most people are against it, which makes it interesting to argue in favor of. personally, i would have to say i'm against it, but that's an emotional reaction.
to make this debate much simpler, i'm going to give you two options for the most serious violent criminals we have. supermax motherf***ers.
these options are solitary confinement and the death penalty, both of which I would personally categorize as capital punishment. one is torture, the other is death. we're using the criminal group that has no middle ground and typically live in the box and walk death row on occasion.
you can also disagree with both, but you'll have to provide an alternative for violent criminals. if you think prisoners killing eachother is ok you can offer that as an alternative, it's your opinion
efforts 2 b "humane" have been both ineffective in that regard and also extremely costly
i think most prisoners are capable of rehabilitation & are worth the extra resources but our culture is so toxic towards the prison system i doubt itll ever happen
well the part about the lethal injections comes from the idea that they dont have to suffer because its "inhuman" or whatever (fun fact: 99,99% of murders don't happen with lethal injection so who cares about inhumanity, the murderer gave up on that the moment they decided to kill someone)
If we're going to have the death penalty we'll need another method other than lethal injection, because the pharmaceutical manufacturers who produce those drugs aren't willing to sell them for executions anymore (although I suppose states could try to make their own labs). Honestly, proving someone is guilty beyond doubt and then killing them humanely is just too much of a hassle.
deletedover 8 years
I am going to quote something from the video I posted earlier, and its entirely true "The death penalty is not justice. Its revenge"
"Would you kill because someone else's nature cannot be accepted within this current society?"
Pretty much most killings throughout history are this
deletedover 8 years
Madness, ejaz talks about rehabilitation as the one purpose of justice?
Have you not seen the film "A Clockwork Orange", where the main character was put the effects of mind altering drugs and experimentation to change his very nature?
The nature of justice or revenge is always something emotional, and in the end, all it comes down to is power.
Would you kill because someone else's nature cannot be accepted within this current society?
Justice in dealing with transgressors is a farce, it is those who are justly revenged rather than justly re-compensated who drive things, and even then, it is merely a means to achieve utility.
Utility as the driving means behind justice? An even greater farce.
If ones nature cannot be readmitted into society, then let the will of the strong rule out. Either way, one's nature dies, and if it is a land of wolves done away with a cruel emotional facade, let strength alone rule.
If we are to kill another's nature, even if it is evil, know that it is only the power behind us which pushes what society will agree too and which ideals survive.
Justice is such a trite and tiring concept, power and stability rules all and if death or imprisonment be the means to achieve these, so be it and revel in these things as means to maintaining a system.
deletedover 8 years
"but that's an emotional reaction"
its all emotional or subjective reactions for the most part. Reason is very largely based on this and what we subjectively see is in common self-interest.
Two choices, solitary confinement or capital punishment?
Why not go with a different torture, or something similar to clockwork orange? Is there a point to capital punishment or solitary confinement?
As a deterrant, capital punishment hardly works for economic crimes of desperation, and far often than not, as Camus suggests, is simply a tool of the state to enforce its own bias against those who oppose the state.
Is there such a thing as justice or a goal of justice overall? If it is not the harmony of all society and all peoples within society as an ideal to work towards, why not do away with it?
Not all may be happy, but certainly a just society holds that we attempt to get as close to harmony as possible.
If there is a purpose of justice, surely it is to attempt to achieve harmony within society for as many people as possible, and following that, is not the goal a re-admittance of the rehabilitated into society?
If there is such a concept of justice out there, let it be one where the highest utility possible for society is achieved. Deterrence is not the reason any longer for prison, but instead, the reason for prison is to attempt to push people who find themselves there into being rehabilitated for society.
i think that's because psychotics don't fear death like your average sheltered individual, and people who aren't psychotic won't be doing anything that'll land them the death penalty.
that and the fact criminals already know the consequences, which all suck but they still manage to commit crimes because they just have some disposition towards it
isn't it ironic that many people will point to the death penalty as being a form of revenge fantasy, but solitary confinement causes prolonged suffering while death row is a relative reprieve
i believe in fates worse than death and i believe solitary confinement is one of those fates, which is why i find it hard to choose over the death penalty even though it's often the only option for violent criminals who you can't otherwise control. people go insane in solitary, even with basic luxurious and communication between inmates (which is mostly just another form of torture being they're largely madmen)
solitary confinement also accounts for the majority of prison suicides i believe
And just to spark another type of discussion - - I also think the reason the death penalty is employed is less about giving someone "what they deserve", and more to show other people that this is what could happen if they commit a similar crime. We had a discussion about this is my psych class this semester, bc we were talking about law, and I'm too lazy to pull up the study. But bc of Furman vs. Georgia in '72, death penalty was halted for like four or five years, which gave a window for researchers to study if having no death penalty increased crime rates, the results were inconclusive. So there is really no accurate evidence to suggest that having the death penalty can influence others to - for lack of a better word - be good, because of how each state differs in capital punishment and crime rates overall, you would have to stop the death penalty all-together for a longer period of time to come up with any conclusive data, before you started it back up to make sure that it is bc of the death penalty and not something else. Idk just a fun fact. Also I looked up stuff on this actually, and I guess in some states they found evidence it didn't deter crime, but again i think stopping it and starting it again is the only way to make sure that it's because of capital punishment and not like the billion other things it could be bc america is garbage.
Since we're debating an example of the most violent criminals, I would have to say I am against the death penalty but for solitary confinement. Capital punishment isn't at all cost effective, it costs so much more money to put someone on death row than it does to keep them sentenced for life. Even having a trial with it as a consideration costs more than one without - http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty, this is mainly because of how many appeals you're allowed, and the time it takes for all of those appeals to go through, we're looking at at least 7 yrs on death row before an execution. But that's not even why i'm mainly against it, to be blunt; I don't believe that people who commit horrific acts should be allowed to have a mercy killing.
Since solitary confinement is used elsewhere besides supermax I am usually more against it. I think it should be used for the most violent and dangerous criminals, the ones you can't have around other people. But also for those who are deserving of solitary confinement, because as much as it makes me feel (kinda) bad for saying it, there are people who deserve to be in solitary, who deserve that kind of psychological torture.
Incarcerated psychopaths are too valuable to the medical world to just dispose of, studying psychopathy and working on therapies and treatments is a lot easier when we have psychopaths on hand to run tests on. Child/s3xual predators are the same way.
Easy solution: lead injection at supersonic speeds
deletedover 8 years
There's a 7 year mandatory waiting period, where you have to go through all the courts and appeal. That's 7 years of legal fees the government pays for on both sides, covering their defense attorney and the prosecutor. The person being convicted is also held in a maximum security prison, adding up costs. The actual drugs for lethal injections cost a lot as well, they have to buy them overseas because it's not legal to make the drugs here, and many companies overseas charge a ton or refuse to sell them for lethal injections.
