killing bad people
Makagutu is my best blogging buddy. His blog is fast-flowing stream of thought-provoking posts and fascinating comments. But I was more than a little surprised to find one such comment indicating carefully considered support for the death penalty. Shudder me horrors!
Questions I consider important for evaluating how society can deal with dangerous criminals are below, with my kindly researched, yet probably thoroughly biased answers in brackets:
- What sort of life did they have that lead them there? [often abusive and seriously unloved childhoods]
- Do they sinfully or otherwise choose to be violent criminals? [no]
- What is the understood error rate in convictions? [enough to make you worried]
- Are there examples of meaningful rehabilitation to be found? [yes]
- If there is a chance of error or a chance of rehabilitation, what’s stopping societies that have the tools to remove dangerous people from society, for life, or until their behaviour has been assessed as safe, from doing just that? [no idea, money isn’t even an issue]
- Is there any evidence to suggest that the death penalty serves as a useful deterrent against serious crime? [no]
What am I missing? Anyone care to enlighten me on the logical reasons for having a death penalty?
Violet,
Overall, I agree with you. I have a hard time supporting the death penalty strictly because we get it wrong often enough to make one shudder. However, I don’t think that our modern prisons are more humane than the death penalty in many cases. That really makes me shudder.
You’re right. There is not proof that the death penalty stops violent crime though it certainly stops THAT particular person from committing another violent crime. Sometimes the crimes are so hideous that I imagine myself pulling the handle. And beware the person who would hurt my daughter because I could totally go nuts on that person.
I suppose the only way to know for sure what impact, if any, the death penalty has on violent crime is to completely do away with it. If crime increases, then we’ll know that it did indeed have some prohibitory value.
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I don’t think it’s only about getting it wrong. It’s about viewing people who’ve never had the opportunity to function normally in society as beyond change. I’m sure some of them are, but for the ones who, with the right kind of input, can begin to understand themselves and effect change in their own lives, there is surely merit in attempting rehabilitation. They are people with complex histories and unfortunate biological make-ups, not the two-dimensional sub-human monsters that are portrayed in the press and on TV.
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Violet,
I don’t support the death penalty, but I also do not campaign against it. I suppose, in some sense, that makes me a supporter. I feel much more passionately about prisons being an environment that we should be ashamed of in a civilized society. What happens in those places is also a crime.
My compassionate side agrees with you. And, I don’t know about the country you are living in, but in the U.S., there are few crimes (unless you live in Texas) that will result in the death penalty. They all involve murder. Premeditated. Mostly heinous. But even that will not get you an automatic death sentence.
Here are some interesting execution statistics from the U.S. In 2012, there were 43 executions. 15 of those occurred in Texas (do not commit murder in Texas). What surprised me is of those 43 individuals, 26 were white (well over half), 11 were black, and 6 were latino. Of the victims of these criminals, 39 were white, 12 were black, and 16 were latino. Approximately 53% of total murderers are black, 45% are white and the rest are of other races. Of the victims of murders (total) 50% were black, 47% were white, and the rest were other races. There have been 1,332 executions in the U.S. since 1976, or approximately 37 per year. Only about 0.2% of murders result in the death penalty.
What this data suggests to me is that juries and judges are more likely to recommend the death penalty if you are white and kill a white person. This can be viewed two ways. Juries and judges do not put much value on the lives of blacks and latinos so they do not punish as severely or juries and judges are taking into consideration that those white criminals likely were truly evil because they did not come from abject poverty and from the type of family environment that would/could lead to such crimes (think Scott Peterson). Maybe it is a little of both. Maybe more of one and less of another.
While I agree that there is no hard data that proves the death penalty reduces murder, there IS hard data that proves recidivism rates (criminals released returning to crime) are high; almost 70% are rearrested within 3 years of release. This means that rehabilitation does not really have much in the way of success on its side.
In our society, we are much better served to use our energy and resources to make sure everyone receives an education and has access to the basics of food, shelter and clothing. If there was more equality in society, then it would be easier to see the true anomalies as it relates to crime.
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I think it’s obvious that rehabilitation doesn’t have much in the way of success on its side in the USA, and I also think it’s obvious that this is the case because the emphasis is more on punishment in the criminal justice system. Alternative models, like the one I link to above, have much higher levels of success. And that’s not the end of the story. If the successful models are pursued and refined, instead of blindly accepting the politically popular revenge and punshment models, I’m confident rehabilitation can only become more successful. Here’s the article I linked to:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-prison-inmates-treated-like-people
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Violet,
It is an interesting article, but it is clear to point out that one of the major differences is you are talking about less than 4,000 prisoners in Norway vs 84,000 in the UK and in the US, there are 2.3 MILLION in jails with another 4 MILLION on probation. The UK has a population of about 53 million and the US has a population of almost 249 million. Norway only has a population of about 5 million. Compare that to New York City, alone, which has a population of 19 million. You are just not comparing apples to apples.
It is harder to implement innovative programs like the one in Norway in populations the size of the United States. In the US, we have a lot of problems with crime because of the huge gap in wealth between the haves and the have-nots and our gun and drug culture. But even if we got that under control (I’m pessimistic), our prison population would likely still be too high to implement a plan such as Norway’s. That is not to say we couldn’t be doing a heck of a lot better.
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Well exactly. It’s about taking lessons from places that are making a difference and building on them. Not an overnight job, but the common threads of humanity make all the cultural differences less important.
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Violet,
I hate to beat a dead horse, but I don’t think the United States, regardless of how much they studied Norway’s example, is going to ever (at least in the sense that I or my child and probably her children will ever see it) be able to implement that system. It requires tax funding and there is not enough to do it here. The rich aren’t going to pay for it and the poor don’t have it to pay. In my country, tax payers can’t even find it in their heart to give to the poor and needy except grudgingly. THAT is cultural and isn’t likely to change. Your story makes me yearn to live in Norway, though.
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Oh, and I really like the photo.
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Thank you! 🙂
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It is a tough subject. Revenge is not healthy, but compassion seems to belittle the victim.
Hey, on another note, i need your math brain. ANNEDELOREMUSING has raised a probability question i cannot answer. It’s down toward the bottom of the thread if/when you have time.
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How does compassion belittle the victim? I would think that unfair treatment is compounded by more unfair treatment. Our urge for revenge is instinctive and animalistic that protected us in more primitive societies, but it has no logical basis in the world we live today.
And, ha! You have completely misunderstood my joy in numbers. I’m clueless and would never engage someone who knows what they’re talking about. PeW might help you?
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Precisely why i said revenge is unhealthy. It’s regressive. The problem for our (still animalistic) societies is that if we (or our legal systems) show compassion to a person who raped and murdered a child (for example) it’s seen as weakness.
What’s your alternative to punishment?
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Check out the ‘yes’ link to meaningful rehabilitation above. Norway has a very interesting example of successful rehabilitation. I think punishment has no place in society, unless it can be proven that it changes behaviour. As far as I’m aware, it doesn’t. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time that is only in play because it makes other people feel justice is served – perhaps due to the animalistic revenge survival mechanism I mentioned. I think the only sensible thing to do is look for cause (to aid future avoidance) and cure.
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You think this is a good idea for Anders Breivik?
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I don’t know. But I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand if there’s a chance it would work. What’s the alternative?
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I don’t know… that’s why i’m asking you. Breivik breaks the mold. He willfully cut down innocence. Has he forfeited his right to live among us? Is that a right? Tough questions, no easy answers.
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For a start, we have to learn lessons from experiences like that. Mothers that consistently tell their children they wish they had never been born, should be encouraged to seek therapy and look for positive parenting models.
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OK, learn lessons, but what do we do with him now? How does a society address the loss felt by the parents?
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How does society address loss felt by anyone in any circumstances? It’s definitely an interesting subject and I think there are some very useful responses out there that will require some digging …
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Dig, my friend, dig! This hump in our evolution must be overcome.
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Thanks for this post. It blows my mind how many people rationalize capital punishment. Whether or not it deters criminals or dangerous activities is really irrelevant (though I agree with you that there appears to be no evidence of capital punishment making anyone safer) – the only relevant principle here is whether or not one believes it is moral to initiate force against another individual. If so, then someone has turned morality on its head, and no degree of logical reasoning will fix that. There is NEVER any legitimate reason to initiate force against others – to act in self-defense yes, but not to initiate force yourself.
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Thanks, that’s an interesting angle I’ve never considered before. It does make sense. I notice that some people have replied indicating they can understand the death penalty is some cases but they haven’t been able to provide any logical reasons – it’s clearly just based on raw emotional responses.
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I have two minds on the subject. As a sweeping penalty, no definitely not – way too much room for error, abuse of the system, and irrevocable mistakes. On the other hand, I’m on the fence in some cases.Under the Canadian legal system a “life sentence” is equivalent to 25 years, with parole after two thirds of the sentence is served. The most horrific offenders may be deemed “dangerous offenders” in which case the judge might rule “consecutive” life sentences, and parole will not be an option.
A couple of cases come to mind in my little corner of the world. First one, man abducts, rapes, and tortures children by driving nails into their heads before killing them – 14 victims. Second case – pig farmer lures prostitutes to his farm, he is taken to trial for the murder of 10 women, estimates put his victim count at 50 women. Even though police have DNA evidence he isn’t going to be taken to trial for any additional murders.
When I think of cases like these I feel a line has been crossed. At that point the crappy abusive childhood of the criminal flies out the window. Way too much misery- so I wrestle with ethical opposition to the death penalty and disgust for the despicable actions of certain monsters.
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Truly horrible actions but I can’t bring myself to feel utter contempt for people whose lives have led them to such actions. I feel pity that their experiences and/or their brains are so warped that they would commit such atrocities. Of course in cases like the ones you mention, anyone who managed to be truly rehabilitation would likely be unable to live with themselves. But, in any case, finding a line is impossible. Revenge killing seems to be an emotional reflex reaction that avoids any logical thinking on the matter.
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I agree, and that’s the problem. I have so much compassion for what their lives must have been like to steer them to such a dark place. It breaks my heart, and I do oppose the death penalty.Then I think of the victims and get totally twisted up.It could be that they lived a completely normal life but are mentally ill.”rehabilitation” requires that they take meds, killing a dozen more children before we say oops because they decided they didn’t want to swallow a pill.
I’m not saying for a second that the death penalty is the answer. Simply that as tragic as circumstances might be – sometimes there are people beyond help – in those cases a second chance gone horribly wrong is unacceptable 🙂
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If I may offer a morality-free point of view: we lock people up not because they deserve it, but because they are a danger to the rest of us. In this sense, we execute people because we deem them unable to live in society and incapable of change. I personally disagree with death penalty mainly because of the possibility of an error: if you screw up you can always free the person you’ve locked up and give them a huge compensation; if they’re dead, you don’t have that option (this, assuming other things worked well which, as you point out above, they don’t).
But again, jail is not about revenge and freeing people is not about forgiveness: it’s just about keeping dangerous individuals under supervision for everybody else’s sake. No moral judgement needs to be involved.
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I totally agree. As I said to John above, the seeming need for revenge and punishment must come from a survival instinct that is no longer relevant. We really need to move beyond base emotional responses and be clear about what actions help and hinder criminal behaviour.
By the way, I found your MySpace page and really enjoyed the first one. Your piano playing is excellent, you have a lovely voice too and your song-writing skills are pretty impressive. Hope you get round to doing more soon!
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Hahaha I cannot believe you checked that out! Well, thanks for the praise. My bruised ego sorely needs it. I’ll keep working on it, but it will probably take a while before I decide to record anything else!
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Is that you singing and playing? Wow! I’m impressed. Gorgeous song.
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You too John?? I guess myspace isn’t as dead as I thought… I was sure only Justin Timberlake was in it by now.
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I just saw Violet mention it… That first song is really terrific. You, sir, are a true Renaissance Man!
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Hey Violet, hope you are keeping well.
I don’t support death penalty and am hard pressed too to find a punishment I support chiefly because I hold the opinion that no one chooses how to act. To punish them for acting in a certain way is to punish them for being them.
Many people argue that punishing someone acts as a deterrent. I refuse to accept this. One, the person passing the judgment on this person is not concerned about the accused case, no, it’s about others. There is no day sentencing a woman who has killed her husband in a fit of rage will deter the next woman in such a scenario from killing her husband. It has not happened and it is not going to happen anytime soon.
Someone will ask what then do I propose in place of all the justice systems or rather as I see them, systems of revenge? I hope we will be rich as a race to bring up healthy societies, to be patient with offenders and to rehabilitate those we think have acted against the societal norms, and to explain to them why we think their action is not appropriate.
Related to this issue but slightly different, I have written a post on morality and responsibility where I propose to do away with all this moral talk and to stop talking about people being responsible. Some of the things we see are really horrible, but they are acts of nature carried on by animals in a natural world. A cat will eat a rat. The rat may think the cat immoral and bad, while on the other hand the cat will think the rat good as a source of nourishment.
As to the comment, I think, if am right, he was proposing that instead of keeping this guy in jail till he dies in a small cell, especially when the state is not doing anything to rehabilitate, they should be offered a choice if they want to serve time till death comes in old age if they are lucky or for assisted suicide. I don’t think the punishing authorities and any legislatures are willing to consider this. Most times prosecutors want to revenge on behalf of the complainants that they forget their humanity, they stop to see the man in the dock as one who acted just as he could but begin to see them as being less than human. They dehumanize the people and creates a scenario where the judge is forced to pass the longest sentence in the statute. I hope someday we shall be rich enough to know, 1) that we can be on the dock forced to defend ourselves, 2) that nobody chooses to commit crime 3) we get no benefit from punishing them and 4) we have a duty to ourselves and to everyone to create a healthy society.
Forgive my long comment.
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Thanks for the thoughtful comment Maka! I agree with what you say. I obviously didn’t understand the comment correctly on your page, as I thought the person was saying they supported the death penalty in general. I don’t know if I made my links very clear in the post above, but the example facility in Norway that has a massively successful rehabilitation rate should be a lesson to everyone.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-prison-inmates-treated-like-people
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You made a good case with the links you provided. I don’t think in principle he is for death sentence.
And that Norwegian prison is top notch
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I wrote a blog post about this recently and I agree 100% with everything you’ve written! The moral arguments and the facts show that the death penalty does not do its designated duty, therefore it should be cast aside.
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Yes, it seems to be a dangerous, unpleasant and unrealistic waste of time.
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Is it just me, or does anyone else notice the correlation that many people who are “pro-life” also tend to be “pro-capital-punishment.” So much for the idea that morality has divine origins.
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Oh absolutely! To the average conservative Christian, keeping cells alive at all costs is more important than potentially erroneous, and pointless, death sentences.
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The capital punishment serves not as an actual punishment. It only serves as a vengeance, and even then, it is not going to make the victim, or the relatives of the victim feel any better.
Imagine what the victims or relatives feel like, if they later find out, a wrong person was executed for the crime.
The purpose of any punishment should be to teach the wrongdoer not to do bad stuff. Very long incarceration not only makes it possible, that if new evidence arises we can re-evaluate the sentence, but it also gives the purp some time to contemplate on the choises that led him, or her to the point of living without individual freedom.
Of course there are problems with incarceration also. People tend to be institutionalized in such situations, and criminals may even commit crimes to get back in to the system they know best and feel almost like home at, but that does not work as any sort of excuse for capital punishment.
Here in Finland the removal of death penalty did not increase violent crime one bit. Same goes for all the other nations in the world. Even Russia, wich is a very big nation with difficult social issues.
Besides, often enough, the murderer has allready committed his/her life to the act so totally, that it may even serve as a type of suicide. Certainly this applies to many of the mass murderers who obviously did not expect to get away alive from the situation. To such characters the long sentence in an environment where your possibilities to commit suicide are restricted is much more frightening concept.
Someone like Breivik, who was obviously influenced by some twisted sense of martyrdom, will most propably have a sentence of 25 years and a nother one after that and so on, and the uncertainty wether, if not (as is most likely), he will be ever released is more tantalizing existance he will live in for the rest of his life.
As for such sick bastards who rape and kill kids, here in Finland that sort of animals are kept in a psychiatric prison drugged numb and waiting for the rest of their lives, if anyone ever invents a way to heal them of their lunacy, or if anyone finds them not guilty for the crimes they were sentenced for.
Capital punishment is also much more expensive to the society, than incarceration, at least if that society has anything resembling a sort of modern judical system. So, even that excuse does not support such primitive mentality of revenge.
Having said that, I must confess, I believe there are situations where taking a human life is not only justified, but the right course of action.
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Very interesting Raut – this may be the first topic where we diverge on opinion. When is it the ‘right course of action’?
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Oh, Violet. If I remember correctly, we have different opinions as to wich rockers could be divine. 😉
Self defence is an ethical option in case of direct threat to oneself, or other parties. I think Tiffany 267 wrote very well about the basics of “rules of engagement”. Thought, the basic idea about not initating force is simple, of course, but it gets more complex when there are more “moving parts in the machine”. I for one do not see pre-emptive strikes as justified in most situations such have been used. And on the grand scale such may serve for short range purposes, but cause more harm in the long run to both parties involved.
An arrested suspect, or even a convict, no matter what sort of mass murderer she/he is, is no longer a threat, if that person is incarcerated outside the society in a system where she/he has no real chance to hurt others. Now, I do not think that we have a perfect system, but it is better than the farces of executions staged in some countries even today. The good news is that though no system is perfect, any system may be improved.
On a more personal note, as for an example, I was indoctrinated into a society, that trains almost all of its young men to kill other people (i.e. enemy soldiers) in case our country is invaded. I was trained to kill humans and I have not broken the spell of that indoctrination. I would risk my life and kill perfect strangers, who by any definition are propably not any more “bad people” than I myself, if I ever was called upon to serve. I have given my word to do so (atheists are not allowed to give an oath, but we do solemnly promise to defend the sovereignity of our little country). We Finns no longer even call our armed forces the army, officially at least, it is the “defence forces”.
Over the years I have realized, that war is not as straight forward application of the right for self defence, or even the defence of other innocent parties, and several of my friends have told me, that if Russia ever invades again, they will be on the first boat to Sweden. However, though I do not in any way condemn these friends for their conviction, I see the matter differently. To me it is a matter of a personal conscience.
My other grandad was a pacifist who would have not served during the last war our nation has had, but he was lucky enough, that he worked in a factory making military munitions, not to be even drafted, nor ever send to the line. I do not disapprove of him in any way, but I think the only option left for him, as a pacifist making munitions, was a bit ironic.
Late term abortion might be a good example also. As even though the unborn is “more” innocent than the would be mother, and almost a real human being and a promise of a new person, even most of the most ardent pro-lifers would prefer to choose to save the mother, if there needed to be a choise between the two of these.
Taking of a human life, is a typical ethical matter, that it is hardly ever in black and white. The gray areas lay in practical application of any ethical code, because in reality every situation is a bit different. But even adult people often draw their basic sense of security from such drastic distinctions and oversimplifications as seeing “killing bad people” as justified. Is it then an oversimplification, that we should never sentence a prisoner to suffer the capital punishment? I think not. It is a principle, one among many, upon wich to build a better and more moral society.
A policeman who shoots an armed person, who has not necessarily even done (yet) anything else than threatened others with violence is passing judgement of a death sentence in a flick of an eye on a person of whose motives the police officer has no real information about. Is that not less justified than, that a trained judge passes similar sentence on an evident criminal, who has had a chance to defend him/herself in a criminal court, where all the evidence has been carefully examined and the suspected person has been proven beyond reasonable doubt to have taken the lives of many? I think not, because the person weilding the gun in front of the police officer, is a direct threat to others and the person in the court room no longer is, and we can achieve this to be so without killing him/her.
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Oh well, maybe we do agree generally. That’s very interesting that you would choose to fulfill your vow to defend your country, and yet you suggest this is as a result of indoctrination. National service is a very interesting concept – hammering nationalism into our heads is surely increasingly difficult in our multi-cultural, border fluid society. And there is heightened skepticism about the political and economic motivations that underpin almost all military operations. I’m surprised it’s still possible to attract so many men (and women) into the armed forces.
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Yes, after reading your post, I thought we would agree. 🙂 At least in general terms.
A very good friend of mine uses the term “good nationalism” when he speaks about the sovereign rights of nations and “bad nationalism” when he speaks about tribal moralism. I am quite OK with his terms, though the problem about nationalism as a term is that it is loaded.
Actually it is not a vow, as us atheists are not expected by our military to make vows. It is called a solemn promise. Yes, I think there are things worth fighting for and even though we are indoctrinated with tribal moralism of honouring symbols like flags and defending made up concepts like the fatherland, as if a piece of property is somehting worth dying for. Yet, there are values at stake. My country is traditionally very liberal and it is the liberties we as a nation have decided to give to people who live here, that are worth defending against an outside agression. It is the level of agression and violence, wich determines the level of violence, it has to be faced and confronted with. Not so much to pay back as a revenge, or with an equal measure, but to do enough to stop, or rather prevent any such agression. If love and flowers work better to achieve that goal, then those are the weapons we must employ.
The national service has its downsides, but also some good sides to it. My country is not one of the poorest, but it could not possibly support a professional army, that was seen as any sort of deterrent by our most likely enemy behind our eastern border, as they have millions of men to call upon. What can any small nation do to secure it’s sovereign rights against a military superpower that might one day serve a dictator, or a demagogue, who happen to need an outside enemy to hide how bad they are runnig their own country, or even a democratically elected leader of such might, who might feel obligated to serve the cause of some corporation that paid their election advertizing? Build a nuclear weapon? Be ready to fight a conventional war at the terms of the superpower, or have enough trained guerilla forces to make any invation a neverending and very expensive war?
We are fiercely indipendend and we have very bad experiences in joining any military alliances. Last time we tried that one out our ally was the nazi Germany. The national military service binds our men into one big tribe with equal or at least comparable experience of something rather extreme (as military training tends to be). It gives our young men a period of learning about self restraint at the age when the hormonal developement is at its peak and the youngsters have come to appriciate themselves as adults.
One of the good sides is, ridiculously enough, the fact that we learn to handle weapons. Finns do not kill themselves by accident with a gun. Not comparingly, as much as other nations, that have as many guns per capita (the US being probably the one that even comes near us). That is also because we have strict gun carrying licences and if you apply a gun permit for self defence, you are not likely to get one.
The system makes up a flexible and strong army, since even though only a limited number of the men are professional officers, there is an abundance of skills and education the soldiers, especially the reserve, has to offer for a crisis situation.
Those whose consciences do not stand the militaristic culture or weapons at all may opt to serve as aid in hospitals, daycarecentres, kindergardens, fire departments, libraries and such.
However, the national service system also supports a militaristic attitude among us. And that may be causing severe social trauma, wich is hard to detect and treate. The service in civil duties is seen as a punishment for not serving in the armed forces since it is set to take a longer period of service and I have a friend who was actually convicted to prison, for not serving at all. It is this kind of judical problems that has caused Finland to be on the list of Amnesty International for years. I respect the conviction of my friend to rather be put to prison than to serve. The service should be voluntary and voluntary service should be enough to serve as an army for my country.
But I am totally going on a tangent here. My apologies…
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Thanks Raut, that’s all really interesting! Gun control was one of my early ranting topics on the blog, and I was aware of a similar defence force situation in Switzerland, which, as you probably know, US gun fanatics love to use as example of high gun ownership and low homicide rates. So, it’s good to hear more about how it works in practice.
Also, national service has always been a topic of interest of me. Not military service, but the idea of young people having a program of work they can choose from when leaving school to give them some sense of contributing to communities. I think there are so many benefits in terms of confidence and social understanding. I guess the military service model is useful for these reasons too, although I don’t really agree with it.
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Ha, we have comparatively high homicide ratings in Finland, at least comparing to the other Nordic countries. We really just do not kill each other with guns even though we have a lot of them. Traditionally, Finns kill each other mainly with knives, fists, or even with an axe rather than with a gun, but mainly with a knife. And this has been so even when we still employed the capital punishment. I guess it is sort of a macho thing. Killing a man looking directly in his eyes in a stand up fair fight, rather than murdering him with a gun from a distance, or something like that… In war our attitude about guns is directly the opposite. Sniper is the king of the battlefield.
The typical Finnish homicide victim was killed in a drunken brawl by his best mate, who in the morning has honestly no idea why he killed his friend. Most propably though the reason was connected to the fact they run out of booze before becoming unconscious by it. It is hard to imagine that such murders could have been awoided by the threat of a capital punishment, though. A bunch of social studies have been written about the subject, but nothing conclusive I have yet seen or heard from those. I do not know if any other nationalities do this, but we Finns are so damn organized, that we even plan the days when we are going to have a hangover. That is to say, that for some reason, when the Finns drink alcohol the drinking contest will be who passes out first.
I once saw a picture of a Canadian bar, or a saloon from the early 20th century, wich stated that no admission to Indians or Finns. I guess the idea was not to give strong liqour to the barbarians, else they might harm property and patrons.
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For Raut: on a policeman shooting someone …
http://lewrockwell.com/spl5/fbi-executed-my-boy.html
For myself I believe in the minimum force to achieve the desired ends—but only in self (which includes the extended self: family, friends, neighbours, countrymen, etc). I see no reason why of someone is trying to kill me (or mine) I can’t kill him back, hopefully first.
As for the state legally killing via laws … did you see my comment referencing an alternative—the ‘oubliette’? (Dammit, I’ll have to post on that one in greater depth.)
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Killing people – no-no.
But: popping them into an oubliette (with no mod cons) for the rest of their lives (no time off for good behaviour), much better idea. That way they get a while to consider, and if it’s later proven that they are after all innocent they get fished out, dusted off, an apology and freed; hopefully with a good compensation package paid for by the state itself AND personally by the prosecuting lawyer.
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Violet,
This is the second horrible thing I’ve read today that made me think about this thread. The first was a 25 year old man that stuck his 6 month old daughter in the freezer because she was crying, and this:
http://www.wsbt.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-attack-alaskabre94s074-20130528,0,3679139.story
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I don’t understand. Are you suggesting that when society fails people, either by friends and family ignoring danger signs from damaged individuals, or by the criminal justice system being unable to assess risk of re-offending in convicted violent criminals, that the sensible thing to do is kill these people? Yes, let’s kill them just in case. Do we kill them before or after they commit the headline-making atrocities that paint them as two-dimensional evil monsters? The acts are horrific, but I’m sure we can find more sensible ways of treating and dealing with people who clearly have mental problems, and it doesn’t mean ever resorting to the error-riddled path of emotionally-driven vengeful and violent, but legalised, murder. I guess a big part of this difference in opinion is cultural. You’ve grown up in a country where this is normal.
I still haven’t seen even a whiff of a logical reason for the death penalty – unless killing them is the only option (i.e. life imprisonment and more accurate risk assessment are both impossible) AND this can be done before they commit the horrendous acts that devastate other lives.
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No, I was actually thinking about the rehabilitation thing and whether it is possible.
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Of course it’s possible. Not in 100% of cases but that’s why legal systems should be more concerned with possibility of re-offending, rather than ‘punishment’, which is meaningless.
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In this particular case, where the man was sentenced to seven years for breaking into a home and sexually assaulting a a child and other adult occupants, and then was released from prison after serving less than half his term (the minimal sentence and early release was a HUGE gift and second opportunity) and proceeds within hours of his release to murdering two people and raping a two-year-old (who is likely only alive because the parents came home and caught him in the act), what do you think is the proper punishment, as he is guilty (caught), has already been given a chance, and now has escalated to murder? IF there is a candidate for the death penalty, he seems to be the poster child. What argument would you give to the family of the child and grandparents for not seeking the death penalty? Alaska doesn’t have the death penalty, so this is purely an academic question. They obviously don’t have a very good court system either.
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Someone else brought up victim’s families, and I’m planning on doing a post about that because I think there’s some imaginary projection going on there. My imaginary projection doesn’t involve another murder for imagined punishment, but a system that works to accurately assess danger and investigate why people commit atrocities, in order to avoid leading people to make similar decisions. You kill someone, you learn nothing from them. Do the families of victims of violence want these cycles to continue? I don’t think so.
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I hope you include in your study how to employ those methods on prison populations in excess of 2 million. We spend 63 billion dollars per year in the United States on prisons. It is obscene.
And although I have agreed that the death penalty is not something I support, I cannot agree with you that prison should not be a punishment. If all was equal, we would no doubt still have crime.
We can do an infinitely better job on poverty and education, which would, in my opinion, drastically reduce prison populations. Yet, there is a punishment to the criminals; otherwise you are punishing the victims.
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If it were 63 billion real monies that would be quite a notable cost. But when it’s just ten minutes printing of a fiat currency—where’s the problem?
But if your point is that you’d like a better return on investment I’d suggest the Chinese “single bullet to the back of the head” stops an awesome amount of re-offending — AND they send the bill for that bullet to the family of the late offender. Win/win?
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