Capital punishment

... I'm pretty confident that you can't educate someone to not be a sociopath.

You can teach them to pretend, though!

Although there is no "cure" for sociopathy however killing the person is not the answer, as say what you like I'm all for human rights.

So you're for "targeting the issues within the society that lead to crime" so long as solutions don't violate your a priori ideology.

Okay then.

So those who are mentally ill and not acting of sound mind due to mental illness should just be left even if they were treatable?

When possible, no. When you're dealing with a limited budget, regrettably sometimes you have to.

I would, however, wish to place said people into mental institutions staffed with people trained to deal with that stuff rather than prisons, but around here those tend to get shut down due to lack of funding.

Which brings me back to how much of a waste prison rehab tends to be

edited 7th Jan '11 2:41:24 PM by Pykrete

I'm pretty confident that you can't educate someone to not be a sociopath.

You can teach them to pretend, though!

And that's all that really matters isn't it?

@ Rottweiler

I never said the solution was "ignore them if I don't believe in killing them."
A well looked after mental institution would be able to keep the public safe.

Also my belief in human rights means I'd argue for that in a point, whereas your belief for capital punishment means you'd argue for that perspective.

edited 7th Jan '11 2:59:28 PM by IanExMachina

Personally I think capital punishment is wrong, and should only be used in those cases where this absolutely no other way to stop the person reoffending.

I mean, why is something that is irrevocably wrong when an individual does it suddenly 'justice' when the state does it?

I'm pretty sure I've stated my reason for this view somewhere else in OTC.

I really don't like the idea of the death penalty. Too high a risk of killing an innocent.

Child rapists and serial killers to name two are among the most common of these types. You can't teach them differently, you can't change who they are at that point. By committing those kinds of crimes, their lives become forfeit.

Given "Child rape" is a subjective term and full of loaded emotions, that's not the best example to use.

Anyone who's sexed up a kid tends to have a pretty rough time in prison so I don't think we need to worry terribly much about the quality of their punishment. Though if they are innocent, well. They have stories. Really really horrible stories.

...wonder of that counts as capital punishment.

edited 7th Jan '11 9:32:07 PM by Bur

Innocent or guilty doesn't matter.

If a murderer kills another murderer it's still murder; therefore if we kill a murderer it's still wrong. It's maybe not illegal anymore but it's still wrong.

Point of interest; is life in prison really better than death?

Seriously; if my options were a concrete box for 40 years or a bullet to the brain, I'd choose the latter and not look back.

I'm for capital punishment for a few reasons...

1: "lifers" as they're called in prison, are some of the most dangerous inmates. They're the ones who'll fuck you up for looking at them cross-eyed. Why? Because they know there's nothing worse the system can do to them. As such, they pretty much do whatever the hell they want, according to a friend of mine who has actually done hard time.

2: Some people are just fucked up. They're the human equivalent of mad dogs, and putting them down is really the only sane answer. While I admit mistakes can and will happen (justice is imperfect), what cost must society bear for keeping a criminal alive and healthy?

3: It's a deterrent. Everyone, even the hardened criminal, is afraid of getting killed.

People keep bringing morals into this debate. They don't belong here. Right and wrong exist in the eye of the individual, and a government must look beyond such concerns and see the needs of the many rather than the needs of the few. It sucks for the few that get shafted, but you'll get those any way you cut it.

Right and wrong exist in the eye of the individual, and a government must look beyond such concerns and see the needs of the many rather than the needs of the few.

That is a scary sentence. You could justify all sorts of atrocities using that logic.

edited 7th Jan '11 10:06:46 PM by LoniJay

Especially for a government whose formation took such pains to make sure "the few" didn't get screwed.

@Loni: Yes, and yes, and every government does it. It's why we're still here. A government that doesn't have blood on its hands and skeletons in its closet is a government that's been supplanted by something more effective.

It's usually preferred however that the skeletons stay in the closet and aren't parading around the streets. Black ops and questionable diplomacy are one thing, openly shitting on the very principles you're supposed to stand for through official policy is quite another.

edited 7th Jan '11 10:31:18 PM by Pykrete

openly shitting on the very principles you're supposed to stand for through official policy is quite another.

so. The life of a convicted criminal is more important than the well-being of the poor who haven't committed crimes?

Before anyone cries "Strawman", the money spent on keeping life-long convicts in food and medicine could be spent on social services for the disadvantaged (and innocent of lawbreaking)...but it isn't, because of some debatable moral point. As Scrye once said, who decides these things?

"The needs of the many rather than the needs of the few" is a method of determining right and wrong.

You cannot say that government can ignore right and wrong because then you get stuff like North Korea.

@Black Humor: Yes, that's possible. Or you can get what Americans live with today. And Many vs. Few is not a form of morality. It's a form of practicality.

It is a form of morality. Utilitarianism, the most good for the most people.

Uh, no, it's definitely morality.

You're trying to improve the lives of the many at the expense of the few. That's pretty much pure utilitarianism, which is —surprize— a form of morality.

EDIT: Ninja'd

edited 7th Jan '11 11:37:06 PM by BlackHumor

@Black: if expediency has suddenly become a form of morality, then I'm glad to not consider myself moral.

so. The life of a convicted criminal is more important than the well-being of the poor who haven't committed crimes?

Before anyone cries "Strawman", the money spent on keeping life-long convicts in food and medicine could be spent on social services for the disadvantaged (and innocent of lawbreaking)...but it isn't, because of some debatable moral point. As Scrye once said, who decides these things?

Except the money spent keeping life-long convicts in jail and giving them food and medicine is considerably less than it takes to go through the proper channels to off them. Try to expedite the process to save money on appeals, and you create a very dangerous legal precedent.

edited 8th Jan '11 12:22:49 AM by Pykrete

Except the money spent keeping life-long convicts in jail and giving them food and medicine is considerably less than it takes to go through the proper channels to off them.

That just means our legal system is fucked up, not that capital punishment is immoral...

I never said capital punishment was immoral. Earlier in the thread, I said I actually agree with it on principle. I disagree with it on practicality, because there's no way to trim appeals without losing the necessary safeguards for cases like these. That red tape stalling things is doing exactly what it's supposed to.

edited 8th Jan '11 12:34:21 AM by Pykrete

It's supposed to be expensive, you want to be 100% sure the person you're locking up is guilty and sometimes we STILL fuck up and only find out after the fact. And you can't bring that innocent person back to life.