Crime and punishment

[allix]

Whatever the crime may be , i don't believe death by any means is justifiable.
First of all, mistaken identity could happen, while someone is alive , the case has a chance to rectify any mistakes. If the criminal is killed, how can the criminal suffer? suffering is staying alive living a extremely uninteresting mundane life.

At worst this is a typical criminals life for a killer/murder/mass murderer .
The criminal should have no luxuries at all, food should be as bland as possible and enough to keep a healthy diet. Regular checks on the prisoner should be done.
The criminal is not allowed to spend any time with other criminals.
Visitors should be restricted to only medical specialist and any legal representatives.
Seeing a close one gives the criminal something to play with in his mind and a reason to look forward to seeing that close one again, so not a good idea.

That;s the general idea, give and take a idea.
Of course lower crimes would have more luxuries like visits from close ones, the ability to mix with other inmates.

Ok, what do you guys think?

[Patrick]

Whatever the crime may be , i don't believe death by any means is justifiable.

How about for innocent babies who have done absolutely nothing? I know that's another issue but I think one that needs to be talked about anytime capital punishment is brought up for scumbags.

[Wally Balljacker]

I personally don't think the state ought to be powerful enough to execute it's own citizens, especially since there's a possibility of killing an innocent person. You can't reverse an execution, but it is possible to reverse a conviction if new evidence becomes available. It's also substantially cheaper to lock them up for life from what I've read.

[Tsuroerusu]

I personally don't think the state ought to be powerful enough to execute it's own citizens, especially since there's a possibility of killing an innocent person. You can't reverse an execution, but it is possible to reverse a conviction if new evidence becomes available. It's also substantially cheaper to lock them up for life from what I've read.

I completely agree, and also from a more symbolic point of view, if you kill someone because he killed someone, you are no better than him, because you still killed someone. The point of a punishment is to prevent people from doing stupid things, but it's also meant to make people change their ways, and you don't do that by showing them that killing is OK.

[Vogateer]

Executions might have had a deterrent effect on crime back when a person was publicly hanged very shortly after being sentenced and it was easy to make the association between the crime and the punishment, but now an execution is not on public display and a person's case may grind through the appeals system for 17 years after the offense was committed, when people not directly connected to the crime have either forgotten it or been born after the crime took place, watering down any deterrent effect it might have had.

More important is the staggering number of people on death row who have been proven not guilty through DNA evidence. With this in mind it really is irresponsible to trust our legal system with something as important as life.

[Tsuroerusu]

Executions might have had a deterrent effect on crime back when a person was publicly hanged very shortly after being sentenced and it was easy to make the association between the crime and the punishment, but now an execution is not on public display and a person's case may grind through the appeals system for 17 years after the offense was committed, when people not directly connected to the crime have either forgotten it or been born after the crime took place, watering down any deterrent effect it might have had.

I am extremely against the idea of using the punishment of one individual as a deterrent or an example, because typically that involves giving him a harasher punishment than he actually deserve, and that just is not right.

More important is the staggering number of people on death row who have been proven not guilty through DNA evidence. With this in mind it really is irresponsible to trust our legal system with something as important as life.

I personally think executions are a violation of human rights.

[Brian]

I personally don't think the state ought to be powerful enough to execute it's own citizens, especially since there's a possibility of killing an innocent person. You can't reverse an execution, but it is possible to reverse a conviction if new evidence becomes available. It's also substantially cheaper to lock them up for life from what I've read.

With murder, there is no possibility of killing an innocent person since murder, by definition, is always the killing of an innocent person. Proper punishment for this should be more than a lifetime of taxpayer-funded room, board, and medical care.

If you've never read The Prince, do so. Machiavelli addresses the so-called problem of executing an occasional innocent person.

With approximately 3400 inmates on death row in the US, 5 freed people amounts to 99.85% who are likely guilty. And, to be honest, I don't know how a person can be wrongly convicted and end up on death row. If it happened to me, I wouldn't rest until justice was served. That means that either most (>99.9%), if not all, people on death row are guilty or they just don't care. The DNA thing is always given fanfare by the media too playing on emotion and ignoring probability and statistics.

People will never be perfect. The legal system will never be totally without fault.

I support execution for treason, too.