Death penalty argument

Opinion of the death penalty is...

  • I support the death penalty for most crimes

    Votes: 4 13.3%

  • I support the death penalty for sadistic (rape, murder, torture) crimes

    Votes: 11 36.7%

  • I support the death penalty for murder only

    Votes: 2 6.7%

  • I do not support the death penalty for any crime

    Votes: 13 43.3%
  • Total voters
    30
phlogistician said:
How about living every day with the knowledge that at some point men are going to come and take you to be killed? That is psychological torture.

Whereas mere incarceration gives the perp time to reflect and mend their ways, and look forward to coming out of jail rehabilitated.
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Like Saddam Hussein you mean? Where were you at that time? :confused:
 
James R said:
In my country, the published aims of sentencing criminals include such things as rehabilitation and deterrence, not just retribution.
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But retribution is ONE of those aims.



In a democracy, yes, mostly.
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No, always.



Wrong. Check it out.

The US is one of the last western nations to retain the death penalty. It may have something to do with the extreme religiosity of the US.
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It's one of the last to retain it, but the people in other western nations, after polls, a high number of them support it.

What does religion have to do with the death penalty? Japan and China have them, they are developed, and nonreligious for the most part.



I find your continual attempt to dehumanise criminals disturbing. Criminals are people, not too different from you or me.
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People that have lost their humanity.



Have you ever crossed a road against the lights? Have you ever driven over the speed limit? Have you ever smoked marijuana?

If so, you are evil criminal scum, by your own argument.
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Those crimes are different. They are based on petty beauracracy and logic. Sadistic crimes are based on cruelty and evil.
 
Norsefire said:
What does religion have to do with the death penalty? Japan and China have them, they are developed, and nonreligious for the most part.
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I wouldn't say that China is non-religious.

What does religion have to do with the death penalty? Well, a lot of religious texts prescribe execution for a variety of crimes, including such things as adultery.

[Criminals are] people that have lost their humanity.
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Rubbish.

Crime may be selfish or unthinking or sometimes due to desperation. But pretending that criminals are non-human is just stupid, because it denies the human capacity for unsociable acts.

Those crimes are different. They are based on petty beauracracy and logic. Sadistic crimes are based on cruelty and evil.
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Sadistic crimes are very much the minority of all crimes.
 
James R said:
I wouldn't say that China is non-religious.

What does religion have to do with the death penalty? Well, a lot of religious texts prescribe execution for a variety of crimes, including such things as adultery.
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So you are basically saying you have to be religious to support the death penalty.



Rubbish.

Crime may be selfish or unthinking or sometimes due to desperation. But pretending that criminals are non-human is just stupid, because it denies the human capacity for unsociable acts.
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They are not human. BTK is not Human to me.



Sadistic crimes are very much the minority of all crimes.
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And a minority which should receive the most extreme punishment.
 
From Wikipedia:

As of 2007, 90% of Japanese support the death penalty, according to the Mainichi Shinbun.

Supporters say that capital punishment is applied infrequently and only to those who have committed the most extreme of crimes—a single act of murder does not attract the capital punishment without additional aggravating circumstances such as rape or robbery. ... However, the very small number of executions is due to the rarity of extreme crimes in Japanese society rather than because of an unwillingness of the authorities to carry out executions.

Since executions resumed in 1993, a rise in street crime during the 1990s, the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 and several high profile brutal murders have hardened attitudes amongst the public and the judiciary. Since 1999, there have been a series of cases in which criminals sentenced to life imprisonment have been given the death penalty after prosecutors successfully appealed to the Supreme Court.
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In this case, why the majority of Japanese people appear to support the death penalty. Duh!
 
Pandaemoni said:
It seems to me that you should first nail down the number of people being killed by prisoners, if only because that number should be easier to ascertain.
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Your wish is my order: around 4 per 100K.

Now you go! :)

"Murder in state prisons fell by more than 90% from 1980 to 2002, and suicide rates dropped by 60%.
The report, compiled by the US justice department, compares death in custody in 1980 with 2002.
Murders in state prisons fell from 54 per 100,000 prisoners in 1980 to four per 100,000 in 2002, the department said."

a person opposed to the death penalty could argue that it is especially horrific to be convicted of a crime you didn't commit and then executed by the state,
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But once you are dead, you don't mind it much. On the other hand if you are imprisoned for life and have to spend 60 years in prison INNOCENTLY, you fucking go berserk...
 
I must have missed the answer, so let me ask again:

What does society gain to keep in prison a young criminal for the next let's say 40-60 years? Like this gentleman, (although he is older?):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_river_killer

Also if a criminal gets 5 death penalties, shouldn't at least 1 verdict be executed? After all if I get 20 years I don't get out automatically after 4 years, so where is the equality???
 
Japan and the United States are the only completely developed countries that still have the death penalty.

In general I don't support the death penalty, but every once in awhile a person comes along who I can't see doing anything else with.
 
Eidolan it's irrelevant to mention that; are you suggesting the death penalty is "outdated"? Prisons are a medieval concept.

Point is, there is no good argument against the death penalty.
 
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