New Clearland wrote:Aeuria wrote:Never been a fan of capital punishment, never will be. It doesn't work as a deterrent, costs more on average per prisoner than life imprisonment, and doesn't really have a basis for existing outside of a skewed sense of justice and possible closure for victims/next of kin.
I just don't see the point in executing prisoners. What's being accomplished? They've already been captured and jailed; that's where it should end.
If they were executed more quickly, it wouldn't cost so much.
And what is to stop them from killing other prisoners, killing guards, escaping, or influencing other inmates. If they are dead, they can do none of that.
What's really unjust is giving a murderer a home, free meals, free healthcare, and a right to live while they didn't show such mercy to their victims and while the victim's families suffer.
And also you'd kill many thousands of innocent people.
ZeroLabs Experimental Community wrote:Aeuria wrote:Never been a fan of capital punishment, never will be. It doesn't work as a deterrent, costs more on average per prisoner than life imprisonment, and doesn't really have a basis for existing outside of a skewed sense of justice and possible closure for victims/next of kin.
I just don't see the point in executing prisoners. What's being accomplished? They've already been captured and jailed; that's where it should end.
I'm not too well versed in the costs of these sort of things. So can you explain to me how capital punishment per prisoner costs less than life imprisonment for at lest 50 or 60 or so years. It would seem that it would be cheaper to execute a prisoner than to pay for their needs for that long a time. Unless a single dose of lethal injection costs way more than I assume it does.
The process to minimise the chance of killing an innocent person is the expensive part.
Socialist Tera wrote:Ifreann wrote:So someone, under your system, could be convicted of murder, but told by a judge that they'll serve life because the evidence against them isn't very concrete.
Yes, that is very true. The death penalty is only is there is enough evidence and witnesses. It is prevent people being framed.
You are aware, of course, that eyewitness testimony is just about the least reliable evidence going? And that people are regularly convicted on what seems like inarguable evidence, and later found to be innocent?
Randsbeik wrote:Well, whether a punishment is "fitting" or not is entirely subjective. Personally, I think the death penalty makes sense from a perspective of resources; a firing squad is cheaper than holding someone in a cell for the rest of their life. That being said, however, it seems to be excessive and ultimately unnecessary as a prevention tool (not to mention incompatible with my "ideal" system of law and justice)
Incorrect: the death penalty is more expensive than life imprisonment.
Urarenge wrote:Aeuria wrote:Never been a fan of capital punishment, never will be. It doesn't work as a deterrent, costs more on average per prisoner than life imprisonment, and doesn't really have a basis for existing outside of a skewed sense of justice and possible closure for victims/next of kin.
I just don't see the point in executing prisoners. What's being accomplished? They've already been captured and jailed; that's where it should end.
A hypothetical question: let's say that I'm Osama bin Laden, and I got captured by the US government instead of executed and I'm serving multiple consecutive life sentences at Supermax or some other really secure prison. Since this is all hypothetical anyway, let's say I'm in my 20's instead of an older person (i.e. "I have my whole life ahead of me"). Literally the supposed purpose of prison is to isolate members of society that break its laws, and rehabilitate them. If my hypothetical Osama bin Laden (young) is serving multiple life sentences (likely with no possibility of parole), it seems odd to keep someone alive whom society sentenced to die in prison because they're too dangerous, and their crimes too heinous. There will never be 'perfect justice, government' et al as long as humans are around, because entropy always increases, it doesn't even have anything to do with humans. But it seems... shortsighted to lock someone up and throw away the key in modern society. If they're so dangerous, why keep handling them? Execute and get it over with, and give everyone affected closure.
Yes. Life without the possibility of parole also shouldn't be a thing.
Sanctissima wrote:Galloism wrote:Essentially this.
If we imprison somebody, and we later find out they're innocent, we can release them.
If we execute somebody, and we later find out they're innocent, we can't un-kill them.
There is of course the option of simply not executing murderers whose conviction is not entirely certain. Continue giving life-sentences to those who courts are mostly certain committed the crime, but execute those who courts are 100% certain committed the crime (be it via video evidence or otherwise).
There's really no reason to outright ban execution on the grounds of uncertainty. If you're somewhat uncertain that the accused is a murderer, but still have enough evidence to convict them, life-imprisonment can suffice.
That's exactly equivalent to never executing anybody. No conviction is ever entirely certain.
Sanctissima wrote:Ifreann wrote:You can't really ever be completely certain.
Video evidence tends to be rather conclusive, especially if from multiple sources and there is no evidence of tampering.
But not certain: it could be someone who happens to look very similar.
Sanctissima wrote:Ifreann wrote:Can video evidence show whether a person was sane? Whether they were acting under duress? Whether they were under the influence of drugs?
Those can be determined by psychologists, investigators and drug testing.
Not in any way that can be considered even remotely "certain". Do you have any idea how wide the error margins on, say, drug testing for professional athletes, is? Or how often mental illness diagnoses are completely wrong?
The Lone Alliance wrote:Aeuria wrote:Never been a fan of capital punishment, never will be. It doesn't work as a deterrent, costs more on average per prisoner than life imprisonment, and doesn't really have a basis for existing outside of a skewed sense of justice and possible closure for victims/next of kin.
I just don't see the point in executing prisoners. What's being accomplished? They've already been captured and jailed; that's where it should end.
The only reason it costs more is the mandatory appeals which just serves to inflate Lawyer's wallets.
And reduce the number of innocent people that get killed.
Sanctissima wrote:Ifreann wrote:Not with total certainty.
If mistakes happen, so be it.
No system is perfect.
We have a choice between a system where our mistakes can be rectified, and one where they can't. One of these is strictly better than the other.
Telconi wrote:Ifreann wrote:And it's illegal for good reasons. And besides, if the threat of death doesn't deter people then the threat of torture and death hardly will.
That's your opinion, one that I don't share. That's a meaningless argument, deterrent punishments will never be fully effective, there will always be some psycho who is unfazed by any deterrent punishment. Being less than 100% effective doesn't disqualify a deterrent punishment from being used.
No, it's just a fact: above a certain (fairly low) level, the deterrent effect doesn't increase with the severity of punishment. Most people who commit crimes do so operating under the assumption that they wont get caught.
Sanctissima wrote:Ifreann wrote:Who will be executed in turn when the state wrongfully executes someone?
Ideally, the investigation will be re-opened and the correct perpetrator found.
If not, then it is unlikely anyone would be executed. In most such cases, the convict's innocence is discovered decades after the fact, so it is usually impossible to find the real murderer by that point. In such instances, one must simply compensate the next-of-kin for their loss. That's really the best one can do.
Or, if you hadn't killed them, you could release them and compensate them directly.
Telconi wrote:Socialist Tera wrote:You have to ask yourself if you are morally right to torture someone and how effective deterrence it would be. You could be executed for petty thief in medieval times but it was often never followed upon.
We practice pain compliance on animals. It's a tool, hard wired into us. We act in such a way as to avoid inflicting additional pain upon ourselves. Therefore, an adequate threat of pain would naturally deter a normal individual from committing an act. If they aren't deterred, as a result of mental illness or defect, then obviously it would fail, but in such a situation I doubt incarceration would effectively deter them either.
Pain compliance only works if you do the conditioning phase first: that is, you have to torture millions or billions of innocent people, repeatedly, over a period of decades (and, for that matter, deliberately encouraging those innocent people to break the law, so that you can torture them). There's also a pretty short window on feedback cycle time:
The Lone Alliance wrote:Ifreann wrote:And also to protect innocent people from being wrongfully executed.
Actually not really, they don't try to appeal the crime, they try to appeal the sentence, as in they continue to claim that the piece of shit is guilty yet somehow deserves life.
That's a question of courtroom tactics, not fact.
The Lone Alliance wrote:Ifreann wrote:Which serves to protect innocent people from being wrongfully executed.
If they truly believed the person to be innocent then they'd be trying to appeal the crime not the sentence. So you're lying.
No, you appeal in whatever manner is most likely to save your life, regardless of whether or not you are innocent.
Luziyca wrote:Ifreann wrote:I cannot fathom why any person would want a society where some people are not afforded any protection of the law.
Well, no, that's not true. I can think of lots of reasons, but they're all horrible.
I can think of two good reasons:
1) The state would not need to provide the death penalty, so the state can still boast that they do not execute people.
2) For some vile crimes, we have a gut instinct to demand punishment, no matter if they're based on evidence or not. Outlawry recognizes that certain acts are so severe that no other means of punishment can be proportional to the crime, especially if that person was of sound mind at the time he committed the offense.
While rehabilitation is a good idea, and should be done for most crimes, for such severe crimes, it is impossible to rehabilitate certain criminals, mainly because of the acts that they have committed, in combination with society's reluctance to welcome them back into society once they did their time.
PROTIP: There's a reason they got rid of outlawry. I suggest reading about Robin Hood for the exact reason, but to state it simply: if you give people no choice other than to steal and kill in order to live, they will steal and kill.
Luziyca wrote:Anywhere Else But Here wrote:Expand upon "impossible to rehabilitate". How do you know when it's impossible?
There are two ways that some criminals are impossible to rehabilitate.
Type ASuppose we have a criminal. Let's call him O.
O kidnaps a person that we call V. V is tortured for a long amount of time and subject to unimaginable abuse. Then when the police attempt to rescue V, O kills V.
Now, suppose that we can rehabilitate O. After a long time, like say, 15 years in rehabilitation, he has managed to become a medic, and has found the cure for cancer.
But, we must consider society at large. If O were to be released back into society, would anyone want to hire a kidnapper and murderer? Even if he found the cure for cancer and is the best doctor in the world?
Definitely not.
In this case, it is socially impossible for him to be rehabilitated, because of the grave nature of his offenses.
Even if he leaves for another city, it is probable that his criminal record would follow him, and people would be loathe to deal with O. If O gets hired at a hospital, there would be so much outrage and uproar that O would probably lose his job in a matter of weeks, if not
days.
That said, O's situation can vary depending on society: if it were a different society, O may actually be a prominent medic and be more well known for his cure for cancer. But in western society, there's no way O can be socially rehabilitated for what O had done to V.
This is precisely why the right to be forgotten is a thing. If you don't tell people about their past, nobody will know, and therefore nobody will care.
Type B
Suppose we find another criminal. Let's call him Q.
Q is a cold-blooded serial killer who has no remorse at any point during his career, and despite previous efforts at rehabilitation, Q returns to the path of crime and kills more victims after his release.
Suppose the police finally catch Q after he killed yet another person, who we will call W. Q is found guilty of the murder of W, but we then reach a problem.
Considering that all past efforts at rehab have failed, it is virtually impossible for Q to be rehabilitated back into society, since all past efforts have failed, and he has no remorse for his actions whatsoever.
That's not "impossible". That's "we did a shit job last time, so we're going to give up".
Luziyca wrote:Anywhere Else But Here wrote:Type A is a baseless assertion, contradicted by evidence, and doesn't stand up to any sort of reasonable moral principle anyway. You'd punish a person who feels remorse for their crime simply because a hypothetical society wouldn't accept them?
"Oh, we reckon that if we let you go, people will be dicks to you, so we're just going to kill you to spare you that. Sound good?"
And even,
even if we accept the nonsense premise that Western society is (and always will be) basically part one of Les Miserables, you could simply give rehabilitated criminals new identities, rather than killing them.
So you would not object to sex offenders being teachers and doctors if they have shown remorse for their offenses?
The point of rehabilitation is to get to the point where you are confident that they are no longer a risk. So yes.
Someone did a shit job of hiding his old identity. Doesn't mean that it's impossible.