Capital Punishment: Should the Death Penalty Still Exist In A 'Civilised Society'?

i think its also like a globalism problem, its v hard to wrap yr hed around caring abt everyone, so you do yr best care abt yr kids and maybe yr coworkers and everything else is such a fucking mess who knows

forgot a basic belief in personal responsibility for yr actions, which p much answers yr point about 'half a brain' for a lot of people nv.

Wouldn't deterrence be the clear-headed rational support of death penalty? The evidence on this effect is mixed, but it at least seems to make sense.

I would not call the family of victims "heartless."

yeah well theres a good reason why victims families arent allowed on juries, everyones p clear on that

Wouldn't deterrence be the clear-headed rational support of death penalty?

You'd think, but all the evidence points to zero deterrent effect

don't forget "why should we THE TAXPAYERS keep shelling out to keep these people alive"

also this weird but deep-seated conception of life as a privilege that you can un-earn (cf hostility to the very idea of human rights)

i think we can exclude the families of victims here full stop. i have no idea and hope to never know how i wd feel about murdering somebody who murdered a loved one, but i am damn sure i wd never want to make my personal revenge a universal law.

same applies to personal responsibility, one can acknowledge or demand that and it has no relation to how a state chooses to deal with its worst criminals.

i hate people again. am past the "understanding" and "dialogue" phase with these heartless morons, just wanna punch them in the face

im sure theres plenty sick inhumane shit you could do that would have a deterrent effect but that doesnt make instituting it clear headed and rational

well yeah deterrence shdn't be an argument in itself but beyond that, if we have to engage with deterrence advocates, there's no evidence that any sick inhumane shit has a measurable deterrent effect ever

idk its my understanding that places like north korea w/extreme levels of government control generally have p low crime rates

i don't know if that's deterrence so much as randomly eliminating potential sources of crime but let's be honest the figures out of there are probly suspect anyway

nv in with the racism, niiice

well yeah deterrence shdn't be an argument in itself

Well, yes, if I was a woman I'd think twice about committing adultery in Somalia too, for example

hang on, also maybe crimes like "not enjoying the government" or "listening to the BBC World Service" are more deterrable than actual murder/thievery which as far as i recall continued to thrive under the worst authoritarian govs in the 20th century? i got no figures, i'm half-remembering a bit here

idk, China has the death penalty for corruption but it doesn't stop people doing it. China / North Korea have relatively low rates of more minor crimes than murder but there are lots of factors in play.

Extremely harsh punishment probably would be a deterrent for lots of things in the West but i'm not sure murder's one of them.

i wouldn't argue purely on the basis of deterrence, tbf, all liberal research (is there any other kind eh) would say the death penalty is no deterrent anyway, but then at individual level re-offence is very low indeed and there's a lot of elements go into creating a murder, deterrence is really irrelevant when debating what to do with a killer after the fact regardless of the side of the debate you favour

anildash Anil Dash
Serious question: If U.S. society has decided the death penalty is just, why don't we get called to executioner duty, as we do to jury duty?
13 minutes ago

Living in North Korea is a living death, isn't it.

Although, as I've said, I totally reject the death penalty altogether, it's pretty silly to just offhand deny the deterrence effect. I know that from an anecdotal standpoint, there must be some point where somebody was doing an armed robbery and decided not to kill somebody b/c of the death penalty? Like if they both carry life in prison then there's no real reason not to kill the guard when robbing a bank. Might not show up in the numbers because there's so many factors that go into murder rates but I'm sure that the existence of the death penalty has stopped at least a few murders over the years.

the idea of "liberal research" is a bit defensive, dude. i understand that there's sometimes a high-handed "fuck the victims" attitude to some anti-death penalty arguments but i come back to the argument i made earlier: to justify it on grounds of empathy for victims requires an empathy that only works one way, that never wants to understand all of the factors that might lead to a murder. i don't claim to understand those factors either, but my response is still that in the face of horror i am hugely opposed to the state adding further horror.

I mean it's a real debate, not just a "Gee, the 80% of America that supports the death penalty sure are evil fucks, huh" kind of thing.

i can understand why the death penalty might offend people to the point of making the "evil fucks" argument, right or wrong.

often, proponents of the death penalty seem to be making a "murder is terrible" argument that nobody would contradict and is beside the point.

80% of America doesn't support the death penalty though, does it?

I'm sure that the existence of the death penalty has stopped at least a few murders over the years

Is it possible the death penalty has precipitated a a murder or two, I mean in for a penny in for a pound, if you're going to die anyway...

there must be some point where somebody was doing an armed robbery and decided not to kill somebody b/c of the death penalty?

don't really think anyone is gonna be performing clear headed long term cost/benefit analysis in the middle of an armed robbery.

come on, it's a documented fact that nobody in the UK stole sheep between 1800 and 1960-odd

Like if they both carry life in prison then there's no real reason not to kill the guard when robbing a bank.

No reason they should both carry life in prison. On the other hand, if you've already killed someone, having the death penalty means you have no incentive not to kill witnesses / police. The possibility of parole somewhere down the line might be more of an effective deterrent to the intensification of criminal acts in that way.

80% was an exaggeration but I think that the % of Americans who actually oppose the death penalty is somewhere in the 20-30% range. Somewhere in the teens for protestants. I don't know a single protestant that doesn't actively support the death penalty, though I do live in Georgia.

ah well if a load of people support something yo democracy

I think more people oppose the death penalty in America than you think. Don't know what the Protestant part has to do with it.

My point isn't that the deterrent effect definitely exists,but that it's a complicated debate, not just something to hand wave away (in fact, just yesterday I was debating to my coworker why I think the deterrent effect is overrated using much the same arguments you guys are using above). BTW, when planning the armed robbery, I think absolutely a cost/benefit analysis gets into it. In the heat of the moment, sure who knows what will happen, but in the planning stages.

ha nv i was being serious with unfortunate lapses into my norm, sorry.

I was just pointing out that 'deterren'ce is an irrelevancy after the fact. Went through this with kev k and others last month, struggling to go into it all again- just dislike the characterisations like that come from either side on heated issues like this, and on ilx that's by nature weighted on the liberal side.

Source for opposition numbers, they do look a little higher than I thought: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/files/gallup.gif

I don't know a single protestant that doesn't actively support the death penalty, though I do live in Georgia.

I was raised Lutheran and I don't know a single person that actively supports the death penalty, but then I'm not from Georgia.

iirc support for the death penalty fluctuates depending on various factors like when wrongful conviction is brought in and people are more willing to let it go if they can be assured true life w/o parol is on the table

ah well if a load of people support something yo democracy

This has to be a deliberate misstatement of my point, which is that the numbers of supporters are too large to just say they are all evil fucks and move on.

evil confused southern fucks

LOL you're not helping matters here

Man lex had one of the biggest points that bugged me about this whole thing 100% otm on his Twitter feed. The idea that all of the elected officials involved in this chose to completely disregard public opinion here, which seems to me the antithesis of democracy.

I suppose you can argue that public opinion should set the wider agenda but shouldn't be listened to in specific cases.

well democracy is abt more than public opinion, its also abt institutions

I'm not saying that public opinion should be the sole guidepost, but the level to which it was completely ignored is what disgusts me. It should be a part of the dialog, not ignored.

not in individual cases jon

but individual cases such as this reflect a larger issue

don't forget "why should we THE TAXPAYERS keep shelling out to keep these people alive"

― lex pretend, Thursday, 22 September 2011 12:58 (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well of course
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/12/EnthanasiePropaganda.jpg/200px-EnthanasiePropaganda.jpg

if only there was someone here to solve our problem

When Obama comes out with his pardon list at the end of his term he should add Troy Davis just to stick it in these fucking peoples' eyes.

ha my point was more that all the people that this decision went through disregarded basic morality. public opinion is not a useful road to go down, thinking about what polls show the UK public believes about the death penalty - most of our politicians' default position is, unusually, to disregard public opinion on this matter

xps