What is the most humane way of killing a person convicted of a capital crime?
Do you support the use of execution as punishment for certain offences?
I’ve heard bad things about pretty much all types of execution. It seems that each new method that comes along, is hailed as being the most humane yet. However, they all have flaws.
What is your opinion on the different methods that have been / are used today, and how do you feel about the old saying “and eye for an eye”?
This is in serious GD territory.
I don’t care, but I think humane=quick and not terribly messy.
Absolutely.
Eye for an Eye - Some people have the view that society should evolve requiring death as a penalty. I’m not one of them. Just be damn certain you’re killing the right person is all I care about.
As an abstract concept, yes. I’m not one of those “Taking a life is always wrong, no matter what” type of people. Some people deserve to die as the only fitting punishment for their crimes.
However, the justice system is fallible, and the possibility of executing even one innocent person undermines the whole thing. So, until the justice system is 100% infallible (which will never happen) I cannot support execution as method of punishment.
I do care, and I think other people should, too. A preson should not be made to suffer when he is executed. The punishment is death, not torture. Any method of execution which causes unnecessary suffering, is unacceptable in my opinion.
This is possibly the most cited argument used against the death penalty. I agree totally. You better be 110% sure.
I’m personally in favor of quick, myself. Two bullets in the back of the head. Electrocution, gas chamber, lethal injection, hanging… they all have too many things that can go wrong.
If one accepts the necessity and value of capital punishment (a big if), the goal is to rid society of the perpetrator forever and serve as an example to others. The potential torture factor involved in the above listed methods is far too high and inhumane. Shoot the person in the back of the head with expanding bullets that won’t exit the skull, and he’s dead as any other “traditional” methods and without the risk of suffering cruelly.
I do not support the death penalty because I think it gives the state WAY too much power, but if we’re to have it, let’s have it efficient.
My quick opinions on those methods you mentioned…
Bullet to the back of the head - still used today in China as their preferred method. Seems fairly humane from what I can determine.
Electrocution - needless to say, this can be a very cruel way to die. Many things can go wrong.
Gas chamber - again, can go badly wrong.
Lethal injection
I tend to favour permanent incarseration, with the prisoner allowed to chose execution as an alternative. Whilst Incarserated Prisoners should as far as possible pay for their own upkeep through work programs within the prison. Prison should be harder work than going straight on the outside.
This raises an interesting side question.
If you were convicted of murder and faced life with no possibility of parole, would you prefer to serve out the sentence or be executed within a year?
Given a choice, I would rather serve life imprisonment rather than be executed. Of course, only I would know for sure if I was innocent or guilty. If I were imprisoned, there would always be a chance that my conviction could be overturned. If I were executed, then I would never have a second chance. Also, execution can be a very cruel way to die. As I would not wish possible torture on another person, I certainly wouldn’t wish it upon myself.
Could you rephrase that so that it makes sense grammatically at least? What view do you think some people have?
Exactly what would that extra 10% involve?
If you can’t spell incarcerated it’s tempting to suggest that you may not have studied the subject sufficiently to offer a worthwhile opinion. That’s not necessarily true of course, but since this is a classic subject for knee jerk responses arising from emotional reactions to the latest tabloid headlines it’s equally tempting to encourage more depth of thought.
I think it’s perfectly natural to desire revenge in cases where crimes seem especially shocking, but I’ve yet to be convinced that approaching this subject from the sentencing end produces satisfactory conclusions. I could easily draw you up a list of people I wouldn’t miss if they happened to disappear, but in the end I think looking for painless methods of bumping criminals off is a cop out – instead we should be exploring ways to discourage people from committing the crimes in the first place. Arguing about the details of acceptable punishment is too much like arguing about angels dancing on the head of a pin for my liking. YMMV.
everton I’m sure you can do better than attack my spelling.
You suggest
seems to be at least partially helped by ensuring that prison is a place where you work, and therefor gain experience in a working environment and the ability to succeed in such an environment.
everton I’m sure you can do better than attack my spelling.
You suggest
seems to be at least partially helped by ensuring that prison is a place where you work, and therefor gain experience in a working environment and the ability to succeed in such an environment.
I would argue also that prison sentences should be avoided whenever an alternative that allows the felon to remain integrated with society is possible. Also a persons criminal record should not be used to debar them from employment after their release. It is important to break the circle of decline in which some one after committing a crime and paying the penalty is now unable to find any legal employment and so is left in a position where committing more crime is the only way to survive.
But this is an IMHO OP so I just stated an opposition to anything but prisoner elected corporal punishment. Plus a small suggestion as how it could be made more cost efficient.
Damn, see what happens when I feed things to the spell checking monster 
Criticising spelling is often a cheap shot, so although mistakes do create their own negative impression (and they’re always worth keeping an eye on) I meant no offence by that Bippy.
I think you’re right that it makes no sense if a custodial sentence disables a convicted person from returning to society afterwards as a competent participant, but I suggest that your previous suggestion: “Prison should be harder work than going straight on the outside” doesn’t follow.
If imprisonment is a punishment in itself (and it is), then there’s no reason for the work prisoners do to add to that punishment; it’s only necessary for the work to rehabilitate them for their return to society after the sentence is complete. In any case, since the choice offered by the OP is about execution or not (and what method we think is satisfactory), whatever they do instead of getting killed is of secondary consideration. Arguments about how you propose to kill someone and whether one method is more humane than another seem obscene to me anyway.
It’s difficult to give full consideration to this subject in this forum, so I should stop there except to add a reminder that ‘corporal punishment’ means flogging etc. of course, not the death penalty (= capital punishment).
Moving this to Great Debates.
I’m also worried about the potential to execute the wrong person. I think a judge who hands down a death sentence should be executed himself if the suspect is ever proven innocent. That ought to be enough of an incentive to be 100% sure of guilt.
Give them a lightening rod and have them run naked through a corn field during a rain storm. 
Ok, perhaps not practical. Personally I think a bullet to the back of the head would be the most humane.
That being said, I’m pretty much emphatically anti-death penalty.
While I agree that there are some criminals that are incapable of being rehabilitated, the death-penalty is still state sanctioned murder, IMHO.
One of the difficulties is that, in my opinion, guilt can never be proven 100%. In a courtroom, yes guilt can be proven beyond reasonable doubt, but in reality we all know that justice is never infallible. There is always new evidence that can come to light. Usually the only person that knows the full truth is the real perpertrator.
Whatever the method, cruelty shouldn’t be a factor so long as certain death is the outcome. We do need to be sure that the person is guilty, but the means is not important. Probably much more anguish is endured in the days or moments prior to the execution than the minute, or 5 minutes or whatever it takes to do the job. Firing squad seems to have worked well. Two bullets to the back of the head works well too. Gas chamber,electrocution, injections all work. Some take a little longer, but all are for sure. I think we are a little too concerned about what the witnesses may see, such as a head popping off because the drop was too long because of the weight etc. Maybe we don’t like the smell. Maybe we need to have 4 guns with blanks and who knows who the real executioner is. Main point is, capital or not, punishment is punishment. We need to draw a line between incarceration for rehabilitation and incarceration for punishment. I see no point in incarcerating anyone for the rest of their natural life. They are as guilty as the death row guy, but of absolutely no value to society, only a burden. The legal system is badly in need of reform. We have citizens in prison- even on death row who shouldn’t be there. Time to do some reviewing, especially due to new technology, not due to legal “technicalities.”
Mr 2001:
And if the accused is proved inocent, then later reconfirmed to be guilty, and in the meantime you’ve executed the original judge, where does that leave you? All this is strictly hypothetical, but I think you get my point.