# What is the purpose of the death penalty? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 29, 2009, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036 "2009-05-29T16:07:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/41 "2009-05-30T15:47:06Z")
[Here is an interesting article](http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/biomoral.htm) on the possible biological basis for morality and ethics. From the article: > [@](#): > > Imagine a Paleolithic band of five hunters. One considers breaking away from the others to look for an antelope on his own. If successful, he will gain a large quantity of meat and hide – five times as much as if he stays with the band and they are successful. But he knows from experience that his chances of success are very low, much less than the chances of the band of five working together. In addition, whether successful alone or not, he will suffer animosity from the others for lessening their prospects. By custom the band members remain together and share equitably the animals they kill. So the hunter stays. He also observes good manners in doing so, especially if he is the one who makes the kill. Boastful pride is condemned, because it rips the delicate web of reciprocity. > > Now suppose that human propensities to cooperate or defect are heritable: some people are innately more cooperative, others less so. In this respect moral aptitude would simply be like almost all other mental traits studied to date. Among traits with documented heritability, those closest to moral aptitude are empathy with the distress of others and certain processes of attachment between infants and their caregivers. To the heritability of moral aptitude add the abundant evidence of history that cooperative individuals generally survive longer and leave more offspring. Following that reasoning, in the course of evolutionary history genes predisposing people toward cooperative behavior would have come to predominate in the human population as a whole. We are programmed by genetics, perhaps, to believe in some intangible called “justice.” We simply don’t all agree what it looks like. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/42 "2009-05-30T15:59:11Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > So? What does killing them accomplish that life in prison without chance of parole wouldn’t? Stops the appeals process. Absolutely positively guarantees that they will never under any circumstances kill again. They won’t kill a prison guard or inmate, escape and kill again, be paroled and kill again, or have their verdict overtured and kill again. Keeps them from preying on those on the outside who believe in their innocence. Keeps them from preying on the prison population. Robert Ressler, who coined the phrase “serial killer” and John Douglas both worked with the FBI BAU. They have interviewd some of the world’s most dangerous serial killers. Do they believe in the death penalty? Yes. Read their books for the expert opinion. Ressler once had a run-in with Edmund Kempler, a serial killer who threatened “to twist your head off and leave it on the table as a surprise for the screw.” Ressler released that he had been taken in by Kempler’s mild manner ways, managed to talk him down, and immediately make it an FBI rule that serial killers are always interviewed by two agents at a time. ---
**Author:** ![Rusalka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecd19e/32.png) [@Rusalka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rusalka)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/43 "2009-05-30T16:14:00Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > But only for people like Richard Ramirez, Gacy, Dahmer and their ilk. I do not believe that people like that can be reformed. People whom kill as a crime of passion (say, catching your wife in bed with another man) certainly shouldn’t be put to death. Severely punished, yes, but not the death penalty. There was a cause behind their action, as unlawful or immoral as it may have been. Serial killers are just fucking crazy. If you believe people like that cannot be “reformed” and that they are “just fucking crazy”, then you must also believe that they didn’t choose to be that way. If they are just broken, and therefore deserve to die, how is the death penalty, in your view, different from the idea of eugenics: discarding individuals who are not “whole”, like people who are born with genetic defects that cause them to be a greater burden on society than healthy people? ---
**Author:** ![Rusalka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecd19e/32.png) [@Rusalka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rusalka)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/44 "2009-05-30T16:20:46Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Aren’t there people (and I use that word loosely) whose crime(s) are so heinous that they shouldn’t be allowed to live. How about child killers? Google “Lattie McGee” and read the story of a 4 year old child who was tortured to death, his own skin torn away from his body, no square inch of his body left unspared by his mother and her boyfriend. Adults suffer as much as children. Why does it make a difference who the killer killed in such a terrible way? When you say “so heinous” you are drawing a line. Someone else might draw a line in a different place. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/45 "2009-05-30T16:28:52Z")
> [@Rusalka](#): > > If you believe people like that cannot be “reformed” and that they are “just fucking crazy”, then you must also believe that they didn’t choose to be that way. If they are just broken, and therefore deserve to die, how is the death penalty, in your view, different from the idea of eugenics: discarding individuals who are not “whole”, like people who are born with genetic defects that cause them to be a greater burden on society than healthy people? They are not crazy in the legal sense; i.e. they didn’t know what they did was wrong. Serial killers know killing is wrong, but they just do not give a fuck. They have no conscience, and we do not have a way to give them one. I used the example of Lattie McGee as the most horrible type of killer. Yes, we do have to have limits on who will be executed. I believe if we know they killer is gulty and we know there was no justification for the killing, there is something wrong with them and the death penalty should be an option. In the case of a serial killer, it should be an extremely strong option. Maybe the law should be: Kill once, life with parole; kill twice, life without parole; kill three times, death penalty. ---
**Author:** ![pendgwen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3da27b/32.png) [@pendgwen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pendgwen)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/46 "2009-05-30T16:39:20Z")
I view it as the societal equivalent of killing in self-defense. There are certain people who are too dangerous to be allowed to continue as part of society. I realize that life in prison removes them just as permanently from society as a whole but it does not eliminate their possible impact on those they encounter while in prison. From an ethical/philosophical perspective I have no problem with the death penalty. The problems I see are in practical application. You can have governments which decide that certain politial ideas put people in the too dangerous category. In this country society has racial baggage which influences which offenders are placed in the too dangerous category. And there is the fact that despite our best efforts we do sometimes convict innocent people. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/47 "2009-05-30T16:40:11Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Stops the appeals process. Yeah, that’s a real valid accomplishment right there, especially since a statistically significant number of death-row inmates are later exonerated for their crimes > [@](#): > > Absolutely positively guarantees that they will never under any circumstances kill again. They won’t kill a prison guard or inmate, escape and kill again, be paroled and kill again, or have their verdict overtured and kill again. 1. if you’re so convinced that heinous “bad” people need to die, why do you care if they’re killed by their inmaes, fellow heinous and bad people? 2. sure, a prison guard might not die. more on this in a second. 3. i guess the part where I said “without chance of parole” flew over your head? 4. have their verdict overturned because they were victims of an imperfect justice system; you don’t want a system where improperly dispensed justice can be at least somewhat reversed? having their verdict overturned for a legally improper and unjust reason is a fiction - probably the fiction that prompted you to actually think it was a good idea to “stop the appeals process” > [@](#): > > Keeps them from preying on those on the outside who believe in their innocence. Sigh. Martyrdom, anyone? And it’s not like this is an accomplishment of any merit > [@](#): > > Keeps them from preying on the prison population. Again, if this is a population of people who deserve to die in your eyes, what do you care if they’re offed by their fellow members of the “deserve to die” club. And yes, it is possible to segregate the “life without parole” people from the other inmates. > [@](#): > > Robert Ressler, who coined the phrase “serial killer” and John Douglas both worked with the FBI BAU. They have interviewd some of the world’s most dangerous serial killers. Do they believe in the death penalty? Yes. Read their books for the expert opinion. > > Ressler once had a run-in with Edmund Kempler, a serial killer who threatened “to twist your head off and leave it on the table as a surprise for the screw.” Ressler released that he had been taken in by Kempler’s mild manner ways, managed to talk him down, and immediately make it an FBI rule that serial killers are always interviewed by two agents at a time. Much in line with what Rusalka just posted before, serial killers that are obviously insane may be perhaps be better suited to medical treatment (within a life-without-parole sentence) instead of just “doing away with them” because they have a psycosis that makes polite society feel a bit nauseous. Basically the only semi-valid point here is that it protects the guards. I’m not so sure that you’re in any more grave danger being a prison guard in the gang ward at the local penitentiary than you are in the captain insano ward. Basically, prison guarding is a very dangerous job to begin with, and I’m not so sure the 200 or so people that otherwise would qualify for the death penalty who are now in lockup for life (without possibility of parole, i feel i have to keep adding), who are _ **known** _ to be captain insanos (meaning that you are extra specially on your guard around them) would enhance the danger of the job in any meaningful way. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/48 "2009-05-30T16:49:40Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Frees up valuable prison space for a less insane felon? So would decriminalizing drug possession, except it would free up alot of prison space so the guards wouldn’t be overtaxed, the prisons wouldn’t be overflowing, and we could properly incarcerate the real nutsos. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/49 "2009-05-30T16:59:33Z")
What’s to stop life-without-parole killers for appealing for parole? The court system would be tied up for years with life-without-parole people trying to get parole. BTW, most serial killers do not have a conscience and we have yet to find a way to rehabilitate a person enough to solve this problem. If you could build a prison that would be escape proof and let serial killers and mas murderers rot there for the rest of their lives, with no contact with each other or the rest of the world, with nothing to do and nothing to eat but the absolute minimum necessary to keep them alive–in short, with nothing whasoever to give them any pleasure for the rest of their lives–I would agree to abolish the death penalty. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/50 "2009-05-30T17:05:31Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > What’s to stop life-without-parole killers for appealing for parole? The court system would be tied up for years with life-without-parole people trying to get parole. You clearly don’t get how criminal sentencing works. If your sentence is “life without parole”, I hate to break it to you but you’re dying in prison. Edit: I would also assert that you’d have less appeals process. There is a reason why many attorneys volunteer their time and/or spend their entire career appealing the cases of death-row inmates - they have moral and philosophical problems with the concept of a state killing, and are content to spend their entire professional careers protecting what they feel is the right of the prisoner to be justly treated. I am confident you would find a lot less moral and philosophical objection (with a concomitant lack of pro bono lawyering) for people who are sentenced to life without parole. > [@](#): > > If you could build a prison that would be escape proof and let serial killers and mas murderers rot there for the rest of their lives, with no contact with each other or the rest of the world, with nothing to do and nothing to eat but the absolute minimum necessary to keep them alive–in short, with nothing whasoever to give them any pleasure for the rest of their lives–I would agree to abolish the death penalty. You talk as if prison is a fun thing to be in because you have a latreen and a television in your cell. How cute. But, yeah, letting people exist in solitary confinement for the rest of their life and doing nothing but sit in a cell and eat food is a good indication of how vindictive and revenge-oriented your position supporting the death penalty is. ---
**Author:** ![flonks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3ab097/32.png) [@flonks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flonks)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/51 "2009-05-30T17:07:38Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > But in a few individual cases, there are people who are such monsters that nothing short of death is justified, either because of their acts or because it is the only thing that will keep them from killing again. 1. I don’t understand the “either because of their acts” part. Why is death the only justified action? Can you explain this? This seems to be an emotional statement, but I cannot see how the term “justified” is appropriate. 2. “it is the only thing that will keep them from killing again” - this has already been answered by someone else: > [@Giles](#): > > No. You can be sure that person will never kill in the future. In order for them to “kill again”, they must have killed in the past, and the way the justice system is run you can never be sure of that. By the way, if asked I will need to search for cite, but it seems that nobody ever escaped from the strongest security prisons. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/52 "2009-05-30T17:11:30Z")
> [@flonks](#): > > By the way, if asked I will need to search for cite, but it seems that nobody ever escaped from the strongest security prisons. What are you talking about. Sean Connery did it, twice, in that movie The Rock. I mean if some posters are going to spew fiction regarding the ease of escape from a supramax prison we may as well put all of our cards on the table. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/53 "2009-05-30T17:12:40Z")
Justified is self-defense, a crime of passion or other reasonable reason for doing so. Unjustified is the bitch deserved to die, I wanted to rape and kill someone, or because it’s fun to watch people die. It’s a decision for the courts and shrinks to make. If I had my way, not only would people who commit unjustifiable murders be handed the death penalty, but they would be killed in exactly the same way they did the deed. I would have chained McVeigh onto a chair and kept him there for a while waiting before setting a bomb off. Bundy would have been raped, stangled and suffocated in a mud pile like his last 12 year old victim. If the 9/11 hijackers had parachuted from the planes and been rescued, I supposed you would have given them life in prison, with free food, clothing, TV, gym, Internet and visitation with loved ones. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/54 "2009-05-30T17:16:10Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Justified is self-defense, a crime of passion or other reasonable reason for doing so. Unjustified is the bitch deserved to die, I wanted to rape and kill someone, or because it’s fun to watch people die. It’s a decision for the courts and shrinks to make. > > If I had my way, not only would people who commit unjustifiable murders be handed the death penalty, but they would be killed in exactly the same way they did the deed. > > I would have chained McVeigh onto a chair and kept him there for a while waiting before setting a bomb off. Bundy would have been raped, stangled and suffocated in a mud pile like his last 12 year old victim. > > If the 9/11 hijackers had parachuted from the planes and been rescued, I supposed you would have given them life in prison, with free food, clothing, TV, gym, Internet and visitation with loved ones. So just come clean and admit your justification for the death penalty is to make the criminal suffer, to provide as I stated earlier “Old Testament retribution, vengeance, and bloodlust.” Question, obviously feel free to not respond: have you, or someone close to you, been the victim of a serious crime and are wishing that now incarcerated be killed? It seems like you’ve got a few more horses in this race than the purely abstract-minded ones like myself. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/55 "2009-05-30T17:24:02Z")
> [@flonks](#): > > By the way, if asked I will need to search for cite, but it seems that nobody ever escaped from the strongest security prisons. [Yes they have](http://escapingfromprison.blogspot.com/2007/09/escape-from-maximum-security-texas.html) ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/56 "2009-05-30T17:29:34Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > [Yes they have](http://escapingfromprison.blogspot.com/2007/09/escape-from-maximum-security-texas.html) The reason for the escape, it seems, is an underfunded and overburdened prison guard system. It’s the result of the war on drugs and not a proper conceptual framework in which to debate the morality or purpose of the death penalty. Better question would be “has anyone escaped from death row?” (like real escape, not having their execution commuted) ---
**Author:** ![flonks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3ab097/32.png) [@flonks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flonks)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/57 "2009-05-30T17:32:13Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Justified is self-defense, a crime of passion or other reasonable reason for doing so. Unjustified is the bitch deserved to die, I wanted to rape and kill someone, or because it’s fun to watch people die. It’s a decision for the courts and shrinks to make. So, vengeance is admitted as justification now? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/58 "2009-05-30T20:23:01Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > You don’t think that taking the life of an innocent person is worse than killing a killer? This is precisely why I oppose the death penalty. There is nothing more heinous than the state executing an innocent man in my name. Judging by the number of wrongful death row convictions that have been overturned in the last thirty years, I have concluded that we cannot adequately insure that innocent people have not and will not be executed. I would rather pay for a lifetime of three hots and a cot for all murderers, no matter how heinous their crimes, than risk executing a single innocent person. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/59 "2009-05-30T20:37:49Z")
The reason I like the death penalty is righteous revenge. It lets me get out my bloodlust. It lets me know that the universe is balanced in that the sense that an eye for an eye is carried out. It makes me feel good knowing that Saddam Hussein is dead. I like knowing that Tim McVeigh is gone. They’ll never laugh or smile about anything ever again. Please provide an argument that this is an invalid reason to off people via the state. Also, please provide an argument for why “innocents get executed too” is justification for scrapping the program instead of just overhauling the process. Lastly, point to one family of a victim that regrets that the perp has been executed. ETA: And Rumor\_Watkins, please explain a little more clearly how the Old Testament has anything to do with this. I’d actually argue that your ‘sanctity of life’ stance is biblical more than my thirst for vengeance. ---
**Author:** ![HellsAngel21](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/9de053/32.png) [@HellsAngel21](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HellsAngel21)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036/60 "2009-05-30T20:47:50Z")
> [@silvermist](#): > > What is the purpose of the death penalty? The purpose of the death penalty is to provide a sense of justice for the victim’s family. Furthermore, fewer convicted criminals are executed in the US than commonly believed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-death-penalty/498036.md?page=4)