Thread: 8 Killed in China!!!

Originally Posted by BobH

Don't forget to mention too that his organs may be harvested after execution to supply donor organs to those who can afford to pay for them.
Bob

Actually, they're putting a stop to that, last I heard.

Originally Posted by BobH

I don't think that is a problem solely confined to the US. I don't trust our police and courts to get it right enough of the time to be totally in favour of capital punishment. In principal yes but in practice no.

Bob

Same here. When I was growing up there was what seemed to be a constant stream of people being released from UK jails after the police had responded to public outrage over IRA bombings by grabbing some handy Irishmen and then lying in court. Not much fun being in prison for 10-15 years for a crime you didn't do, but at least there's a chance of being released on appeal.

Bottom line is: In a state with the death penalty, the state will occasionally kill innocent people. I think that's completely unacceptable.

Originally Posted by BobH

I don't think that is a problem solely confined to the US. I don't trust our police and courts to get it right enough of the time to be totally in favour of capital punishment. In principal yes but in practice no.

Bob

That is pretty much my opinion as well.
If you look at just the US, where you have a less corrupt judicial system than e.g. china. Even today, people get exonerated in 30 year old rape and murder cases, for the sole reason that people finally get the court to look at exonerating evidence (or review the evidence using modern techniques). If they had been subject to capital punishment, they'd be murdered by the state. And someone would have to live with the thought of having executed an innocent man.

Such exonerations happen regularly. It's not that I don't think that some people deserve capital punishment. But through incompetence, bias, or outright corruption, a good number of innocent people die because of it.

Originally Posted by Matt69

Same here. When I was growing up there was what seemed to be a constant stream of people being released from UK jails after the police had responded to public outrage over IRA bombings by grabbing some handy Irishmen and then lying in court. Not much fun being in prison for 10-15 years for a crime you didn't do, but at least there's a chance of being released on appeal.

Bottom line is: In a state with the death penalty, the state will occasionally kill innocent people. I think that's completely unacceptable.

Personally I am against the death penalty, HOWEVER, the costs are so huge of maintaining an inmate for the duration of a persons life ... it's certainly a tough one.

I would be curious to know what the approximate percentage of people executed (historical Data) that have been proven innocent after the execution. Of course I know that we will never know the actual number, but as a rough baseline it would be interesting.

Most times a government uses any kind of lethal force there is a calculation involved for 'acceptable collateral damage' vs strategic importance/gain of the results.

So what would be the 'acceptable limit' vs the colossal offset in savings that the public would reap for not having to incarcerate group 'x' for a life term?????

Let the flaming begin...

The reason that the US spends so much on its prison system is not really to do with the (relatively small) proportion of people inside for capital crimes (ie ones that could attract the death penalty). The prison population has exploded since the 70's, and one major reason is the 'war on drugs'. In general, the US puts people inside for offenses that wouldn't get a custodial sentence in Europe, and average sentences for the same crimes are much higher in the US than Europe.

This is money pretty much poured down the drain. I believe that it would be better spent on e.g. rehabilitation/cure of drug users, better public education system, things like that.

But concerning the death penalty, I don't think "It's cheaper" is a reasonable or moral argument.

Interesting article

Another article (pdf)

Matt69

Being a cheaper alternative is not and was never meant to be a moral argument but it is cheaper and that is the bottom line. You may have a point on the exploding prison pop in the US and the fact that there is money to saved there also. We are about to embark on the same disastrous route up here.

Bob

Originally Posted by ironsidegnr

I would be curious to know what the approximate percentage of people executed (historical Data) that have been proven innocent after the execution. Of course I know that we will never know the actual number, but as a rough baseline it would be interesting.

Most times a government uses any kind of lethal force there is a calculation involved for 'acceptable collateral damage' vs strategic importance/gain of the results.

So what would be the 'acceptable limit' vs the colossal offset in savings that the public would reap for not having to incarcerate group 'x' for a life term?????

Let the flaming begin...

That depends.
If you want to do aways with various appeals procedures which are there to ensure that no errors were made, I suppose it can be cheaper. But you'd also have to accept a much higher percentage of wrongful convictions.

However, the problem of the US prison system is not caused by the handful of people on death row.
Your main cost is incurred by jailing people for minor crimes, like posession of weed, and prostitution.
If you (as a society) think these are crimes worth punishing, that is one thing. But with jail sentences for victimless crimes such as these you are really shooting yourself in the foot. First you have to provide prison infrastructure (which is pretty expensive) and second you remove another person from the economy.

Originally Posted by ironsidegnr

Let the flaming begin...

I see that you are rather new here, so let me clarify that on this forum, there shall be no flaming.
We do believe in honest arguing in a gentlemanly manner.
We present our arguments back and forth, all with respect for each other.

That is the only way to keep this place civil.