What’s your point, exactly?
[QUOTE=Peter Morris]
What’s your point, exactly?
[/QUOTE]
My point is that you were trying to claim that the statistics said something they didn’t.
You cannot simply take the average for every crime from murder to involuntary manslaughter and assume that it is exactly the same percentage for each one individually. It is no more valid than taking the statistic given for prisoners who were convicted of any offense (0.8%), and extrapolating that each of the categories must have the exact same rearrest rate.
Not only that, but the statistics given for “homicide” will be skewed towards those crimes with the highest release rates. Whether because the crime is committed more frequently, or because murderers are more likely to be imprisoned for life than people who commit involuntary manslaughter, the statistic you were trying to use are more likely to reflect more common, less harsh crimes of homicide.
Do you need me to produce further evidence of why your assumption was flawed, or do you concede the point?
[QUOTE=Grumman]
My point is that you were trying to claim that the statistics said something they didn’t.
[/quote]
No.
I didn’t. I never said anything about averages. The figure I gave was the total.
That’s the point, isn’t it. The ones who are released, and kill again, that is exactly what is being discussed. Of course it should be biased towards the ones that are released more often.
Go right ahead.
You haven’t made a point so far.
[QUOTE=Peter Morris]
I didn’t. I never said anything about averages. The figure I gave was the total.
[/quote]
The total for murder, voluntary manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, negligent manslaughter, nonnegligent manslaughter, unspecified manslaughter, and unspecified homicide.
[QUOTE=Peter Morris]
Statistically speaking, you are more likely to be murdered by a paroled car thief than by a paroled or escaped murderer. This is a well-established fact. See the acrobat file here and look at table 10.
Arrested for homicide, most serious previous offence car theft = 2.4%
Arrested for homicide, most serious previous offence homicide = 1.2%
Which shows that car thieves are twice as dangerous as murderers.
[/QUOTE]
(Emphasis mine)
A statistic for all homicides is not the same as a statistic for all murders. Murder is only a subset of the crimes covered by the term “homicide”.
[QUOTE=Grumman]
The total for murder, voluntary manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, negligent manslaughter, nonnegligent manslaughter, unspecified manslaughter, and unspecified homicide..
[/QUOTE]
That is exactly the whole point. I don’t know what you think you’ve proved.
[QUOTE=pingnak]
OK, I’m going to tell you that I DO NOT CARE if innocent parties are killed. Everybody dies some time.
I would gladly DIE myself if falsely accused. Strap me down and put that needle in. They push the plunger, I black out, and that’s it. I’d certainly rather die than be put in prison, even for just a year. Better than being sick in a hospital and dying. Better than most kinds of death on our highways.
The reason for this is simple. For capital punishment to have any deterrent effect, it must be carried out swiftly. If it can be appealed more or less indefinitely, then it becomes just another version of a ‘life’ sentence with private accommodations.
The only terror of a ‘Death Penalty’ is that there are no appeals. If some wretch is sentenced to die, then that sentence should be carried out on the same day. Let the jury on hand for the trial be the witnesses. Let the people who made the decision see it carried out.
If an innocent man dies, at least he doesn’t have to wait long for it to happen. He doesn’t have to spend years, even decades, possibly his whole life suffering in a prison.
I believe that capital punishment should be applied to ALL perpetrators of violent crime. Screw this ‘Three Strikes’ B.S. That’s two strikes too many. Two (but probably MANY) EXTRA victims of the same monster who never should have been freed to cause them to suffer by his hands.
[/QUOTE]
Put their heads on pikes, have the executions in the town square, and you’ve got Elizabethan England, pretty much. We know from history that this policy worked really well in eliminating crime, right? :rolleyes:
In fact, if any violent crime would result in an execution, potentially violent criminals would want to eliminate witnesses, to improve their chances of escape. So your policy would lead to the deaths of innocent people beyond those falsely accused. So, advocates of this would be advocating murder, effectively, which is just as bad, and so should be a capital crime also.
You may report to the execution chamber at your convenience.
Now, if this whole post was a reductio ad absurdum, then good one.
peter, statistics are a bit slippery. For example, you say:
[QUOTE=peter morris]
Statistically speaking, you are more likely to be murdered by a paroled car thief than by a paroled or escaped murderer. This is a well-established fact. See the acrobat file here and look at table 10.
Arrested for homicide, most serious previous offence car theft = 2.4%
Arrested for homicide, most serious previous offence homicide = 1.2%
[/QUOTE]
There are several possible interpretations of these statistics.
One is that car theft is a “gateway crime” that leads to homicide, or that car thieves are generally very violent.
Another is that there are many more more people on the street who are ex-car thieves than ex-murderers.
Me, I tend towards the latter interpretation because a) there’s many more car thieves in the world than there are murderers, and b) murderers are much less likely to be released from prison than are car thieves.
Now, my guess would be b), so let me take a look … OK, my hunch was right. In your cite, the number of released prisoners who were in for homicide was 4,443. The number released after being in for car theft was 9,478. So on a per capita basis, released murderers were more likely to kill someone than released car thieves …
However, I’m not sure what that proves, or what you think it proves, other than the obvious.
w.
[QUOTE=Voyager]
In fact, if any violent crime would result in an execution, potentially violent criminals would want to eliminate witnesses, to improve their chances of escape.
[/QUOTE]
They wouldn’t stop at witnesses. Judges, prosecutors, cops, jurors… it’d open season.
[QUOTE=Voyager]
Put their heads on pikes, have the executions in the town square, and you’ve got Elizabethan England, pretty much. We know from history that this policy worked really well in eliminating crime, right? :rolleyes:
In fact, if any violent crime would result in an execution, potentially violent criminals would want to eliminate witnesses, to improve their chances of escape. So your policy would lead to the deaths of innocent people beyond those falsely accused. So, advocates of this would be advocating murder, effectively, which is just as bad, and so should be a capital crime also.
You may report to the execution chamber at your convenience.
Now, if this whole post was a reductio ad absurdum, then good one.
[/QUOTE]
I’m going to say that Pingnak has a point in a roundabout way. I think that people charged with determining the death penalty be issued for a particular crime ought to see it meted out. It seems to me that juries can be a bit like a bomber squadron over a very specific target. They sentence this person to death (drop the payload) and they’re tucked into their beds at night as pretty as you please.
While I’m pro death penalty, I think juries, rather, people, who are forced to see the punishment carried out may choose less often, the ultimate penalty.
[QUOTE=intention]
Me, I tend towards the latter interpretation because a) there’s many more car thieves in the world than there are murderers, and b) murderers are much less likely to be released from prison than are car thieves.
Now, my guess would be b), so let me take a look … OK, my hunch was right. In your cite, the number of released prisoners who were in for homicide was 4,443. The number released after being in for car theft was 9,478. So on a per capita basis, released murderers were more likely to kill someone than released car thieves …
[/quote]
No, I don’t think so. As far as I can understand it, those percentages are from the number of releases for each crime.
So, there were 4,443 released after imprisonment on some homicide charge.
Out of these, 1.2% were rearrested on some homicide charge.
There were 9,478 released after imprisonment for car theft.
Out of these, 2.4% were rearrested on some homicide charge.
(for the sake of pedants, homicide in the above figures includes anything from vehicular manslaughter to murder one)
It demonstrates a point which I’ve made several times. EVERY argument in support of the death penalty basically amounts to a desire to kill them in punishment, revenge, justice, retribution, or whatever synonym you want. Any other argument you may give presupposes this desire.
Some people claim to support the death penalty in order to stop them killing again. If that is true, then they should also want to execute car thieves, who are statistically twice as dangerous.
[QUOTE=Peter Morris]
EVERY argument in support of the death penalty basically amounts to a desire to kill them in punishment, revenge, justice, retribution, or whatever synonym you want. Any other argument you may give presupposes this desire.
[/quote]
Well, that’s incorrect. There’s also the dispassionate “put a mad dog down” position.
Well, I’d guess that a guy who kills his wife during an argument (a not-uncommon situation) is not guaranteed to kill his next wife. A car thief might graduate to murder. A serial killer who gets arrested in mid-spree probably would kill again. I wouldn’t treat these three the same way and I trust the courts won’t either.
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Well, that’s incorrect. There’s also the dispassionate “put a mad dog down” position.
[/quote]
Which is just another synonym for punishment.
Please follow the point.
-
A guy who murders his wife in an argument probably will be released, and might kill again.
-
A car thief will be released, and might kill someone in the future.
-
a serial killer will never be released. He will get a life sentence and never be parolled.
Out of the three of them, the serial killer is the least likely to kill in the future. The other two are much more dangerous.
Should those two be executed to prevent them from killing in the future? If not, why not?
[QUOTE=Peter Morris]
Which is just another synonym for punishment.
[/quote]
Well, not really. I’m not expecting the condemned convict or the rabid dog to learn from the experience of being put down, which I’ve always figured was a major facet of punishment. I guess you can define “punishment” so it’s a synonym for what I described. So what?
#3 will never escape? Ted Bundy wriggled free once or twice, though he was highly intelligent and trained in psychology. Sure, #1 and #2 might kill, or kill again. So could anybody, I guess.
I’ve proposed on this board a possible implementation scheme for a fast-track execution system. It might work, if only those pesky emotional pro- and con- arguments could be ignored.
Because that serves no purpose. I’d be okay with personally flipping the switch on a particular subset of convicted killers. I can see some value in taking out the admittedly one-in-a-million case now and then.
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
So what? #3 will never escape?
[/quote]
possible, but not very likely.
And car thieves might escape and kill someone too.
Oh, but it does serve a purpose. It prevents them from ever killing again.
It is vastly more likely that they will kill again than your hypothetical escaping serial killer. If you really want to prevent that from happening, it’s the car thieves that you should be executing.
So why don’t you support it for car thieves?
[QUOTE=Peter Morris]
And car thieves might escape and kill someone too.
[/quote]
Well, some member of this board might kill, too. I’m just not moved by the slippery-slopeness of your argument.
It’s not my primary goal, actually. I figure, very roughly, a population of a million might have one super-hardcore serial killer and maybe 500 car thieves, of whom 10 might eventually kill someone. Since the car thieves outnumber the serial killers, naturally enough they will collectively kill more people. Since we can’t know which 10 will make this step, executing the extra 490 is useless.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
I’ve proposed on this board a possible implementation scheme for a fast-track execution system. It might work, if only those pesky emotional pro- and con- arguments could be ignored.
[/QUOTE]
That’s the whole trouble though, isn’t it. If you eliminate those pesky emotional arguments, then you also eliminate your support for executions. All support for executions depends upon an emotional argument.
[QUOTE=Peter Morris]
That’s the whole trouble though, isn’t it. If you eliminate those pesky emotional arguments, then you also eliminate your support for executions. All support for executions depends upon an emotional argument.
[/QUOTE]
I’ll have to disagree. I can easily imagine feeling more emotional response for putting down a rabid dog than for, say, Charles Manson.
Had I to speculate, I’d guess that the major flaw in the American application of the death penalty is that it’s not restricted enough. If a state gets, say, a maximum of one a year, it will naturally fall on the case that has the best combination of heinousness, strength of evidence and certainly of guilt. I figure it would satisfy the public desire and not create a grindingly-slow appeals industry.
If Canada ever restores the DP, this is how I’d want it to be done. Of course, I have no expectation this reasoned approach will take hold, so we’re better off without it.