The death sentence, good idea / bad idea?

Question

I used to think it was a good way to deal with murderers etc, then you find out people are innocent afterwards - not such a great idea. Handy deterrent though?

I am not convinced by either arguement. Any one made up their minds?

cheers - would really value the opinions.

Answer 1

If they are guilty (think Dahmer, Bundy or any of the multitude of others) is it reasonable to have tax payer dollars continue to support them? In prison they are fed, clothed, given medical treatment etc. I believe the average is $30,000+ a year to keep an inmate incarcerated. I think we could come up with more productive ways to spend the money.

As far as them having to live with the guilt, look at Manson, no remorse there. They knew at the time they committed the murder that it was wrong and yet did it still. Prison is a punishment but not as bad as some think. They get cable T.V., 3 meals, some places they get Playstations. This is no joke, I have seen it. I know, because I work in the prison system.

Answer 2

Yes. I have made up my mind against capital punishment.

1. Murder, whether done individually or sanctioned by an institution such as a government, is still murder.

2. The possibility of murdering an innocent person is horrible.

3. The cost of all the court appeals and procedures involved in executing a prisoner .is actually a lot higher than imprisoning a person for life.
4. As another answer indicated, the human factor (overzealous prosecutors, politics and inept defense attorneys) makes the system of flawed and therefore unreliable,
There is absolutely no reason for it.

Answer 3

I think it's a terrible idea. For a start, you're right that there's never going to be a 100% infaliabilty rate in terms of everyone you kill actually being guilty.

Secondly, as has been previously said, death is the easy way out. Think of the number of murderers who kill themselves because they'd rather die than face life in prison - if you want to punish people, make them suffer the consequences of their actions. Also, prison is not all about punishment, it's supposed to be a method of rehabilitation, so that one day prisoners might become law abiding citizens.

Thirdly, no nation can call itself civilised if it sanctions the death penalty, because the death penalty by it's very definition is barbaric and backwards. How can the state say that murder is ilegal when the legal punishemnt for murder is....murder? It's hypocritical and ridiculous.

Fourthly, countries with the death penalty are known to have a higher number of murders per capita than those that do not have it. I won't claim to know why that is, but it proves that the death penalty is not a deterrent at all.

And to g-midori above me, did you know that it is actually more expensive to execute prisoners than it is to keep them in prison for the rest of their natural lives?

I have a question of my own, based on some of the responses so far - why do people advocate the death penalty for sex offences against children, but not adults? Is it less depraved to rape a woman than a girl? I say no. Rape is rape, punishement should be standardized.

Answer 4

First off, it's just not a deterrent. That's borne out by the data. And how many people are even thinking in terms of getting caught, let alone what happens after that?

Plenty of other arguments against it too, like astronomical costs, the prevalent racism and the utter irrevocability of executing someone who is innocent, but for me the bottom line always comes back to one thing, what it does to us as a society. Capital punishment teaches us that the appropriate way to deal a problem is to kill him and call it 'justice.' I don't want to live in that kind of world.

Answer 5

Albert Pierrepoint decided, after executing many -- including lots of Nazi war criminals -- that the death penalty was fruitless.

Probably so. It's a publicity stunt like any other, political pragmatism. Very popular in some quarters: a Y! Question this week suggested bringing back public executions.

It accomplishes little that life without parole does not; and it's quite expensive -- considerably more so in terms of cost of trial and mandatory appeals than life in prison.

Answer 6

I would bring it back in cases like Ian Huntley. Most cases now rely on DNA evidence so there is less chance of an innocent person being found guilty. I would also like to see it in cases of serial rape as these men have shown by their repeated actions that they are not going to stop and will continue to be a danger to society. Some may argue that we would be contravening their human rights, I would say that where they have abused the rights of others they should have no human rights.

Answer 7

I'm firmly against the death sentence for many reasons, including, like you said, the possibility of innocence, and the police can still get in wrong occasionally, even with their new technology. Also, people that commit crimes which may call for the death penalty aren't mentally stable and actually want to die, so in giving them the death sentence we'd be giving them what they wanted. Making criminals live with what they've done is punishment enough.

Answer 8

The benefits are that (1) it saves the state the cost of keeping them in prison and (2) they will never re-offend. It is not a deterrent and unfortunately there seem to be too many miscarriages of justice and unsafe convictions to justify capital punishment as the norm.

Answer 9

If you have the definate proof that a convicted person commited the murder, then yes, it is a good idea,a life for a life. On the other hand, if they are innocent, then, you might want to reconsider giving them a death sentence.

Answer 10

There will always be an error in judgement so the death sentence has that insurmountable flaw which will see innocent people dead. Added to that is that I do not believe that any human has the right to take another human's life away even though it may be deserved.