This is why I'm for the death penalty.

[Thug Bubbles]

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innocent people get killed by the death penality though, not just bad people.

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Technically not a single executed person has been proven with DNA evidence to have been innocent of the convicted crime.

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This means absolutely nothing (for a wealth of reasons.)

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True, but I was just pointing out that you cannot say people have been innocently executed when nobody has been proven to be innocently executed. This doesn't mean confirm anything beyond that small point, however. It takes some heavy willful ignorance to believe that ANY mandate won't have failings from time to time.

[xorbie]

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The principle is exactly the same, and Im pretty sure you know it too.

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Huh? Now I don't even know what we are talking about anymore. I certainly don't think criminal punishment is about revenge, that is a principle most civilized societies left behind hundreds of years ago. Though I'm sure many get their kicks out of believing it is and like it.

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What's wrong with revenge exactly? Not that I think the criminal justice system should be about "revenge" entirely, but ask yourself what "justice" means in this case...

[elwoodblues]

Clearly, revenge/retribution are a component of the criminal justice system. The question is what weight should we give to it. For what it's worth, I would say that the four main justifications for criminal justice are/should be:
1) Removal (public safety --- remove criminals from society to prevent further harm)
2) Retribution/Revenge
3) Rehabilitation
4) Deterrence

Capital Punishment does not accomplish #1 any better than life in prison w/out parole, it accomplishes 2, does not accomplish 3, and it is HIGHLY questionable whether it helps with 4 in any appreciable way greater than prison terms. So, ultimately, it boils down to retribution.

[tame_deuces]

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Great. I oppose the death penalty as a form punishment because in a modern society it has high cost of error (ethically), enormous costs and little utility. I oppose most long prison sentences for the same reasons.

And then you can debate against that if you wish, and how you can avoid revenge casting a fairly heavy shadow on the death penalty arguments.

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Im in favor of death penalty and long prison sentences because the high cost of error of releasing known murderers that may not be as rehabilitated that we would like to think they are far exceeds the cost of having them in prison.


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From a utilitarian perspective you want the system that has the highest chance of getting fewer crimes. Death penalties and long sentences have shown very low effect in that regard.

[DVaut1]

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The principle is exactly the same, and Im pretty sure you know it too.

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Huh? Now I don't even know what we are talking about anymore. I certainly don't think criminal punishment is about revenge, that is a principle most civilized societies left behind hundreds of years ago. Though I'm sure many get their kicks out of believing it is and like it.

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What's wrong with revenge exactly? Not that I think the criminal justice system should be about "revenge" entirely, but ask yourself what "justice" means in this case...

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I don't think retributive justice (crudely referred to as 'revenge' here) is necessarily something to scoff at. I'm happy when people who do bad things are punished, and I suspect most other people are too. Imagine a hypothetical world where we could find some terrible criminal monster like Dennis Rader and give him some kind of ankle bracelet that we could know, with 100% certainty, would prevent him from killing again. Let's say we've also concluded, somehow, that Rader is 100% un-rehabilitatable. And by some magic, we've also managed to conclude that it's completely impossible someone will ever repeat his crimes. Given this, should we allow him to live a free and unencumbered life, sans punishment, despite the fact that he's caused so much pain, suffering, and misery in his community? Our hypothetical has magically addressed the concerns about deterrence and rehabilitation -- but I many people would be comfortable letting Rader go free in such a hypothetical. And I think the answer is clear as to why most people wouldn't be comfortable, and it's because I think a 'just' society would necessarily have to punish someone like Rader, justified by the simple notion that he deserves it. And I would be surprised if many people would disagree with this.

That isn't to say I approve of severe forms of physical punishment, but I'm a firm believer that getting what's 'deserved' is part (and probably only a part) of achieving justice. Having said that, I think especially important for a moral society to try to balance desert with fairness. For example, I may think a rapist deserves to sit in prison for 10 years for their crime, but if we've only been punishing other rapists to 1 year in prison, we should probably take that into consideration. There are other factors to take into consideration as well. But I think desert is one of those factors we should take into consideration, and I think we can defend retributive justice once we accept the Rader-type hypothetical and the concept of just desert.

[mosdef]

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I don't think retributive justice (crudely referred to as 'revenge' here) is necessarily something to scoff at. I'm happy when people who do bad things are punished, and I suspect most other people are too. I mean, imagine a hypothetical world where we could find some terrible criminal monster like Dennis Rader and give him some kind of ankle bracelet that we could know, with 100% certainty, would prevent him from killing again. Let's say we've also concluded, somehow, that Rader is 100% un-rehabilitatable. And by some magic, we've also managed to conclude that it's completely impossible someone will ever repeat his crimes. Should we allow him to live a free and unencumbered life, sans punishment, despite the fact that he's caused so much pain, suffering, and misery in his community?

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I don't think he could possibly lead a free and unencumbered life even if he's not imprisoned/killed. How many people would sell him a place to live? Food? How pleasant will his life be?

[DVaut1]

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I don't think he could possibly lead a free and unencumbered life even if he's not imprisoned/killed. How many people would sell him a place to live? Food? How pleasant will his life be?

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There are 6 billion people on this planet; I'm sure there are a couple of billion who have never heard of the guy.

How pleasant is Whitey Bolger's life? If it's unpleasant at all, it's only because he's bothered by consistently trying to escape law enforcement. Perhaps a better question would be "how pleasant was White Bulger's life for the decades the Boston Police ignored him"? I obviously don't know the guy, but given his reported lifestyle, the answer is: very. Even when he was a fugitive, he apparently lived a happy life living with friends in Louisiana before he ostensibly left the country.

In case my point isn't clear, Bulgar was a criminal, murderer, feared gangster, etc. who pretty much ran South Boston for a couple of decades. You can surely Google him up for a list of all the brutal [censored] he did to people for twenty or thirty years. It was absolutely no secret to anyone what he did and what his lifestyle was like, and yet he had no problem running a convenience store where people shopped, finding friends, buying food, socializing, etc. He had a family. A house. He worked on political campaigns. Took vacations. Had millions of dollars. And then the feds finally came after him after a couple of decades, and he disappeared and is apparently living it up with his mistress in Europe. Why is that? Let's try this Socratically.

I understand, you know some ridiculous ACist talking points. That's cute. Maybe you could try thinking critically about this one for a little bit, though. pvn and Boro may or may not have this answer for you, try PMing them I guess.

I suppose half of me isn't intending to be a huge douche, so I'll go ahead and just let the cat out of the bag and answer this for you: the notion that bad people (even ones who commit terrible crimes and horrid acts of inhumanity) won't be able to live a happy life after said acts because "people won't sell them a place to live" or "sell food to them" is hilarious on its face, and is completely contradicted by no less than thousands of contemporary examples, I'm sure. I'm sure you're actually aware of all this, had you thought about it for more than a moment or two. Of course, ACtarding is more fun, so why bother with thinking and such.

[fmxda]

Why is the United States the only modern, developed, democratic country with regular use of the death penalty?

[slickss]

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Why is the United States the only modern, developed, democratic country with regular use of the death penalty?

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Good question. I was hoping someone would address that question when I posted the facts. In case someone missed them, here they are again:

- In 2006, 91 per cent of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and the USA.

- Ten countries since 1990 are known to have executed 58 prisoners who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime – Afghanistan, China, Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, USA and Yemen.

From amnesty.com

[DVaut1]

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- Ten countries since 1990 are known to have executed 58 prisoners who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime – Afghanistan, China, Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, USA and Yemen.

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This is a good list to be on IMO; always nice be mentioned with Nigeria, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia on a survey of who uses a questionable punishment tactic.