Abolishing prisons

Pity to hear about that.

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt." - Some guy with a snazzy hat.

On "but they're still human beings": Being human doesn't mean it's wrong to kill you, if you've done something that deserves death. I think that serial killers, mass murderers, and terrorists deserve death.

On "but they might be innocent": They might be innocent when you give them life in prison, too. Sure, you can release them if they're later found to be innocent, but you can't give them the 20 years they spent in prison back. Any punishment has irrevocable consequences. Yes, the death penalty's consequences are worse, but that just means that there should be a higher standard of guilt for using it, not that it shouldn't be used.

On cost: I don't really think cost should have an affect on whether you kill someone or not, but if you really want to argue the point, the fact that the death penalty costs more than life imprisonment suggests that the court system should be overhauled rather than that the death penalty should be abolished.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Sorry, but the reason it costs so much is the price of not making a mistake, of making sure there is no question of bias influencing the decision. IOW, that higher standard.

Besides, why are we talking so much about serial killers, mass murderers and terrorists? They represent very little of the criminal population, they are outliers, not trends. They may make for easy people to write off, but there's over 2 million people in US prisons. What about them?

Funny, I keep hearing about a desire to revamp the system to alleviate costs while keeping the death penalty. But just the desire, not an actual solution.

edited 6th May '11 9:36:03 AM by KitsuneInferno

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt." - Some guy with a snazzy hat.

"Some people just do not understand what a crime is, and how easy it is to avoid committing them it is to begin with."

Psychopathy is a genetic condition that appears first in early childhood. Numerous studies have shown that psychopaths have neurological abnormalities that affect their ability to empathize with others and learn from punishment. They have specific difficulties recognizing fearful facial expressions and understanding moral concepts such as the difference between breaking the rules and causing harm.

Psychopaths make up around 30% of offenders and are overrepresented among more serious offenders, versatile offenders and repeat offenders. So probably a lot of the 'really bad offenders' are psychopaths.

Now, how easy is it to avoid committing a crime if you don't understand why crimes are wrong and don't learn from punishment, and you've been like that your entire life? I really don't think psychopaths deserve blame for acting the way they do, because they really didn't have a choice about it. They were born with neurological differences that impaired their ability to learn right from wrong.

We do need to protect others from psychopaths. And given that we have yet to find an effective treatment for psychopathy, pretty much all we can do is lock them up. But we should understand that for them, not committing crimes is very difficult, because they're lacking a bunch of the cognitive abilities that keep most people from committing crimes.

If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.

I'd opoint out the vast majority of criminals are not sociopaths or highly violent criminals. theyre shit like drug offenders or minor theft and robbery

@Jovian: The reason I brought up cost in the first place was that someone was using the cost of life imprisonment as a pro-death penalty argument. As things are now, at least, the argument doesn't stand. For the future, the court system probably should be overhauled (in general) but bear in mind that death penalty shouldn't be cheap, as in, convict and shot. The reason it costs so much in the first place is because of all the bureaucracy it takes to investigate the case, prove guilt and decide if the offense really deserves it. These are important procedures.

If you grant me that the consequences in the case of mistake are worse for death penalty, then "they might be innocent" still stands as an argument. Personally, I would be afraid to trust even an ideal court system (as opposed to the actual court system) with that kind of responsibility. Taking years of an innocent person's life is horrible and I'm not trying to underestimate it, but it's better than killing the innocent person. With death penalty there is just no leeway for mistakes. At all. And it's unrealistic to expect that.

Basically, my position is this. Some people are beyond redemption and rehabilitation. You can either sentence them to death or lock them up for life. Both punishments have the same effect (as far as society is concerned). Both punishments have irrevocable consequences. In the case of a mistake, one punishment's irrevocable consequences are worse than the other's. The first punishment also is (and probably should be) more expensive. I prefer the second, unless you can convince me otherwise.

edited 6th May '11 10:10:38 AM by StrangeDwarf

"Why don't you write books people can read?"-Nora Joyce, to her husband James

The possibility of innocence is not a good argument against punishment. Any punishment runs the risk of accidentally punishing an innocent person. The question is how much you're willing to risk a false conviction in order to make sure you get the guilty. I believe that the death penalty, when handled properly, is worth the risk. If you want to make a higher standard of guilt for the death penalty than for other sentences, I'm okay with that. What I don't want is to be unable to kill people like Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, whose guilt is beyond question and who certainly deserve death for their crimes.

I would disagree with this. Society is not blind to justice. Some crimes are so bad that the death penalty is the only just punishment. I hate to keep bringing up Osama, but can you imagine the public outcry if he had been captured alive and sentenced to life in prison? Life imprisonment and death do not have the same effect as far as society is concerned in those cases.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

"The possibility of innocence is not a good argument against punishment. Any punishment runs the risk of accidentally punishing an innocent person"

Yes, but Strange Dwarf (and others') point is that if you lock up an innocent person by mistake you can let them out again. Not perfect, but better than nothing. If they're dead, though ...

"The question is how much you're willing to risk a false conviction in order to make sure you get the guilty." The ideal is never, I believe. Or if you take the aphorism literally, one in a hundred.

"1. They are not rotting in solitary confinement. MY tax dollars are keeping them sheltered. MY tax dollars are keeping them fed. MY tax dollars are keeping them healthy. Maybe you don't understand, but that's not rotting. That's just taking care of him and all of his food and shelter problems for the rest of his life. Tax dollars are being spent to keep them from rotting. Tax dollars are being spent to keep their quality of life higher than the people who live in poverty but and not commit any crimes."

It takes real balls, to say nothing of bloodthirst, to complain about being forced by the government to pay about $2 a year to keep someone alive. Also, you never responded to my earlier post, which I will reiterate here for your benefit:

edited 6th May '11 3:09:29 PM by kashchei

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

"It takes real balls, to say nothing of bloodthirst, to complain about being forced by the government to pay about $2 a year to keep someone alive." - kashchei

It also takes hypocrisy, if one doesn't complain about paying more than that for the military.

EDIT: Also...

"What I don't want is to be unable to kill people like Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, whose guilt is beyond question and who certainly deserve death for their crimes." - Native Jovian

What about a life setence of hard labour or something like that? Why does it need to be death?

---

->"You'll never see REAL tough guys like the CIA talking death penalty; they always want the bad guys alive. We have no idea what they'll tell us later. Now, some people don't want to talk, but maybe time will change that." —>- Penn Jillette

edited 6th May '11 3:12:53 PM by neoYTPism

Well said.

"How many of you know anyone who has a criminal conviction? How many of you know someone personally who's done time?"

A handful of people who've done time, more who have been tried. I've got no idea how come they're neither debilitatingly retarded and thus unable to comprehend the existence of certain laws, nor sociopathic thugs who simply can't help but kill and beat up on the many innocent. In fact, by some miraculous discrepancy, a few of them are far kinder and much more intelligent than many legally blameless people who think that no revenge is sufficient, and that no second chance is deserved. Obviously, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

"You're forgetting that they're a human beings...that are stupid enough to commit the crime in the first place. [sic]"

Don't you watch anime illegally?

edited 6th May '11 3:31:14 PM by kashchei

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

People forget that "criminal" just means "anything forbidden by the local state mafia".

The State's behavior is violence, and it calls its violence "law"; that of the individual, "crime."—Max Stirner

edited 6th May '11 3:20:09 PM by MRDA1981

Enjoy the Inferno...

Andrew G Paul: Would that not be ignoring that the person you replied to?
The guy said something about having standards in the first place, and your dismisall of the intent of the post sort of irks me.

A guy called dvorak is tired. Tired of humanity not wanting to change to improve itself. Quite the sad tale.

"What I don't want is to be unable to kill people like Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, whose guilt is beyond question and who certainly deserve death for their crimes."

Let's not get bogged down by international politics. From the perspective you're taking, anyone publicly involved in war is obviously and beyond question deserving of death to his enemy. This has little to do with criminal laws and with people who do not have the capacity and capital to command armies that impact the world on a global scale.

edited 6th May '11 3:54:24 PM by kashchei

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

"I hate to keep bringing up Osama, but can you imagine the public outcry if he had been captured alive and sentenced to life in prison?"

Public is stupid. We should base our laws on logic and reason rather than the Lowest Common Denominator.

If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.

There's a large gap between the ideal and the reality, however. The reason we spend so much time and money on trying and re-trying those sentenced to death is precisely because it can't be "taken back" once carried out. Those that are executed mistakenly are tragic, of course, but if you're concerned about false convictions, the answer is "reduce false convictions", not "eliminate the death penalty".

I don't think so. The point of the death penalty is that their life is ended. They no longer get to enjoy any of the benefits of being alive. That is the purpose of the punishment. Unless you're talking about a life of torture or something to the point where they want to die (which I wouldn't support; torture is bad, mm'kay?), then life is a lesser punishment than death.

Right, but that's not what I was talking about. I'm not talking about open warfare, I'm talking about crimes against humanity. Saddam Hussein, for example, was captured alive, tried, and hanged. I don't think that anything but the death sentence would have been appropriate for his crimes. Even if that's an extreme case, I think the death penalty should be available for those kinds of things.

That comment was responding to the assertion that life in prison and death have the same effect as far as society is concerned. My point was that they're not the same, because many people feel that life in prison isn't enough of a punishment for some crimes. If society feels that justice has not been done, then that's not "the same effect".

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

del diablo: "Andrew G Paul: Would that not be ignoring that the person you replied to? The guy said something about having standards in the first place, and your dismisall of the intent of the post sort of irks me. "

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you've written here. I think there's something missing from your first sentence. How did I dismiss Native Jovian's intent? the post to which I replied asks "The question is how much you're willing to risk a false conviction in order to make sure you get the guilty." I answered that.

@Native Jovian: the number of people on Death Row whose innocence has been later proven or at least whose guilt has been sufficiently found to be in doubt does not lead to confidence that the erroneous conviction rate is low enough. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" is pretty laughable in the US when it comes to indigent defendants (those who cannot afford a competent defense attorney or the scientific analysis and expert witnesses to match those of the prosecution).

It's not just that the problem exists. It's that there's the pretty-much constant lack of political will to ever fix it. The US voting population seems by and large to be quite happy with convicting poor defendants regardless of guilt.

A brighter future for a darker age.

Which is a criticism of the court system, not the death penalty as such. Fix the problem, don't hide the symptoms.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

If the system cannot be fixed? No sign of it being fixed, at least.

A brighter future for a darker age.

Just thought this was relevant, I guess.

I'm in favor of protecting the rights of all humans, including criminals and prisoners, no matter what they have done.

If my country seeks to vote otherwise, then by all means, dump the entire prisoner population into the ocean, enslave them, or mulch them all to subsidize farming. It would be far less expensive than death row.

Abolishing prisons is a dumb idea that originates from theory that all the crimes are caused by capitalism or insanity. Another utopian commie theory that simplifies the human nature and assumes that the world would be a better place if everyone was the same.

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

Looks like someones still a little bitter at Mother Russia.