# Illinois bans death penalty **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 10, 2011, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171 "2011-03-10T14:13:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Naxos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/50afbb/32.png) [@Naxos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Naxos)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2011, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/81 "2011-03-12T04:36:52Z")
> [@donnie\_darko](#): > > What do you think? Personally I think it’s a great move. I hope every state in America bans it soon, it’s embarrassing that we still put people to death. > > I understand there are a lot of psychos out there, but simply getting revenge on them solves nothing. Beautiful! The hypocrisy from the Christians and/or the conservatives is palpable on this issue. The want to kill other people, that is explicitly against their religion, and they want the State to pay 15 times the cost of keeping someone for a life sentence, to executing them so they can gratify their psychological need of killing other people. The trash hypocrites. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2011, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/82 "2011-03-12T04:56:23Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > How about comparing [the murder rate in Illinois](http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/ilcrime.htm) before the moratorium in 2000 and after? In the decade before it averaged roughly 1200/yr. In the decade after … under 800/yr. > > Hmmm. Not much evidence for an effective deterrence is it? > > Now I would not argue that a death penalty causes more murders, but to look at the evidence and conclude the opposite is unsupportable. :dubious: If you look at the trend for murders per 100,000 it’s all over the map through the past decades. 1960 6.17 1970 10.16 1980 9.14 1990 10.17 2000 6.82 I’d argue for more stringent guidelines in relation to the death penalty but there are psycho’s who should never see the light of day and that includes exposure to other prisoners. People like Michael Woodmansee represent a danger to everybody around them. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2011, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/83 "2011-03-12T07:09:17Z")
The hypothesis being proposed is the death penalty is a significant deterrent to murder. That hypothesis would predict a significantly\* lower\* murder rate in decades with a death penalty than in one without. The fact that the rate per 100,000 for the decades that there was death penalty averaged 8.91 compared to 6.82 in the decade without one, and that in fact the decade with a death penalty moratorium had a lower murder rate than three out of the four previous decades that had a functioning death penalty, effectively falsifies that hypothesis. Western nations that do not have the death penalty do not have higher murder rates than does the United States with the death penalty; they have lower rates. [States within the United States](http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state) that do not have the death penalty do not, on average, have higher murder rates than those that do; they have lower rates. Illinois did not experience an increase in its murder rate when the alleged deterrence of the death penalty was removed by the imposition of the moratorium; it actually went down to near historic lows.\* The death penalty has no discernable deterrent effect. \*To be fair, the murder rate seems most of all to be a function of the violent crime rate: both the decade before and after the moratorium there were about 1.1 murders pers 100 violent crimes. The rate that violent crimes turned into murders was unaffected either way. That number is about the same in Oklahoma and in Texas as well - number one and two in executions per unit population. The numbers scatter some state to state independent of death penalty use. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2011, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/84 "2011-03-12T07:37:09Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > OK, if that’s what justice is, then what makes justice something to be desired? That’s a pretty deep question that goes beyond the death penalty question. (I’m not kidding. It’s a great question that has a broader implications and probably deserves its own thread. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2011, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/85 "2011-03-12T07:59:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > OK, if that’s what justice is, then what makes justice something to be desired? As was said, more of a topic for another thread, but basically, it’s because a world without justice is intolerable. There’s a reason that almost every religion has an afterlife where good people are rewarded and evil people are punished, and there’s a reason most fairy tales end, “And Cinderella married the prince” and not, “And then the stepsister fit her foot into slipper and went away with the prince, and Cinderella went back to sleeping in the ashes.” ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2011, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/86 "2011-03-12T08:32:45Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > As was said, more of a topic for another thread, but basically, it’s because a world without justice is intolerable. Lacking the concept, human society would be impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2011, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/87 "2011-03-12T18:45:06Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > \*To be fair, the murder rate seems most of all to be a function of the violent crime rate: both the decade before and after the moratorium there were about 1.1 murders pers 100 violent crimes. The rate that violent crimes turned into murders was unaffected either way. That number is about the same in Oklahoma and in Texas as well - number one and two in executions per unit population. The numbers scatter some state to state independent of death penalty use. Using your logic then prison itself doesn’t seem to deter crime because it keeps happening. Extrapolating from that it doesn’t matter what the sentence is. So lets save our tax dollars and reduce all the sentences because it’s cruel to put someone in a small room. Rob a bank, 2 weeks in prison. Rape a school bus full of children, 6 months and a pinky swear it will never happen again. The reality of the world is that prison is designed to separate bad people from society for an extended period of time. Despite the fact that prisoners get 3 meals a day and a warm bed to sleep in it’s a restriction of freedom and therefore less pleasant than living in (most) free societies. It is part punishment and part separation from society as a safety factor. At some point there are crimes that are so heinous that they justify permanent removal from all human contact, forever. The people who commit them are a danger to everybody around them. Whether a prison population should be asked to suffer this danger should be part of the debate as well as the cruelty of separating someone entirely from human contact. Death is a normal part of our life cycle and few people get the luxury of a peaceful death. It’s often the result of the ravages of time and is generally unpleasant. To say that a modern execution is cruel by it’s nature ignores the reality of death as we all experience it. Prisoners are not drawn and quartered or buried in an ant hill. They leave this world quickly and without pain. Death sentences represent a forfeiture of the most fundamental right and should represent an act that justifies the total removal of someone from society. They are a far cry from concepts of vengeance for a vicious crime. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2011, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/88 "2011-03-12T20:47:51Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Using your logic then prison itself doesn’t seem to deter crime because it keeps happening. … Huh? If there were countries and states that had no prisons and they had the same or less crime rate as those that did, a state that got rid of prisons and its crime rate stayed the same or went down, then your statement would have something to do with what I posted. Otherwise you are being very obtuse at best. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2011, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/89 "2011-03-12T21:16:17Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Huh? > > If there were countries and states that had no prisons and they had the same or less crime rate as those that did, a state that got rid of prisons and its crime rate stayed the same or went down, then your statement would have something to do with what I posted. > > Otherwise you are being very obtuse at best. We’ve had varying degrees of incarceration for a given crime (using 3 strikes criteria) and yet criminals re-offend. Should we do away with 3 strikes or add more layers of punishment? There are people who are so violent they should never be released back into society or be exposed to other prisoners. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2011, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/90 "2011-03-12T22:06:17Z")
This is news to me. I thought that the death penalty was abolished in Illinois years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2011, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/91 "2011-03-12T22:10:02Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Should we do away with 3 strikes … ? Definitely. There’s too many instances of people getting life sentences for the most trivial crimes under 3 strikes. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2011, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/92 "2011-03-12T22:35:09Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > This is news to me. I thought that the death penalty was abolished in Illinois years ago. No. What happened is that in 2000, the governor at the time issued a moratorium on the death penalty, and then in 2003, before he left office, he commuted the sentences of everyone on death row to life imprisonment. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2011, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/93 "2011-03-12T23:06:20Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > We’ve had varying degrees of incarceration for a given crime (using 3 strikes criteria) and yet criminals re-offend. Should we do away with 3 strikes or add more layers of punishment? > > There are people who are so violent they should never be released back into society or be exposed to other prisoners. What does this have to do with the question of whether or not the death penalty is an effective deterrent against committing murder over life in prison? I think you are confused by my relating the murder rate as a function of the violent crime rate. All I was trying to do there was to be as fair as possible. It may be that the United States, and states with the death penalty in particular, just have more violent crime and murders for other sociocultural and socioeconomic reasons. Maybe it is just that states with more murders are more likely to support the death penalty because they think they have to do _something_. Maybe in Illinois the decrease in the murder rate after the death penalty moratorium was just the result of other sociocultural and socioeconomic changes. So maybe comparing the murder rate alone is not completely fair. In that case a fair shake might be to say that if there is a deterrent effect it would be in keeping violent crime from becoming murder. But no. That rate is unchanged before and after the moratorium and the same in Illinois and in Texas and Oklahoma. But to your hijack - has three strikes been associated with any improved outcomes or only with society spending more money incarcerating people long term for minimal third offenses? I’d want that data before I tried to answer the question. ---
**Author:** ![donnie\_darko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@donnie\_darko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donnie_darko)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2011, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/94 "2011-03-12T23:17:29Z")
> [@Naxos](#): > > Beautiful! > > The hypocrisy from the Christians and/or the conservatives is palpable on this issue. > > The want to kill other people, that is explicitly against their religion, and they want the State to pay 15 times the cost of keeping someone for a life sentence, to executing them so they can gratify their psychological need of killing other people. > > The trash hypocrites. What I don’t understand especially about American Christians is how they are the most vengeful people in this country yet Jesus was ALL about RADICAL forgiveness. Jesus wanted you to love your enemies, Jesus wouldn’t just want you to not put them to death, he would want you to pray for them. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2011, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/95 "2011-03-12T23:41:36Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Perhaps my point does not deserve addressing but I must point out that this answer fails to address it. > > There is no debate that the Western norms at the time the Constitution were that execution was not unusual and was not considered cruel, and that that was the assessment of the writers of the document. > > But it has become unusual since. Norms change. Is it your position that it cannot be considered unusual today or at any future time, even if it is, because it was not unusual at the time the document was written? I know that this wasn’t directed at me, but I will chime in. I think that the words of a Constitution should be construed like that of any other contract and if there becomes ambiguity or confusion over any term, then it should be given the affect that was meant at the time the document was created and agreed upon. To have any other construction means that we aren’t really bound by ANYTHING as any protections you have under that document are only given the effect that a judge might think that they do. If things have changed so much that there needs to be amendments, the Constitution has a procedure for that. Analogy time: If my corporation entered into an entertainment contract with your civic group in 1950 promising to organize annual parties for the next 100 years, and in that document my corporation promised that “everyone in attendance will have a gay time” do we take the word as it was meant in 1950, or can your civic group insist on homosexual orgies being a part of the festivities this year? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2011, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/96 "2011-03-13T01:40:15Z")
Quoth **Captain Amazing** : > [@](#): > > As was said, more of a topic for another thread, but basically, it’s because a world without justice is intolerable. There’s a reason that almost every religion has an afterlife where good people are rewarded and evil people are punished, and there’s a reason most fairy tales end, “And Cinderella married the prince” and not, “And then the stepsister fit her foot into slipper and went away with the prince, and Cinderella went back to sleeping in the ashes.” Certainly, it’s good and desireable that the good people be rewarded, but why must that be tied to a desire that bad people be punished? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2011, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/97 "2011-03-13T02:43:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Quoth **Captain Amazing** :Certainly, it’s good and desireable that the good people be rewarded, but why must that be tied to a desire that bad people be punished? It is based on graduated scales. Limiting a society to life in prison leaves that as the ultimate punishment. 1. What if the person escapes? 2. What if the person hurts or kills other guards or inmates while in life in prison? There really isn’t any more punishment available if you limit it to that. Supermax prisons are the next level for maximum security prisoners that organize gangs or kill people while in prison but some people oppose those too. I have to believe they keep regular maximum security prisoners in line just because they exist and are sterile, psychological torture. If you wanted to keep this philosophical, what if prisoners could have a choice between serving out their term in a maximum security prison or on an isolated island paradise where they could never escape but they could have anything within reason they wanted? Assume the costs were the same for a maximum security prison. Would you or anyone else go for that? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2011, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/98 "2011-03-13T03:46:38Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > But to your hijack - has three strikes been associated with any improved outcomes or only with society spending more money incarcerating people long term for minimal third offenses? I’d want that data before I tried to answer the question. 3 strikes means there is more consistency in the application of sentences and they pull repeat offenders off the streets. Whether it deters or not is not the sole criteria for it’s application. The idea of escalated sentencing has been around for quite some time without a specific name or a codified process. The death penalty did not become more cruel over time nor do I see where it is more cruel than a life sentence without parole. It is a logical sentence for someone who commits a crime of a particularly heinous nature and who represents a future danger. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2011, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/99 "2011-03-13T04:39:26Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Quoth **Captain Amazing** :Certainly, it’s good and desireable that the good people be rewarded, but why must that be tied to a desire that bad people be punished? Because a society where evil isn’t punished is a society where innocents suffer. It’s a society where Bernie Madoff retires to the Bahamas, where, if someone is strong enough, he can hurt anyone he wants without consequence to him, and where, if you’re weak, you’re vulnerable to whatever anybody wants to do to you. It’s a society based on power instead of law, and that’s not good for anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2011, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171/100 "2011-03-13T05:38:03Z")
> [@donnie\_darko](#): > > What I don’t understand especially about American Christians is how they are the most vengeful people in this country yet Jesus was ALL about RADICAL forgiveness. Jesus wanted you to love your enemies, Jesus wouldn’t just want you to not put them to death, he would want you to pray for them. There is so much wrong with this statement. Forgiveness has nothing to do with punishment or incarceration. I can forgive you for backing into my car but you still have to pay for the repair. The same applies to the theft of my car. You are still obligated to serve the sentence handed down. And forgiveness is a 2-way process. You cannot bestow forgiveness unless it is sought after. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illinois-bans-death-penalty/574171.md?page=6)