Capital Punishment

[Gustaf]

This is a tough issue...although I am not in favour of being lenient on criminals, I don't think the state should kill its citizens in peace time. However, I do think death penalty is justfied in war times, for treahcery.

[Gustaf]

If you take away someones constitutionally guaranteed right to live then you yourself lose your rights. The state has every right to execute a guilty person for murder. And the law should be strongly enforced more so then now. Save the state the money and get the execution over with within a year of the trial.

Every now and then innocent people are executed. You do lose some of your rights when you commit a crime, but that's besides the point.

[Gustaf]

Very very few innocent people are actually convicted. Of course a criminal in jail is going to say, "I didn't do it." That's just human nature.

I didn't base my statement on what the convicted themselves say. I don't think there are a lot, but there are still a few. I am just uncomfortable with the state killing people in peacetime.

[Gustaf]

Biggest contradiction - Pro-Capital Punishment and Pro-Life.

It always makes me laugh.

Not really. There's a difference between innocent children and criminals.

Anyway, I also think murderers should die...but I try not to let my emotions carry me away on issues like this one.

[Gustaf]

One person murdered by a piece of human garbage is to many!

True, but the reality is that nothing the state does will ever fully prevent murders.  The state does not have to participate in the murduring however, particularly when there is ANY chance the state is murduring an innocent person.  Better that 10 guilty men go free than that 1 innocent man is imprisoned.  This concept increses in significance exponentially with the death penalty in my opinion.

If you remove someone right to live you yourself should have your right to live removed.

We don't practize an eye for an eye for any other crimes. If you rape someone should you get raped yourself? If you steal from someone should you ourself lose your possesions? Etc...

[Gustaf]

What bothers me is, despite our division over capital punishment, there seems to be a consensus that life in prison should be a parade of horribiles. Rather than recognizing the necessity of prisons as an instrument of rehabilitation, we seek to degrade them, demean their dignity, oppress them, and harm them, until, yes, they will lash out against us. I am aghast that anyone would be willing to treat other humans with such stark inhumanity, and find their existence valueless. They may have committed a crime, but society does not demonstrate its superiority to a person and establish its right to judge by similar barbarism.

Wow!  I can't believe I find myself agreeing with Migrendal.  Why would we wan't to engage in torture?  Execution would be more humane than this.  

As a volunteer at the local prison ( I do prison minsistry) I can tell you that NOBODY wants to be in prison, no matter how nice it is.  It is a dark place.  You are confined, lose your privacy, and are subject to violence (from other felons).  Cable TV and a weight room wouldn't make me want to be in prison.

As a side note, I will give you my two-cents on prison and capitol punishment.  I don't believe in long prison stays.  The overwhelming majority of people sent to prison become harder criminals through there stay, regardless of the "rehabilitation" efforts.  The only peope that seem to change are those that have a LEGITIMATE faith experience.  (thats why I volunteer)  What good do you do a man by caging him like a dog?

bejkuy's plan-

Require restituation for property crimes and lesser violent crimes.  Force peope to "make it right".  If they don't have means to pay- require them to check in to a hard labor work camp or something comparable.  Criminals would have the satisfaction of nowing that they really paid their debt to society.

Make execution more common- Murder, rape, kidnapping- deal with the problem quick and clean.  Allow only 1 appeal.  All executions should be held in the public square- preferrable by the hanging.  This would allow society, young and old, to see the consequence of evil.  

Drugs- as much as I personally hate them and their effects, I would legalize drugs.  Way too many people are in prison for petty drug offences.

My plan-inhumane you may say?  

-Locking a man up for 20 years is inhumane.  
-Allowing a 22 year old kid to be gang raped his first day in prison is inhumane.  (happens all the time)
-Destroying a man's spirit is inhumane.
-Not giving a man a chance for real restitution is inhumane.
-Depriving a man of sunlight is inhumane.

There are things much less humane than execution.


 

Hm, interesting argument...but hanging people in the town square seems very mediaeval to me. I maintain that society shouldn't get too barbaric.

'Law is reason, free from passion' as Aristotle said.