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The Death Penalty

But then someone would be elected into office and take advantage of the law and execute people to thier heart's content.
IIRC, weren't more people executed in Texas a few years back under Geroge W than were executed in the whole of the rest of the USA?
 
At any rate, the ability to say "we can put you to death" is useful, even if it's not used. Indeed, the best use is as a deterrent- as a punishment, it's spectacularly bad. Perhaps a legal allowance but disuse would work best, so that criminals would take into mind that the death penalty existed, but none would actually be executed? Think polishing a gun you aren't going to use.

I agree, the Death Penalty is an awesome way to deter people from committing crimes.

Totally.
 
Yeah, I should point out that the EU (one of the main human rights-related requirements of joining is abolishing the death penalty) has far lower crime rate than the US. Even if there are any other factors involved, clearly the death penalty is not a deterrent at all.

iirc, doesn't the EU also have much stricter gun control laws? That is also a factor I believe. However, I'm off topic.
 
I am against the death penalty. I am against imprisonment without parole. I am against the castration of rapists. I am against all those inflexible things which suppose that a criminal made cannot be unmade.
 
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Well, on one hand, killing killers gets them out of the way. It saves money in the long run, and it certainly takes them out of society.

On the other hand, we should not be the ones who decide who gets to live and who gets to die.

When you think about it, when you kill the killer, you are only killing ones you know of. There are killers who get away with it.

I'm pretty much against the death penalty, but then, I have never known anyone who was murdered. I can't imagine that, but I can guess, I would want revenge. And knowing that man (or woman or what have you) is dead is a form of closure.

Eh. My feelings are mangled.

Edit: ...Just ignore my sig. *sweatdrop*
 
I can't imagine that, but I can guess, I would want revenge. And knowing that man (or woman or what have you) is dead is a form of closure.

The law's purpose isn't to provide revenge or closure.
 
Wasn't talking about the law, I was talking about my acceptance of the death penalty. It'd be a major fact in perhaps changing the minds of people.
 
Wasn't talking about the law, I was talking about my acceptance of the death penalty. It'd be a major fact in perhaps changing the minds of people.

I'm not sure if I fully understand what you mean. In essence you're not saying that revenge is a reason to have the death penalty, only that you'd want revenge if you were in that situation?
 
Okay.

Alexi does not like death penalty right now.

If Alexi's friends and/or relatives were murdered, he might want revenge.

Alexi may feel better knowing the murderer was going to die if the police catch him.

Alexi may like the death penalty then.
 
I think that instead of just randomly throwing people in prison for life/giving them the death penalty, we should do something to actually punish them instead of just inflicting suffering on them. You know, make them turn over a new leaf. I realize that isn't possible with some, but, geez...With those it isn't possible, then I suppose death would be appropriate to end their own suffering and protect society from them. There are many that could be redeemed though, especially with modern medicine.

However, there is also the fact that if you say, "You do this, you die," people aren't going to want to do it quite so much.
 
I think that instead of just randomly throwing people in prison for life/giving them the death penalty, we should do something to actually punish them instead of just inflicting suffering on them. You know, make them turn over a new leaf. I realize that isn't possible with some, but, geez...With those it isn't possible, then I suppose death would be appropriate to end their own suffering and protect society from them. There are many that could be redeemed though, especially with modern medicine.

However, there is also the fact that if you say, "You do this, you die," people aren't going to want to do it quite so much.


doesn't work. we already know that it doesn't work because crime rates are actually higher in countries with the death penalty than countries without. the EU has an EU-wide ban on death penalties and I think we're doing better than America on the crimescale.
 
Wait, wait.
To me, it sounds like because there's higher crime, the death penalty exists in those states/countries.
But go ahead and prove me wrong if I am; to me it seems like it should be reversed. :/
 
Wait, wait.
To me, it sounds like because there's higher crime, the death penalty exists in those states/countries.
But go ahead and prove me wrong if I am; to me it seems like it should be reversed. :/

Except that if you look here then there are states in the US, like Michigan, which don't have the Death Penalty and have a fairly high murder rate, and there are places like South Dakota, which have fairly low murder rates. If your idea was correct then Michigan would have the Death Penalty and South Dakota wouldn't.

Regardless of which, the death penalty is just plain ineffective, as has been shown throughout this thread, and money should be put into welfare and education to try and make people realise that crime is dumb, rather than made to fund an ineffective and expensive programme.
 
IIRC, weren't more people executed in Texas a few years back under Geroge W than were executed in the whole of the rest of the USA?

That was more Texas than George.


I would consider life in prison a fate worse than death. :/
If I was forced to live the rest of my life in a cramped cell with a mentally unstable rapist, I would beg for the death penalty.
 
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