Put these reasons for executing murderers in your order of preference...?

Question

If you agree with capital punishment, which of these do you rank as the most valid reason:
(A) It is cheaper than keeping them in prison for life.
(B) An eye for an eye.
(C) It is an effective deterrent and will reduce crime.
(D) It will create more space in prisons.
(E) Killing people is evil and it is our moral duty to punish them.
(F) DNA evidence has made the law infallible, so there is no reason not to.
(G) Something else?

So I don't waste anybody else's time...
I am not expressing an opinion here, I am conducting a survey. Personally, I am also against capital punishment, but I am interested to know why other people are for it.

1st choice scored 3 points, 2nd = 2; 3rd = 1
Results:
(B) Eye for eye/revenge = 31
(A) It's cheaper = 20
(C) Deterrent = 18
(G) Death means no release (5 votes) = 13
(E) Moral duty = 9
(F) DNA infallible = 7
(D) Prison space = 6
So the top choice was a moral/religious one, which is a belief that is difficult to argue against. Except to say that this argument is more representative of muslim and jewish traditions than a christian one.
2nd and 3rd on the list are arguable (as some people did). The American experience is that it is
not a deterrent and is not cheaper. You might want it to be, but evidence says otherwise.
Most popular (G) choice was 'if you kill them, there is not chance of them ever walking free again', perhaps this arises from a frustration that 'life' does not mean 'life'. In my opinion, that is a whole other debate. Death also ends the possibility of a reprieve - plenty of innocent people have been executed in the past.

Answer 1

A
C
D
E
D
B
G

Answer 2

(A) It is cheaper than keeping them in prison for life.
It is not....what with all the appeals, extra security and long periods spent in prison before the execution is carried out, many American states say that it is cheaper to sentence a prisoner to life rather than death.

(B) An eye for an eye.
In many cases people have been wrongly sentenced. In the UK there have been many, many cases where people have been found guilty of *extreme* crimes which were later overturned when better evidence came to light. example - the Birmingham six and the guildford four would almost certainly have been sentenced to death, if we had the death penalty in force in the UK.
all of them were later let out after it was found out that they were 'fitted up' by the police

(C) It is an effective deterrent and will reduce crime.
No, and it has never proven to be. In the US there has been a lot of research into this and there is no established deterrent effect

(D) It will create more space in prisons.
In the US, people are often on death row for YEARS.....in single occupancy cells, with greater security. Where does the extra space come from?

(E) Killing people is evil and it is our moral duty to punish them.
by killing them?

(F) DNA evidence has made the law infallible, so there is no reason not to.
DNA is very good, but is by no means infallible. I doubt that there will ever be a technique which will provide 100% accuracy.

{edit} |I see that i have 2 thumbs down already, simply for stating facts.
Maybe that is indicative of something.
Maybe emotive reasoning is too illogical to decide on something as *final* as the death penalty

Is anyone here old enough to remember the calls to "string the b@stards up", when the "bridgewater 3" were sentenced for killing a 13 year old boy, Carl Bridgewater?

Is anyone here old enough to remember when they were let out, when it was proved that the police had fabricated evidence against them?

Answer 3

i am not pro - but i feel i have to correct you on a number of points. Execution is NOT cheaper than keeping the offender in prison - in the vast majority of cases the time spent on Remand and the (arbitrary) appeals cost more than the lifetime's prison accomodation.

Capital Punishment is NOT a Deterrent. Evidence ahows that serious offences are commited on a higher ratio (per-1000 pop.) in countries where Capital punishment takes place - and often even more so when specific areas are compared (i.e. different states) - In fact very little sentances operate by way of deterrent, which is why most penal systems in the world rely (theoretically) on Rehabilitation not deterrence.

DNA Evidence has in fact not made the law infalible - the law is practice by Human Beings not machines. Human Beings are not infallible - corruption exists and allways will.

Creating more space in prisons should be done by tackling the reasons for crime - including (but not limited to) - drug addiction and the criminalisation of drug use - with the undercurrent of criminal culture which is associated with the 'scene'; Deprevation and poverty; and Most Importantly - Mental Health.

apoloigies for not answering your question properly - ifelt i had to clear a few things up. Execution ios really an easy answer to a very complex issue of crime and punishment.
Oh - and... an eye-for an eye is a religious principle and should therefore be separated totaly from the legal process. The legal process is a partisan one.

Answer 4

A) Justice. If you take a life, the ONLY form of justice is to give up your own, nothing else is of equal value.
B) Protection of society. The ONLY 100% way to ensure that a murder does not harm anyone again is to kill them. If you put them in prison for life, then somebody has to watch them. You are putting the lives of all the guards in danger and there is the possibility of escape, or some retard paroling them.

Executing murderers is the only logical way to deal with them. Anything less is an insult to the concept of justice, and insult to the victims, and a dangerous risk to the lives of our families.

...a note on deterrence. Capital punishment is not a deterrent now, but it could be. Last year there were ~16000 murders in the USA, and only 60 executions. So murderers have a less than 1% chance of being executed, that is why it is not a deterrent now. However, if there were 16000 murders, and 16000 executions then it would be a deterrent as people considering murder would know there is a 100% that it will cost them their life. So it would be a deterrent if it was properly used, but it isn't now.

Answer 5

I'd say

A)
B)
D)

Don't really agree with

C (it is not a deterrant)
E ("morals" don't come into it)
or
F (Nothing is infallible)

As for being against capital punishment well I would very much like to see Ian Huntley, The Yorkshire Ripper, Rose West and (if the btich hadn't died already) Myra Hindley and Ian Brady dangling from a rope. Vicious child killing monsters don't fecking deserve life when they have denied it to their poor little victims and given their families a life sentence of grief.

Back in 1972, my mum in law (fiance's mum) was viciously raped, stabbed multiple times and left for dead by a violent paedophile when she was just 9 years old - she was lucky enough to be found by a member of the public before she bled to death (she had been playing hide n seek with her brother and friends in a wood near her house when this "thing" attacked her). Doctors didn't think she'd live and when she did they told her parents she'd never walk again (he nearly severed her spinal chord) or have children (her uterus and ovaries were torn to pieces with the stab wounds, as well as her kidneys, liver, small and large intestines.) Against all the odds she did both (and is about to become a grandmother when our baby is born in 4 weeks time), but at 44 she is still in constant pain from the injuries she received, spends much of her time in hospital and will be disabled for the rest of her life - she has been told she'll be in a wheelchair by the time she's 50.

But despite all of this she was one of the "lucky" ones. A week after the monster attacked her, "it" savagely RAPED a 5 year old girl and then MURDERED her by slitting her throat and leaving her to bleed to death. That child never got to grow up, have a career, get married be a mother or a grandmother. So in contrast my Mum in law is very "fortunate".

"It" was not caught until a few years ago - "it" had been abusing children for nearly 40 years.

Can you imagine the pain this "thing" (I refuse to call "it" a human being) caused not just to "its" victims but to their families? How would you feel if your little daughter was raped and murdered? Bet you woulnd't be so agaist capital punishment then.

Yeah maybe its veangeful of me but I don't care. I would give a lot to see that "thing" swing from a rope. Sadly he's now in prison, living off your and my taxes and enjoying three square meals a day, medical treatment, education classes etc (any attempt to withhold these benefits would be a "breach of his human rights" no doubt). Nice little number for murdering kids eh? Try and justify that.

Answer 6

None of the above. As for them, I can find a flaw in at least 5 of them:

A: Not necessarily. Executions actually cost more than keeping a man in prison for life.

B: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" stated Mohandas Ghandi. By killing a killer, you're probably doing them a favor, because they don't even have to think on what they've done, plus they're free, to an extent.

C: That fails to be proven true. Many countries without the death penalty have lower crime rates.

E: That doesn't even make sense, due to the fact that God has the last word. Any true Christian could tell you that it's His descision, not ours, who lives and who dies.

F: It's actually DNA evidence that proves AFTER the execution that the convicted was innocent, so it works on both sides.

Answer 7

G. Why should a criminal who has viciously murdered someone get ANY good treatment? Show them grace? Why? They had none to show and they deserve to die. In America, the criminals have much more rights than the victims do. Screwed up, isn't it? That people care more about the rights of a person who killed a young child than they do about the right that young child had to live.

Answer 8

1 - C. It would be a effective deterrent and there should be none of this sitting on death row for so many years. Sentenced and then death straight away.

2 - F. If you have the evidence then you have the person.

The others don't come in to it.

Answer 9

A C E D

B is primitive revenge
F is untrue (bribery and corruption EXIST)
G is irrelevant you have all the valid excuses included

C is not wholly true
D should be treated with caution (who has the right to judge their fellow)?
Because C is not completely true, in most cases I would prefer that life mean life, allowing for the possible future correction of any miscarriage of Justice!
However I believe that STATE MURDER (Execution) is perhaps the only answer for the terrorists of this world.

Answer 10

We must look at recent history. England cannot have the death penalty.

The police regularly lie to obtain convictions. They are target driven and cannot be trusted.

Just look at the recent miscarriges of justice; the habit of locking -up mental patients; the Irish wrongly imprisoned; cases reopened because of incompetent 'expert witnesses; women wrongly found guilty of murdering their children; and recent cases of muslims being charged for crimes which did not happen.

Remember that 'Driving whilst Black' is still an offence in England!

Answer 11

UM, How about g) THEY DESERVE TO DIE?

I suppose that's a spin off of B. So I guess B, though I'm an atheist......