If the punishment for murder was two minutes in the time out room I doubt murder rate would change much. Most of us have a firm sense of right and wrong. Those that don’t deserve to be in jail. Murdering them makes us no better then them.
Permanently removing Mr. Murderer from society, you’re right, that would be a tragedy of epic proportions.
Interesting that you would say that, because that demonstrates that reasonable people can have a difference of opinion, however extreme it may be, without becoming a frothing-at-the-mouth jerk like our friend Arwin here.
It is possible for you to hold the position that a fetus is not a child. It is possible for me to hold the position that abortion is murder, the death penalty is acceptable with due process, and one has nothing to do with the other. And Arwin is welcome to think about that before more spittle hits his/her computer monitor.
Really? Wow. You have evidence that those guys are still walking around after they’ve been put to death? This I have to see! Where is it?
Please do not go with the cheap argument, because it doesn’t really matter to most anti-DP people how expensive it is. Anti-DP people would still be anti-DP people, even if it cost a million times more to house a prisoner than to kill them. There are people who find God in jail, admit that what they did was wrong and deserve to die. They try to waive the appeal process and move forward with the execution. All of a sudden, it would be cheaper to execute the prisoner, but I don’t know of any anti-DP person who would support the DP even then.
As for the life imprisonment angle, what should the penalty be if a life prisoner shivs a Corrections Officer? Or maybe he kills another prisoner? Or if god forbid, a riot breaks out and the lifers are released from their cells? Or if they manage to escape the prison?
Or more simply, what do you do when a sociopathic monster knows that he’s in prison for life, and whether he plays nice or tries to kill someone every chance he gets there won’t be any further punishment than what he’s got?
[QUOTE=Arwin]
You and Mr. Blue Sky were pitted for your mob-mentality first and second reactions to the murder tragedy, with both your first instincts being revenge and death, and making the tragedy bigger than it already is. ]/quote]
What the fuck are you talking about???
Cite for where I’ve ever done what you’re claiming?
I think you’re either a liar or badly mistaken, but my patience is running out.
Give proof or retract.
Wow, did you ever miss that point.
This is now officially the lamest pitting I’ve ever received.
Lamer than the one where the newbe pitted me for being less than polite to her in the pit.
Since it should be pretty clear to everybody now that you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, I can leave this thread. Ciao.
Now, Finn, it’s simply possible you’re dealing with one of the poor folks born without the sarcasm gene.
WOW!!! I would have to agree.
How is it that someone who uses :rolleyes: in making the cite, not understand :rolleyes: IN the cite???
Ehm. Oops?
You see, this gets easier once you get to know the posters … :o
I very humbly take it back and hope you can forgive me. Sometime. In a year or two.
Sorry Finn, I had a (seriously) rough day and I really, really felt like lashing out and just completely missed that ol’ rolleyes. I’m ok now though and my normal brain functions are quickly returning.
Again, apologies. :smack:
No problem.
~bows humbly~
Namaste.
Group hug.
Ha!
This is classic. If you really feel this way than why not just get rid of the criminal justice system entirely? I mean, if you insane philosophy of the innate goodness of mankind were correct, then all the laws and all the policemen and all the judges are good for nothing! We would have the same crime rate without them, since people all have the firm sense of right and wrong.
Sure. I wasn’t meaning to use the fact that its cheaper to imprison someone indefinitely as an argument against the DP, but rather I was looking to head off the anticipated (but entirely bogus) comeback argument that the state saves money by executing prisoners.
Solitary confinement. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a prisoner killing another prisoner or a guard. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen.
Execute all murderers because one might escape one day? Thats not a very good argument.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone here stupid enough to advocate the DP because it was cheaper.
You’ve never heard of a prisoner killing another prisoner, or are you saying you’ve never heard of a prisoner in solitary killing another prisoner?
The disturbing thing is that some people believe that solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment. So we have people who don’t want a murderer killed, and don’t think they should be separated from general population.
Very good argument. You are aware that anti-dp people claim that life in prison is just as effective in preventing further murders. “Why kill murderers, when you can put them in jail forever?” Dead murderers usually dont harm guards, other prisoners or escape from jail
But are there any here who believe that? I don’t, and I sure haven’t seen anyone who does. Furthermore, I don’t recall seeing your hypothetical bleeding heart liberal in here who doesn’t believe in the DP, and furthermore, is peachy keen with paroling convicted murderers who would otherwise be sent to death free to roam the streets willy-nilly after 5 years.
I’m sure that even in here there are at the most a handful of people who espouse those views, and that’s in this message board! We could find the money to improve security for lifers, to make sure they do not escape or harm others in prison, by eliminating the ill-concieved and corrupting war on drugs.
So, to those who are pro-DP:
So enough people believe in reducing DP to 5-20 with parole that it would be the norm if the DP were abolished: CITE?
Lifers regularly escape and go on killing sprees in the countryside: CITE?
I also notice the pro-DP’s are not addressing the money issue, which, like it or not IS important, since we could always throw money at other, more cost effective issues to save lives there instead of in the penal system.
The only way the DP would be cost-effective versus life would be to railroad the convicts through it with less civil liberties than they have now. There are enough wrongly condemned set free under the existing system that lessening the quality and quantity of their appeals would certainly let some of them be wrongfully executed.
By general population, I meant General Population of the prison. Death row prisoners and violent lifers are kept in lockdown, which means 23 out of 24 hours in a day, they are kept in their cells. Some believe that doing this is cruel to the lifers, but I believe it is worse to have a non-violent prisoner killed by a lifer who is having a bad day.
I kinda agree with you in the sense that we have to fix the fact that prisons seem to create better (sometimes more violent) criminals
I wasn’t claiming that there are a lot of escapes. I was pointing out that too many anti-DPs think in terms of ‘murderer gets life in prison and never harms anyone again’, which is not the case. I was pointing out, “What if he escapes? What if there is a prison riot? What if he kills another prisoner? What if he kills prison staff?” Someone who does not believe in the state killing criminals, should also take into account that not killing that criminal sometimes results in other criminals getting killed.
I tried to address this earlier. Cost is a terrible decision factor in whether a killer should be put to death. I wouldn’t want a murderer put to death because it’s the cheaper option. It’s as distasteful to me as deciding a murderer should live out their life because it’s the cheaper option.
Also it’s not really a point. Most anti-DPs I have debated with are fervently anti-DP. When faced with a circumstance of somone confessing, supplying video tape of murders, showing locations of dumped bodies and wants to waive the appeals process and expedite the execution. So now we have a situation where guilt is not in doubt, so there is no chance we’re killing an innocent. It would be cheaper than housing the murderer for the rest of his life, because he wants to waive the costly court process. What do anti-DPs believe? That it would still be wrong to kill the murderer. Cost and innocence doesn’t matter as much as the belief that the State should never kill a criminal under any circumstances.
Well, the only anti-DP argument I would have in that situation would be it would be less likely for a prisoner to confess, but since they are already in prison it would be sort of moot at that point anyway. If they want to die I see no reason to keep them alive.
I’m fairly certain, though, that the number of lifers who have escaped and caused further harm at all let alone more murders, is exceedingly low, or we would hear about it across the country: it would be red meat to a reporter.
Violence in prison, less so. I do agree that hardcore lifers, the ones who would otherwise get the DP, should not go into GP. I also have a suspicion that it would still be cheaper to separate them than the current appeals process with its checks and balances.
However, I don’t have access to the info on how much security you could provide to these people and the people they must be around for the same price or cheaper than killing them, but it’s a less intuitive answer. I would still wager that the net amount of violence, if you count the death penalty itself as applied to factually guilty criminals, would be less given no death penalty.
I’d be less sure, though, what the result would be if you compared the damage done by all hard-core-lifers that they did after they would have been executed, versus the damage done to people executed wrongly. It’s something you can’t really know.
But I solve the measurement problem in the opposite way from most anti-DP’ers. Many anti-DP’ers, it is true, are against the DP because they believe life is too great to ever lose your lease on even for egregious moral offenses. I, on the other hand, believe that you can lose your moral right to life, such as it were, through most crimes that would put you into a maximum security prison.
So, given the same percentage of falsely convicted people, killing someone convicted of a capital offense via execution is not worse than killing someone convicted of aggravated assault, or forcible rape.
It’s just that you want to make sure as few die in the electric chair or at the hands of other inmated, because not all of them are guilty and thus deserve to die!