Which is kinder or more humane penalty? Which is more beneficial to society?

Question

Chaps 19-20 of Leviticus, and Chap 21,22 of Deuteronomy says that the state should impose the death penalty for heinous crimes. There are 2 objectives of this law: (1) to put fear in the heart of criminals, (2) to eliminate evil doers.
Or, violate God's law and impose long prison terms / even life imprisonment?

Answer 1

From a Catholic point of view:

Jesus, in John 8:1-11, spared a women guilty of adultery whom the Mosaic Law said should be stoned to death.

If the guilty person's identity and responsibility has been fully determined then non-lethal means to defend and protect the people's safety from the aggressor are more in keeping with the common good and the dignity of the human person.

The Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives.

However in today's modern society, the capability of rendering the offender incapable of doing harm - without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically non-existent.

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

Don't overlook the effect that Christ's death had on our need to adhere to the specifics of the Old Testament law.

But, hey, that's not the point of your question; is it?

Have you considered the debt penalty of a term of service to the victim? In certain circumstances, if a penalty could not be paid, the agressor would have to serve the victim until the debt was paid. Imagine what this would look like in our society today. What if a victim of burglary employed the burglar until what the burglar stole and an additional penalty were paid?