I kinda thought that was what our current educational system was all about … ?
You do see the difference between violence by a lone outlaw and violence by societal standard, right? Whether we like it or not and whether we know it or not, we look to society as we do to a parent. If a lone nut tortures, maims and kills, we shake in terror, shrug over the world’s evil, and turn the newspaper page. If society tortures, maims and kills, it sends the message that it’s OK to do so.
And isn’t it “tenets”, not “tenants”? English isn’t my first language, so please correct me if I’m wrong here.
It is tenets, and Rancid is joking. No sane individual advocates increasing governmental power.
It was “tenets,” you’re right. I blame my spellchecker.
I think that’s somewhat debatable.
And in any case, were not talking about indiscriminate torturing, maiming, and killing. We’re talking about torturing and kill people who INSTIGATE violence. Violence against others, and violence against the state. And it would be made clear, in this hypothetical situation, that it is the State ALONE that holds the legitimate right to torture and kill, as a way of dispensing justice, not the right of the individual.
Yes, but the people on the street care little about legitimate or illegitimate rights. People steal, kidnap and kill, even though the state is the only entity that has the rights to do those things.
A person growing up in a state that performs torture will be less adverse towards torture than he would otherwise. I’m sure there’s a cite showing something similar somewhere. I’ll see if I can dig one up in my abundant free time.
Besides, who gets tortured? Only people we’re sure are guilty? How sure? Only people who confess? Expect drastic drops in the number of confessions.
That would be appreciated.
I, myself, would only approve of torture for individuals who have already been convicted of a crime, and only then as a form of punishment. As others have noted, using physical torture to extract confessions is, at best, highly unreliable. Mostly due to the “Aargh, all right, I’ll confess, just put away the branding iron” principle. But in any case, it would be unnecessary, as modern forensic science provides a far more reliable means of determining an individual’s guilt or innocence.
This is what a quick search found. The following sites show that death penalty isn’t a deterrent, and some claim that death penalty increases crime, especially violent crime. I chose death penalty rather than torture since it’s harder to find reliable statistics from countries using torture. I don’t think it should matter since the effect would be analogous. If you disagree with this, please explain why.
Granted, these cites don’t show conclusively that brutal forms of punishment increase crime, but if they don’t deter, there’s no reason to employ them anyway.
This site examines deterrence regarding the death penalty and cites a few studies.
This site mentions that “international studies have consistently failed to show that the use of the penalty leads to any significant reduction in serious crimes”.
This site cites several studies showing that the death penalty does not deter crime, and has this paragraph supporting my view:
This site compares (about 1/3 of the page down) homicide rates for US states using death penalty with homicide rates for US states without the death penalty, and finds that the homicide rates for the former is almost twice the latter. To be fair, it also says that “proof is lacking” of whether the death penalty reduces or increases crime.
Amnesty International, needless to say, says death penalty isn’t a deterrent.
This site cites some studies showing the death penalty deters, some that it doesn’t, and some that it anti-deters.
This site says that “all fifteen member states of the European Union had outlawed the death penalty and that this has not led to an increase in crime”.
It’s no use blaming the spell-checker when you correctly spell the wrong word. Even a grammar checker wouldn’t pick up on it. It’s perfectly possible to “violate your tenants”, though it’s pretty much the hallmark of a quintessentially bad landlord and droit de seigneur was largely a dead letter even while judicial torture was still common practice.
Thanx to Priceguy it is now obvious that torture would not be a deterrent.
And here a proof that there even is no reason to deter: The violent crime rate declined 10%, reaching the lowest level in NCVS history.
Hmm. First, does it not follow that given two choices, one in which you will be arrested, given a fair trial, and if found guilty, not forced to undergo cruel or unusual punishment, and another in which you will be flayed and flogged with your entrails, that people would be more likely not to go out fighting and/or bomb police stations?
I mean, if I’m going to be horribly tortured for selling drugs, than pulling a car full of explosives up to a government sponsored torture station is going to be lost in the noise, right? It’s not like they can break me on the wheel twice.
Also, all this presupposes that anyone, including the state, has the right to torture anyone else. I’d like to see someone demonstrate this as a moral principle.
Actually, this sounds a lot like the governments of El Salvador and Argentina during the Cold War.
Not anywhere I’d want to live.
If capital punishment doesn’t increase the crime rate itself, it still has a reason to be employed, even if without a deterrent effect. The reason is Punishment, holding the individual accountable for his or her actions.
Incidentally, Japan, of all places, still uses the death penalty. And the last numbers I found, from 1999, indicate that the Japanese murder rate was 1 per 100,000 people, compared with 6.3 per 100,000 in the United States, and 56.5 per 100,000 in South Africa.
And, going by this site, of all the countries that use capital punishment, only three-Japan, Singapore, and the United States-ranked higher than 4.9 on the scale measuring political corruption. “10” is considered a perfect score, which only Finland comes closest to, at 9.7. Of the aforementioned top three least corrupt Capital Punishment users, the lowest lack of corruption score was 7.1, for Japan. The US is 7.7, and Singapore is 9.3.
Likewise, in the UN’s Human Development Index, the only death penalty-using countries to make the top 25 in the “livable countries” index were the United States (#6), Japan (#9), and Singapore(#25), alongside several countries that have outlawed the death penalty. Several other countries that use the death penalty, such as Sierra Leone, Mauritania, and the Congo, can be found at the BOTTOM of the list…alongside several countries that have outlawed the death penalty.
It leads me to wonder if, perhaps, it’s the character and the culture of a nation that determines the crime rate, rather than the penalties metted out by their justice systems?
Whoa. Thats fucked up to want to torture people over a property crime, a drug deal, or ‘suspicion’ of rape.
Torture shouldn’t be implemented because even if it did work, it wouldn’t be worth it. If the US had wanted to, we could’ve just nuked baghdad. It would’ve been easier, but it would not have been worth it.
You would be exchanging one form of tyranny (petty crime, which occurs in isolation) for another (severe torture).
It took humanity millenium to step out of this world of torture and repression, why would you want to go back? do you really think that the line between good guys & bad guys is that clear & distinct? There are 2 million people in prison in america, the highest percentage of any country on earth (i think). How many of your friends, or your friends friends would end up being tortured? Wouldn’t you suspect that mass torture would just create massive resentment for the government, leading to even more torture? A viscious cycle.
This still strikes me as a very extreme position, esp for another torture fan (i love torture books too. i recommend The History of Torture by Brian Innes). People will confess to whatever you want them to confess to under threat of torture. Using torture to coerce confessions is a very screwed up proposal. At least with current psychological torture that the cops use, generally only the guilty are coerced into confessing. The innocent usually aren’t psychologically tortured.
Besides, forensics is where true crime solving comes from, not torture. Even though i don’t support the proposal, a videocamera everywhere (even in peoples homes) would greatly increase criminal prosecution and cut down criminal activity, more than torture would. Forensics is the way to go if you want to end crime because not only does it catch true criminals (not just terrorize anybody unlucky enough to get ‘interrogated’ in a dark dungeon into confessing to anything they are asked to confess to) but if criminals realize 95% of them will get caught it will decrease motivation.
The point of which is?
See, here’s where you’ve got it wrong, right off the bat. People faced the gallows then for the same reasons they are in prison now, such as stealing. Not as many as you think were there for such noble reasons as their faith.
And what happened while they were hanging someone for being a pickpocket? As often as not, there would be someone picking the pockets of those in the crowd watching the hanging. So much for the idea of it being a deterrent.