime. Clearly the majority of murders wouldn't happen any more.

 

The US with the DP has a national murder rate of 4.2 per 100,000 while Australia without it has a rate of 1.5 per 100,000.

 

So obviously the DP has led to the much lower rate in the US...... Oh, oh.

The US has a higher rate of murder for numerous reasons, none of which have anything to do with the death penalty. For example, the inequalities of wealth, the stupid policy of putting non-violent offenders in with hardened criminals, the drugy policy etc etc.

[JohnB]

I have just weighed up the facts, and realised that society would function more optimally without them.

 

And you can't see the problem with this? People have said exactly the same thing about Gypsies, Jews, Negroes, Gays, the Mentally impaired, intelligent people, the list is very long and bloody.

 

Your reasoning stands squarely beside Pol Pot and his ilk.

 

Remember that laws are not made by the government - they are made by the people via representative democracy. If you think a policy is wrong, don't vote for it.

Fascinating. The people vote on every piece of legislation that goes into the House? So tell me why the Health Bill failed? Laws are written by lawyers and decided on by politicians, the people get bugger all say in it. Oh, they get to vote on how their rep has done (in general) once every 3 - 4 years or so, but they have no say in the writing or passing of each law.

 

Isn't it obvious? The majority of murders are committed by people who had been previously convicted of violent crime. Clearly the majority of murders wouldn't happen any more.

Asking "Isn't it obvious?" is normally the first sign of lack of proof. As Cap'n Refsmmat showed, the majority of murders are not done by re-offenders. Your argument is invalid.

 

(General comments follow and don't apply to any individual nation.)

 

In general I see this debate as a moral/political one. If we assume that the government in a democratic nation reflects the will (or morals) of it's people in it's laws, then I would rather live in a society where "Kill them" is not an option for solving societal problems. Whether people like it or not, the evidence is that having (or not having) the DP has little effect on violent crime rates.

 

Violent crime is a societal problem, it doesn't come out of nowhere. If you keep your society structured in such a way as to produce violent criminals, then you will always have them. Your society is a factory that will keep producing them, no matter how many you kill.

 

The only way to end violent crime is to end the processes that produce violent criminals. (Excluding the occasional nutter who is totally unpredictable)

 

Death penalty or not, an affluent society that encourages people to be a part of that society has lower crime rates. It is the outcasts that become violent criminals. They become this because they are outcast, they don't feel a part of the society and therefore have no regard for the rules of that society.

 

Is it a coincidence that most violent criminals are from poor areas with poor schooling and little hope of advancement or integration into society? They don't start violent you know. Generally they start small and work up to it. Why not try to find a way to prevent them starting "small" in the first place?

 

iNow has mentioned in health threads that he has had to make some difficult choices in the past concerning buying medication. If he were from a different background and it was his son or daughter desperately needing medication, then it is not hard to imagine how stealing to pay for medication would become a viable option. And as time goes on, the stealing gets easier.

 

They can't move because they can't afford to, so what do the young ones learn? The only way to get ahead is to take from those who already have. Add that to the resentment felt by the "have nots" for the "haves" and you create a breeding ground for violent criminals.

 

So it is a moral/political choice. Do we want to live in a society that simply produces criminals and then kills them? Or, by removing the "Kill" option do we want a society that tries to find ways to prevent the production of violent criminals. While ever the "Kill" option is available, there is no need to make a society better and fairer.

 

Violent crime is a symptom of societal disease, not a cause. Killing the criminals only treats the symptom and leaves the cause untouched to produce more. But hey, it looks good at election time because it shows that the pollies are "doing something" about the problem.

 

I've made my choice. I would rather be part of a society that attempts to be better and fairer and tries to remove the things that result in violent criminals.

 

Severian, my society will advance because we are trying to make it better for everybody from day one. Yours will stagnate because you will simply keep producing criminals and then killing them. You have no incentive to advance towards a better and fairer society and so you won't.

 

The future of your society is in your hands, the choice is yours. Don't mess it up by only treating symptoms but not the cause.