Why the Death Penalty is a Good Thing

[radcen]

Those who advocate the DP immediately after first conviction, and are willing to accept innocent deaths as acceptable collateral damage, also essentially... albeit probably unwittingly... advocate the concept of "guilty unless proven innocent". In other words, a complete and total disregard for what our justice system is supposed to be about. The end result is the same.

 

[Sig]

Those who advocate the DP immediately after first conviction, and are willing to accept innocent deaths as acceptable collateral damage, also essentially... albeit probably unwittingly... advocate the concept of "guilty unless proven innocent".

What in the world are you blathering about? Who said anything about advocating "guilty until proven innocent"?

Explain yourself or get lost.

 

[Sherman123]

Actually, it happens all the time. Short of absolute solitary confinement, it is impossible to prevent one inmate from ordering the killing of another inmate, a guard, or any civilian on the outside.




So you value human life. So do I. Unfortunately, valuing human life does not nearly resolve our dilemma, which, I remind you, is about the existential reality of choice, not death. Like it or not, we are forced to choose between killing the incorrigibly homicidal criminal or risking the possibility that he will continue to harm others, even if only a prison guard or another inmate. Of course, it would be absurd to suggest that the life of this prison guard or inmate is somehow less existentially valuable than that of the incorrigible criminal at hand. Yet that is what you are ultimately suggesting here.



You do realize that death row inmates are held under much tighter security than lifers? There are also comparatively few of them, and for many of them, the DP appears to have some degree of rehabilitative effect now that the existential reality of death is pressing down upon them so heavily. Many appear to have serious concerns about what will become of them in the hereafter.

Thus, you are looking at the wrong "continuum of possibilities." The problem does not lie among death row inmates. The problem lies among inmates sentenced to LWOP. Lifers are notorious for committing all sorts of atrocities while serving out the length of their term.

To the first point, I think you and I both know that murder and violence in prison is not empirical evidence of pathology, and is probably as much a result of conditions and judicial approach than anything else. I assumed we were talking about sociopaths, people who are medically or neurobiologically inclined towards an act of violence. I would still suggest that for that sociopath, the person who is incorrigible and will commit his crime again with no chance of reform with our current capabilities, and again I say that I think this is a small number, we should lock them away in separate facilities. I don't see a real scenario where we are forced to execute an individual to safeguard the lives of others from repeated or imminent harm.

 

[Sig]

To the first point, I think you and I both know that murder and violence in prison is not empirical evidence of pathology, and is probably as much a result of conditions and judicial approach than anything else.

LWOP will, in itself, produce pathologies of all sorts in the fullness of time, for reasons which are obvious. That being said, there are some very bad people in our prisons. In fact, there are a lot of them. The combination of lifelong sentences with personality types which are particularly antagonistic to such restricted living conditions and particularly vulnerable to the psychological pathologies such conditions evoke, turn most of our maximum security prisons into virtual psychiatric hospitals where murder and violence are most definitely empirical evidence of psychosocial pathology of the most dangerous kind.

I assumed we were talking about sociopaths, people who are medically or neurobiologically inclined towards an act of violence. I would still suggest that for that sociopath, the person who is incorrigible and will commit his crime again with no chance of reform with our current capabilities, and again I say that I think this is a small number, we should lock them away in separate facilities. I don't see a real scenario where we are forced to execute an individual to safeguard the lives of others from repeated or imminent harm.

Unfortunately, a great many inmates go into prison as relatively healthy individuals and come out as dangerous sociopaths thanks to the company they keep while serving their sentence. This is why the incorrigible sociopaths have to be culled: They breed more sociopaths through the conditions they create in our prisons and the effect they have on other inmates.

 

[Ryanm]

The question of should we have the death pentalty or not has to be answered in a certain way.

First, we have to decide what it's purpose is. Clearly, there is confusion.

Second, we have to decide if it meets that purpose.

Third, we have to decide if the rate of error is justified by that purpose.

If it is a deterrent, then we have better ways of deterring. If it is simply a punishment and nothing else, we have better ways of punishing. If the intention is to be barbaric, we have better ways of being barbaric.

So I suppose it really meets none of those reasons because we have something better already.

That leaves the question about the rate of error being justified by the purpose. Here's the problem. Even without death, errors in the justice system are no walk in the park. If you put someone in prison for life without parole mistakenly you may as well have just put a bullet through their skull if the truth never surfaces.

All of these anti DP people want to act like not killing someone is the solution to when the justice system ****s up. It's not a solution.

The justice system wrongfully convicting people is a problem in itself. If you ask me, that's subject matter for an entirely different thread.

So... on the DP. If it's a deterrent, then do something worse to the person than death; torture. If it is a punishment, then do something worse than kill them; torture them. If it is simply an archaic act, then do an even more archaic act; torture them.

If the purpose is to ensure that they can never murder again, then kill them.(or freeze them in cryogenic stasis for experimentation)