hmm time for a carefully worded question on a bit of a thorny topic…I was wondering, as a british person, why it is that America is pretty much alone amongst developed countries in still advocating the death penalty in many states? Without wishing to incur the wrath of our american brethren, i read recently that states without the death penalty actually have a lower violent crime rate. Whats going on there? :dubious:
So you recognize that this is a difficult topic, and see it will polarize people politcally, but that aside…
what’s your question exactly? 
Sounds like a Great Debate to me.
I think the OP is asking why, if the most of the rest of the world does not have capital punishment, and if the U.S. states that do not have it have lower violent crime rates, is CP still accepted in the U.S.?
I think that the reason is that many Americans still believe in “frontier justice” and “an eye for an eye”. Personally, I find it creepy.
I am not a supporter of the death penalty as it is exercised in much of the U.S. at present, but from what I’ve seen of the subject, the following are among the reasons:
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The Lex Talionis – “he who kills, let him be killed.” A thirst for equal revenge against the killer.
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A sense that it is an effective deterrent. (I’m not arguing whether statistics support this or not, but stating that my impression is that many death penalty advocates do have that sense, whether validly or not.)
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Absence of recidivism. (Heinlein put this argument into the mouth of a politican ironically in 1970 – but it’s actually been made, notably in states with “liberal” parole laws, so that someone serving a “life sentence” may become eligible for parole in X years, and may kill again.)
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A sense, valid or not, that execution is cheaper than the cost of life maintenance of a convicted killer.
There are no doubt other arguments; those are the four that I’ve seen advanced as influencing people.
America is lagging behind other developed nations socially because it has had much less time to develop socially than most developed nations.
The American idea of “us” and “the rest of the world” is not limited to our day and age, and is not a result of American strength when compared to other nations. We as Americans are more advanced politically because of the particular aspects of our struggle against colonizing powers. We are less advanced socially because of the same thing.
Other nations much less developed than America or most European countries have banned capital punishment as well, but I believe in every case the abolishment was a result of pressure or cultural influence from European countries. America is much more isolated from European influence, because more than just an ocean divides us. Americans have an Ideology that has, until very recently, been distinct and very different from most of the rest of the world. It has the benefit of our political system, the first of its kind. It has the consequence of pride, isolation, shortsightedness, and lagging social development.
Another good question for this topic is to ask why such an ancient and developed culture as China has not yet abolished the death penalty. Has the other great culture of the world, India, banned the death penalty yet, either? What about Iran (Persia)?
[QUOTE=EsotericEnigma]
America is lagging behind other developed nations socially because it has ha
Other nations much less developed than America or most European countries have banned capital punishment as well, but I believe in every case the abolishment was a result of pressure or cultural influence from European countries. America is much more isolated from European influence, because more than just an ocean divides us. Americans have an Ideology that has, until very recently, been distinct and very different from most of the rest of the world. It has the benefit of our political system, the first of its kind. It has the consequence of pride, isolation, shortsightedness, and lagging social development.
India caries out around a dozen executions per year. Not many, bearing in mind the size of the population.
Iran is one of the biggest users of capital punishment, including the execution of juveniles. However, this has little to do with cultural history, and everything to do with the interpretation of Sharia law.
General Questions is for questions with factual answers. This is more of a Great Debate.
Off to Great Debates.
DrMatrix - GQ Moderator
:dubious: This makes no sense. By that logic, Australia, Canada and New Zeeland, having not struggled with colonial powers, are less politically developed than the US and thus more prone to European influence which led to the removal of the death penalty in 1984, 1976 and 1961 respectively. That would make sense if influential European nations had outlawed the DP significantly earlier and then applied pressure to influence their laws. The UK, France, Italy and Germany, however, outlawed the death penalty in 1973, 1981, 1947 and 1987 respectively.
Australia, Canada, and New Zealand culturally and socially share more in common with European nations than they do with America. It is for this reason that I would include them in the culture of “European Nations,” although geographically they obviously are not European.
Also, it is not colonialism itself, but the particular nature of American colonialism that helped spark the political advances of the United States, and which also helped spark its isolationist (or maybe individualist?) tendancies.
“What’s going on” is the distinction between correlation and causation, and indeed cause and effect generally.
It has not been established that states without the DP have a lower violent crime rate because they do not execute criminals. It is entirely possible that it is the other way round, that states do not use the DP because they have lower violent crime rates.
People who live in very low-crime areas may leave their doors unlocked. But locking your door does not cause the crime rate to increase, to put it that way.
State violent crime rates tend to correlate with demographic and socio-economic trends. It is extremely difficult to separate out the effects of the DP from those trends.
Not that this stops anyone from trying, on either side of the debate.
Regards,
Shodan
This is an interesting topic indeed. I am pro-death penalty for a number of reasons.
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The dead commit no further crime. There are a lot of societal predators that forfeit their right to live in our society because of their behavior. Were they abused as children? Perhaps. But once they choose to kill others for pleasure, it’s lights out time.
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Plea bargaining. “We’ll take the death penalty off the table if you will confess and save us the trouble of a trial.”
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Justice. Someone like John Wayne Gacy or Ted Bundy is just begging for execution.
Some anti-death penalty folks have some valid arguments. I will give my take on three of them.
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False convictions. I agree that this is a problem. The standard of evidence in a death penalty case should be the highest. If there is a doubt, then go with life in prison.
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It cost more to execute someone than it does to keep them in prison. It does if the appeal process is redundant and drags out for twenty years. One state appeal and one federal appeal should be all that are allowed…and they should proceed concurrently. That way, executions should take place about five years after conviction.
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Life in prison is just as good a punishment. Nope. Not with the possibility of parole.
We Americans are by nature an assertive and aggressive people. Part of that attitude extends to the criminal justice system. Most polls solidly favor the death penalty. If applied correctly, it cleans out the gene pool, helps prosecutors and opens up prison beds.
Who said there had to be parole?
Barring breakouts, pardons, new evidence, or revolutions, I don’t see a reason people who commit formerly capital offenses should ever be let out.
It is not a binary choice between capital punishment and life with parole.
Sadly, it seems not always to have been “of the highest”.
http://www.pro.gov.uk/inthenews/Capital-Pun/capi-1.htm
and a jolly wee song - why not?
http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/pages/tiTIMEVANS.html
Many people in the United States feel that the death penalty is a valid punishment for certain crimes. That is why the death penalty is still around in the United States.
Marc
Ah, but that’s a difficult thing. Automatic sentences can and do become as unjust as the DP.
I personally, do not support it. However, I can find no injustice in it. As a matter of fact, logically, the Death Penalty is often the only just way of dealing with extreme crimes people are guilty of. This does not mean that, they are necessarily required, simply that they are certainly just.
EsotericEnigma’s argument boils down to the standard Euro-trash answer that Americans are barbarians. Aside from being illogical and not really related to the facts.
In point of fact there is surprisingly little difference between American and European population’s opinion on the death penalty. According to at least two studies (the cites, for, I’m afraid, I’ve lost. Will have to see if I can find them again) strongly stated that there is little difference of opinion. However, among the political elites, there is a much bigger gulf. European elites, even ones nominally “conservative” (which they are, in Europe) would be considered very leftist in America, even the left of ultra-liberals like Sen. Kennedy and Sen. Kerry. And on this particular issue the “Conservatives” have little interest either way, and seem to dislike the DP, regardless of the opinion of the constituency. In other words, it appears that the primary difference is more that the issue isn’t important enough to attract voters in Europe.
It’s been my impression that compared to Europe, America has a larger percentage of people who feel their values and ideals are absolute. Thus many of them feel justified in exacting “justice” and sentencing criminals to death. It’s the same reason many feel they have a say in what kind of people can get married, or what women can do with their fetuses. I think it is caused by the relative isolation from other nations, and the large role religion plays in the lives of many Americans.
Japan has the tendency, and still practices the death penalty. Japan isn’t religious at all, but it is isolated, and the racial and cultural homogeneity also contributes to this trend.
My take on the matter is something like this. If the government establishes a condition … like a law… that says ‘If you do X, you will be put to death if we catch you’ … AND ‘X’ is something like cold-blooded Murder in the regard that no citizen has or should expect the right to do it… then the law is just and fair. It is further mitigated by the fact that the Judge can assign Life in Prison as an alternative penalty if, despite the conviction from the jury, he’s not 100% confident in the case’s outcome. This gives the criminal more time to be exonerated.
Whether the death penalty is Moral, or not, … well, in my view it is, but opinions vary.
Because some people deserve to die for their crimes. By choosing to commit the highest violations of society they have chosen to renounce society’s protections. I don’t care if they can be rehabilitated, if their death prevents further crime, or if it is more expensive to execute them than to have them serve life in prison. They deserve to die, and as such die they should.
I would be interested in hearing why a murderous monster should be incarcerated for life at the expense of the honest taxpayer rather than executed (assuming that the individual convicted is indeed guilty).
I think this illustrates my point. A majority of Americans apparently think they have the power to decide what people deserve.
Do you have a cite that says incarcerating a prisoner for life is more expensive than sentencing him/her to death? I’ve heard otherwise.