Torture and Execution: modern day deterent?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I just finished a book ‘A History of Torture and Execution’ for the 2nd time. The book gave a pretty factual history, but also leaned heavily towards the facts that they said it didn’t seem to deter anyone.

So I want to go about this comparing modern society to old times. Back in those days, people had a reason to go to the gallows or the torturer, as a lot of them were sticking up for their faith, way of life or the survival of family. However, let’s check out 2003.

Now it’s perfectly acceptable to freely state your faith, no matter what it is, or your sexuality. So, we need to apply torture and execution again to modern crimes as freely as it was throughout history.

For instance, do you think people now adays would be detered from robbing a 7-11 if they new when they were caught they would be stretched on the rack, mutilated thrown into a dungeon? What if the modern day court system threatened to press someone if they refused to confess to rape?

Would drug dealers be as eager to press their trade if they knew it could easily get their guts slowly pulled out and burned in front of their eyes while they were still alive?

I think the world has changed enough, that crime rates might drop dramatically in modern day if these threats were realized. Our crimes, in my opinion, have for the most part gone from the deep love of religion and the need to survive to impressing friends and being lazy.

IMHO, everyone?

2

Was this book illustrated? And who was the author? I’m asking because I just recently read a hardcover “coffee-table” book with the same title, but can’t remember the author’s name. Great illustrations though, and a good primer on the always-fun subject of torture and execution.

Now, as for your question…

Certainly the threats of those kinds of punishments would deter a fair amount of people…but how many? That’s the question I’m wondering about…

After all, Saudi Arabia executes drug smugglers, but judging by the fact that they seem to have these executions often, and that any law enforcement appartus can only catch a certain percentage of offenders (DEA estimates they only catch 10-12 percent of the drugs coming into the U.S.) then it seems to say that a lot of people are still engaged in smuggling in Saudi Arabia even with the danger of receiving the death penalty.

3

Suuuure, go right ahead and claim to be Hebrew or Coptic, or Orthodox Christian to your fundamentalist Iranian / Taleban / Red Chinese captors.

You must obviously know that they’re entirely open to free discussion concerning the validity of your opposing views.

I’ll freely admit to having debated torture and its application. I’ll not advocate it being applied to “drug dealers,” robbers or even such hideous criminals as rapists. My own scenarios involved known and immediately pending nuclear terrorists unlike the pansies you mention in the OP.

4

You caught me, Zen. I was thinking way too American only in the OP.

5

The book is hardcover, with lots of illustrations and photos. Author is Jean Kellaway.

6

Why not ? Because it’s a repugnant idea.

  • and a lot of them were just plain unlucky sods. Forensic science wasn’t all that hot, back when.

Of course, a lot of those who were tortured and killed for their religion and way of life weren’t necessarily “sticking up” for something, quite often they were just scapegoats or they got caught in the turbulence of a larger political process. Do you seriously think that the victims of the Inquisition or witchcraft processes went to their fates to make a friggin’ point ? Get real.

Like hell we do. I’m afraid I can’t further comment on that statement without going to the pit.

Here’s a free clue: Criminals do not plan on being caught. Criminals commit their crimes in the expectation they’ll get away with it.

Incidentally, most people these days have this newfangled ethical system where property is considered less important than human beings. Torturing a human being over a property crime turns that on its head, no ?

What if ? A lot of false confessions to rape and a lot of real rapists escaping punishment. :rolleyes: People being tortured will say whatever they need to say to make the pain stop. Why do you think so many people confessed to witchcraft, knowing that they’d be burned alive for it ? Because the body does not understand the concept of later risks when it’s in agony. It becomes imperative that the pain stops NOW, so people’ll say anything.

Probably not. Now, what society do you want to live in: One where there’s a certain amount of drug use/abuse, or one where your tax dollar buys the knives used to eviscerate human beings ?

Probably. There are, however, other qualities to pursue in a society than just a low crime rate. If a low crime rate is the only standard you’re going for, well, I understand that North Korea is quite lovely this time of year.

Most crimes are probably due to addictive drugs being sold at exorbitant black-market prices and the addicts’ imperative need to get the next fix. Good luck with getting someone who’s already engaged in self-destructive behaviour to react to a hypothetical threat.

May I suggest grabbing a book on ethics instead of a 3rd rereading of your tome on torture ?

7

Well, considering such a media-rich society we have, making sure to have public torturings and executions would make all the difference, I think.

Plus, to work as a deterrent, you’d probably have to slim down the Criminal Justice System a bit, so that it wouldn’t take like 18 years of appeals before you could finally draw and quarter a convenience store robber. With modern forensic technology, I think this could be accomplished without compromising the ability to convict only the guilty. (I mean, when you think about it, the whole “Jury Trial” system was instituted in a time when having twelve fellow farmers appraise the reliability of alibis and eyewitnesses was the pinnacle o jurisprudence, and the only “fair” way of determining guilt.) In addition, I’d personally recommend a “The ends CAN SOMETIMES justify the means” approach to determining the admissibility of evidence and testimony. For example: The police search a murder suspect’s car without a valid warrant. In the process, they find a pistol that-tests show-fired the bullet found in the victim’s spine. Under my revisions to the law, evidence that conclusive would be allowed in court. But if it had merely been circumstantial evidence, it could be tossed out, same as before. Of course, a stringent system of safeguards should be implemented within the Police Force and the Prosecution, to prevent abuses or corruption. If the penalties for abuse or corruption are kept as…‘draconian’ as all of the other punishments, the safeguards should be all the more effective.

And more maximum effectiveness, I would recommend implementing “progressive” social policies, as well. You know, free universal health care, serious efforts to stamp out poverty, blah blah blah. You know, all that limp-wristed hippie stuff. You know, make the people fear, AND love the government. And if you make the people feel gratitude towards the State, this will make them far less tolerant and sympathetic towards those who become “outlaws.”

8

I think we could torture without physically harming people. Corporal punishment. Maybe give it as an alternative to jail time. It would probably reduce the problem of prison violence, as well - the hardcore violent types will probably choose torture over jail time, especially for longer sentences.

There are also non-painful ways to punish people. Sensory deprivation can make a person willing to do anything just to be able to see or hear something, after a long enough time - that could be used for minor crimes. I think that if a person commits certain crimes they have ceded the right to their place within society. You could kill them, but that’s wasteful. Castrate them, lobotomize them, and condition them to be workers in the kinds of jobs nobody wants.

9

Not necessarily…the healthier ones might be harvested for donor organs and tissues. Two lungs, two kidneys, one heart, a liver…that’d be, what, 7 people’s lives that each harvesting could save? Maybe more? Plus there’s skin, corneas, bone marrow, blood…

Or you could force them to fight each other to the death in the arena, charge admission to see it. Say, $50 a ticket, 20,000 spectators in a coliseum…that’s a cool million right there, for a single night. Not counting overhead, but not counting additional revenue like Luxury Boxes and Snack bars. Plus, you could always put the matches on a pay-per-view system.

But let me just say, Badtz Maru, that I DO like that “zombie-slave” idea. Ya’ got style, Mac. :cool:

10

No, as has been shown. You see, what doesn’t happen is this: criminals sit around planning a robbery. One of them says “Hey guys! The penalty for robbery is now 10 years in jail!”. They all discard their plans, take honest day jobs and raise well-adjusted families in a sunny suburb.

Criminals commit crimes thinking they won’t be caught. Many of them are right.

You’ve got to be joking. If not, think of the day when you’re falsely accused of rape.

So the drug dealers would hire drug addicts to front for them. Not a great improvement.

Bull. As if people being tortured and executed did it to prove a point.

These forms of punishment are not effective deterrents. You’ve just read a book explaining that to you, and you still propose something like this.

Now, this may be your opinion of a good joke (and it appears to be shared by several posters in this thread). It ain’t mine.

11

I don’t think that is actually true; crimes as seemingly petty (by modern view) as poaching rabbits and cutting down the wrong tree.

12

…have been punishable by death; the same sort of story seems to have been true in many countries.

13

IMHO – I think that torture by a law agency would instill fear in the public. Corporal punishment, could/might be a deterrent if the methods of punishment were listed with the associated crime and printed in the local paper once a year.

Remember Michael Fey? Let’s ask him if he would like to go on another jaunt spray painting cars in Singapore.

14

Wasn’t Fey later rearrested for something else?

15

It is proved that even the death penalty does no deter people or stop them from killing. And crime rates are declining. So what’s the deal?!
Torture is medieval method to punish evildoers and I don’t wanna think of any innocent getting their guts pulled out. Gas chamber and electric chair are cruel enough.

If torture was legal, I had comitted a crime and were surrounded by police, it would rather make me run amok than surrender. I prefer getting killed by a bullet than getting my guts pulled out & burned.
But that’s a matter of taste.

16

Found it. He was arrested in 1998 (the caning was in 1994) for marijuana possession.

17

Sublight

This was still in Singapore?

If so, he must have a very sorry bottom!

18

Good god-one of the many reasons we’ve made so much progress today is because we abandoned such barbaric and disgusting methods.

You want to go BACK to them? Is this serious?

19

Fighting ignorance is clearly taking longer than we thought…

But while we’re on the subject of inhumane extremes, lets just cleanse the gene pool of evil sadists like some posters who support torture as justice. :rolleyes:

20

Why? We’re not the ones who’ve done anything wrong. There are many "sadists, who are perfectly capable-nay, willing, eager and content, to live “by the rules” in a civilized society. It’s not like we long to ride into the streets, swords drawn, slaughtering everyone in sight. “Live and Let Live” and “Do as you will, but harm none” a philosophies hardly restricted to “doves” and liberals. However, it’s just that some of us feel that there should be punishment for those whoviolate those tenants. And that gross violators should receive the severest penalties.

Besides that, if you were to “cleanse the gene pool” of all the “evil sadists,” like myself, who exactly would you have do the killing? The pacifists?