Is a life sentence without parole more human than the death penalty?

Question

Confinment to a small cell for the balence of your life. Where is the human treatment in that or to soceity who must carry the burden?

Answer 1

Absolutely NOT.
Imprisonment is counter-productive.
It doesn't work as a deterrent. It doesn't work as a reform.
Think about it this way, in terms that everyone can understand...say you have a dog. You have tried to teach the dog that crapping on the floor is not acceptable. The dog does it anyway. So you drag him by the collar and lock him in his little cage. Then you feed him through the door and leave him in there for a couple weeks, only coming out to go outside and pee.

After the first minute of being in that cage, the shock of it wears off and the dog doesn't really have any idea why he's still being punished. He just begins to accept it. Do this a couple times and now the dog starts to get resentful and mean, feeling victimized.

If your dog craps on the floor, you catch him at it immediately and drag him over to the pile and yell at him, then drag him outside to show him where he's supposed to be going.

People operate on the same base instincts. They do something unacceptable, you catch them at it and then punish them, quickly and publicly. People don't understand imprisonment, but they do understand pain. Put a burglar through the humiliation and pain of a public flogging. Appeal to his most basic instinct...self-preservation. Don't want to get beaten? Don't steal from people.

At best, prisons are a joke...like summer camp with little responsibility and lots of privelidges to make it more 'humane'. At worst, they are Hellish boot-camps that harden criminals into worse criminals.

Just my opinion.

Answer 2

There is no such thing as a "Life" sentence any more. Even those who are sent up for "life" are usually paroled within 20-30 years, and death penalty criminals may sit in jail for dozens of years before their sentence is commuted or they are pardoned.

Seems to me that if a criminal is convicted of a death penalty crime by a jury, without a shadow of doubt, then the sentence should be carried out immediately! Take him straight from the court room to the gas chamber, or better yet, set up an electric chair right in the court room!

Make the death penalty mean something again, because right now, it's not a deterrent for most criminals

Answer 3

Life sentences are considered more humane by many civil liberties types because at least you have some standard of living, even if it's pretty limited. In prison, you could still check out books and learn things, write your memoirs, find religion, improve your physical fitness, etc., which some would say still constitutes a purposeful life. Others would argue that convicts in prison for life do not (generally) contribute to society, and in fact cost the taxpayer a good chunk of change to feed, clothe, house, and educate/entertain them for no appreciable return (except in the few states that have tried to reinstate chain gangs). For these folks, the convict's life was wasted the minute they committed whatever heinous crime for which they were convicted, and they subsequently waived their right to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness. Now effectively property of the state, they become a matter of economics -- pay to continue feeding them, or get rid of them and move on?

Answer 4

Confinement?? Oh, you must be forgetting the T.V. time, the recreation time, the three square meals a day, and all the other "terrible" elements of life "inside". Apart from that consider that the con is able to feel all the emotional highs of life (i.e. family news, personal development, even sexual pleasure). A little more humane (sic) than the deprivation of these things taken from the victim. Besides, how do we say killing is wrong if we do it "by the law"? Sorry, I guess that's another question.

Answer 5

Death penalty is more human, a person staying in a cell doing absolutely no productive act must be depressed besides God might be more merciful and just with him than humans

Answer 6

Okay. Have you ever been to death row? I've worked death row. They have televisions, movies, games, physical fitness equipment, radios, magazines, a private cell, one hour a day outside (how many of us really spend more than that outside anyway?) Everything they need for life comes to them, they don't have to go to it. They are never alone except for while in their cell after lockdown at night. While the whole entire time we the taxpayers foot the bill. How many people do you suspect get three meals a day? Get to watch television all day long? Have a warm bed to sleep in every night? Doesn't have to worry about laundry or clothes? No Bills? Free psychiatric help? Free medical? In fact some of them are so assure of themselves they tell the correctional officer how to run death row!

Answer 7

I think the death penalty should be abolished. If we condemn ppl for murder, then we shouldn't murder them as well. Retribution is not neccessary the best solution.

Plus, death is the easiest way out. Life imprisonment is slow, pain, psychological torture and is a more fitting penalty.

As for whether it's more humane....well that depends. Life imprisonment could be argued to be psychologically inhumane BUT the death penalty is just barbaric any way you look at it.

Answer 8

... Depends on the severity of the crime.
If it's a raping and murderous scumbag, then let him get the chair or the needle.... but if it's for grand theft or something like that... confine them. I think it's wrong that the rest of society must carry the burden of people who do so much damage, but... it's more humane if we let them rot in jail.

Answer 9

We waste millions of dollars supporting inmates in state prisons and paying for their food and medical expenses. The death penalty is more economical. But which one is more ethical? It depends on the crime committed. Whatever happened to "an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth?"

Answer 10

If you have 3 dead people, 2 witnesses, a murder weapon and a confession, then death is a good thing. If there is any doubt at all, life is fair. Is it humane? Ask the prisoner.!