Death Penalty?

Question

What are your views on it?
Do you believe in an eye for an eye and think it is right that it is practiced in todats society?
Or do you believe you should turn the other cheek and it is Murder?

Answer 1

I see the pitch-fork brigade are out in force again!

Why should we bring it back - as a deterrent? - well one look across the pond to America will show it is absolutely no deterrent at all. So no point there then.

To free up the prisons and save money? - an inmate on death row can go through an appeals process taking up to 10 yrs. The only people benefiting being the lawyers getting richer. So no point there then.

As a punishment? prisoners on death row report they are more scarred of being locked up forever than dying, one would safely assume that being locked up forever is more of a punishment than death. So no point there then.

Murder is murder even if 'legal' and carried out by the state..

In all there is not a single argument to support bringing back the death penalty, and remember - 'an eye for an eye and the whole world will go blind'.

Answer 2

How can a system that isn't effective in preventing or reducing crime but risks executing innocent people be moral?? You received a few answers that are wrong on the facts like cost, and some that ignore the facts. Here is some info about the practical aspects of the system, and a good alternative to turning the other cheek, with sources below.

Risks of executing innocent people-
124 people on death rows have been released with evidence of their innocence. DNA is available in less than 10% of all homicides and isn’t a guarantee we won’t execute innocent people.

The death penalty doesn't prevent others from committing murder. No reputable study shows the death penalty to be a deterrent. To be a deterrent a punishment must be sure and swift. The death penalty is neither. Homicide rates are higher in states and regions that have it than in states that don’t.

We have a good alternative. Life without parole is now on the books in 48 states. It means what it says. It is sure and swift and rarely appealed. Life without parole is less expensive than the death penalty.

Death penalty costs. The death penalty costs much more than life in prison, mostly because of the legal process. When the death penalty is a possible sentence, extra costs start mounting up before trial, continue through the uniquely complicated trial in death penalty cases (actually 2 separate stages, one to decide if the defendant is guilty and the second to choose the sentence, mandated by the Supreme Court), and appeals.

The death penalty doesn't apply to people with money. Its not reserved for the “worst of the worst,” but for defendants with the worst lawyers. When is the last time a wealthy person was on death row, let alone executed?

The death penalty doesn't necessarily help families of murder victims. Murder victim family members across the country argue that the drawn-out death penalty process is painful for them and that life without parole is an appropriate alternative.

Problems with speeding up the process. Over 50 of the innocent people released from death row had already served over a decade. If the process is speeded up we are sure to execute an innocent person.

Answer 3

The death penalty is not an adequate punishment and is not an adequate deterrent.

The death penalty is not an adequate punishment, because it is the easy way out. I would rather see murderers being sentenced to a lifetime of hard Labour. "Life" should mean life.

It is obvious that the death penalty does not act as an adequate deterrent, because countries which have the death penalty tend to have significantly higher rates of violent crime than those which don't.

Those are the logical arguments. Also, however, the death penalty is as morally indefensible as the crimes it is meant to deter. If the taking of human life is enshrined in the law as an acceptable punishment, that then sets the example to those inclined to commit such crimes that killing a person is morally defensible. It simply isn't.

I'm with the late Enoch Powell on this one, when he described the death penalty as "utterly repugnant".

Answer 4

Ghandi once said that "an eye for and eye will make the world blind!"
The death penalty is nothing more than state sanctioned murder.
I am not saying that murderers, rapists etc should be let off, but I don't think that murder is the answer to the crimes committed.
If it was effective as a deterrent, how come the USA still has such a high murder rate?

Answer 5

hmm tough question this... in reality no-one should have the ability or need or desire to take anothers life. However in every society you get people who believe that the law, or morals or whatever dont apply to them and that they can do whatever they want.

Society needs an ultimate deterrent against these kind of people, whether it be life (and I mean life) imprisonment without parole or the death penalty. Although the death penalty is cheaper on the tax payer.... you dont need to build prisons, staff them and pay for the upkeep of people on life improisonment... for the death penally you get a one off cost for burial fees..so for some countries choices like this can come down to commercial reality....

Also I dont believe you can really define it as an eye for an eye, more as the ultimate punishment for transgressions committed.

Whether i believe in it or not I can't really say as its never affected me but I do believe that punishment for crimes is warranted and neccessary, and that the punishment should fit the crime.

Answer 6

I believe that if you break the law, you forfeit your rights and the prisons today, especially England's, is too easy on criminals. they seem to look at prison as a holiday home. It's disgusting. I do have to say that the death penalty is still too harsh though, to take a life is Gods job only. If someone is going to hurt you or your family, then self defence is the only way. If they intend to kill you, you have no choice but to stop them however posible.

Answer 7

I don't believe in "an eye for an eye," but I also don't believe in "turning the other cheek.:"
If we teach that it's wrong to kill, then it's wrong to kill, and it's true across the board
If we lock them away with no possibility of parole, we absorb the cost of housing them and providing for them better than a lot of other people have it.
I still don't think it's right to kill anyone, but I know if someone came into my home to hurt me or mine, I would certainly defend myself and my family.
Execution just seems so barbaric, but there is a part of me that has no sympathy for child molesters, rapists, and murderers.

Answer 8

The death penalty is a simplistic knee-jerk reaction. What makes our society 'civilised' is that we have decided what is right and wrong and then live by those rules. I tactfully suggest that those people here who support the death penalty are being way too simplistic, and haven't coinsidered what the effect on our society would be if this horrifically outdated form of justice returned. Killing someone is wrong, we reduce our status as civilised human beings by "doing it back".

Answer 9

Firstly, I believe what the Bible says about an eye for an eye. The quote is always cut short, what God actually says is that "Vengeance is mine" Says the Lord "...an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". In other words we can trust that if someone wrongs us, God will exact a punishment on them on our behalf, and that it will be fitting for the crime they committed against us, hence an eye for an eye. Jesus also taught us to turn the other cheek. However, He also calls us to live within the laws of man in the land we live in, so if Capital Punishment is a law in the land a criminal lives in, and he commits a crime that carries the death sentence, one would imagine that he is aware that if he is caught and successfully prosecuted, he will be aware that he is likely to receive such a sentence.

Personally, no, I do not think it is right. To put someone to death is either wrong, or it is right. Just because the state and someone licenced to put someone to death by electric chair, gas chamber or lethal injection is doing the killing, in my book, it is still killing. I do not believe that there is any humane way to kill someone. If you put them in the chair, they can take several minutes to die while they literally fry alive, the gas chamber can take just as long and lethal injection, just because they are paralysed initially and cannot move or talk, does not mean they cannot feel immense pain and terror, they just cannot tell us about it. Also, they spend a long time knowing they are going to die. One of the things about death in this life is that usually we do not know when we are going to die. What would life be like for us if we knew that at one minute past midnight three years from now we were going to die? What would we change? Who would we contact and what would we say to them? But stuck in prison until that time comes, endlessly appealing against hope that your sentence will be commuted to life. To me, that is mental torture. That is the ethical side.

On the cost side, it costs a vast amount of money to keep people on death row and to actually execute them in comparison to incarcerating them for the rest of their life. The constant appeals which they have no way of paying for and must be provided by public defenders cost a huge sum year on year. The buildings they are housed in and specialist staff who guard them cost more than maximum security ordinarily does. They do not carry out work in the community like some lifers, picking up trash on a chain gang for example. They just sit around and rot, waiting for their appointed time and it all costs far too much. The actual execution costs a great deal too, staff have to be paid, not just on the day, but on a rehearsal day too, the executioner has to be paid to check the equipment and do a dummy run to ensure there will be no problems, which there sometimes are, press have to be notified as do victims families, in case they want to attend the execution, which is just plain wrong in my book and the day of the execution itself costs a lot of money. It is cheaper to imprison someone for life. And if life means life, they will never get out, what is the need to put them to death. It also causes great pain and suffering to the families they leave behind. Certainly they have committed a crime, but their mothers and fathers, sisters, brothers, wives, children and others may be completely innocent, and whilst they may not condone or understand what their loved one has done, they still love that person, and knowing that they are to be put to death on a given date at a given time must be one of the hardest things to come to terms with. How do they prepare themselves as they approach that date?

Taking all the above into consideration, and the fact that if it were a truly viable deterrant to crime, there would not be so many people on death row, I just cannot see the point of it. Many victims families say that putting to death the perpetrator who took their beloved's life will not bring them back, and only cause pain to other people, it just seems totally senseless to me. I don't know if I would call it murder, but its a very close call.

Answer 10

It doesn't work as a deterrent.
We don't have the right.
Court's are not infallible.
It brutalises the executioners.
It's inhumane.
If you cannot give it, you are not allowed to take it away.

And finally, the idea that 12 ordinary people deciding someone should die then a government employee drags him away and carries out the deed, is far more sickening and troubling than a moments rage followed by a lifetime's remorse.