I was thinking of letting the victim's close ones do what they want to the demons for one day, but I'm not sure what that would do with their psyche afterwards.
E: The psyche of those doing the retribution.
people don't commit these crimes with the expectation that they're going to be caught. I don't know how serious you are but I find it a little disturbing to condone torture
What do you think would be a more effective deterrent?
Sorry reality disturbs you. Let me know when you think of something better. It looks like these people weren't deterred by the possible consequences of their actions.
It doesn't, though. There's no evidence that the death penalty serves any sort of deterrent. It isn't a punitive measure, it's vengeance. If you're ok with vengeance I respect your opinion though I disagree, but we can't pretend it's anything but vengeance.
I believe the use of the death penalty in severe cases isn't driven by vengeance; it's more about preventing the individual from causing harm to others in the future. It's important to recognize that not all criminals can be successfully rehabilitated, such as psychopaths or serial killers.
However, if the death penalty were to exist, I believe it should be carried out by the person who pronounces the verdict personally. This would ensure that such a grave decision is not made lightly.
Could you not prevent them from causing additional harm by not killing them? What if you're wrong? There's plenty of reason to leave them alive, but only one real reason to kill them, and that reason is vengeance.
Are you familiar with how the psychopathic mind functions? They lack empathy, and I don't mean it in a pejorative sense, no, I mean it literally.
Psychopaths are hard to reason with due to their lack of aforementioned empathy, manipulative nature, impulsivity, shallow emotions, and absence of remorse.
I am. And there are plenty of ways to keep them from killing people aside from killing them. There's plenty of people serving life sentences for murder.
I'm sorry you feel that way. Maybe when you get more life experience, you'll realize that most scumbags will only avoid engaging in heinous acts if the deterrent for doing so is appropriate.
Let's say we do decide to torture murderers. Who is going to torture them? Are we going to pay for these people to have therapy (because they're really going to need it)? How would you feel if you found out your next-door neighbour tortures people for a living? What do we do when we find out, years later, that we've been torturing an innocent person?
I think you need a little more life experience so you can realize that things aren't as simple as you seem to think they are.
I wouldn't. It's far more punishing and even that is far too little to throw them in a cell and lose the key. Let them sit there for endless years until they die. Done.
Life imprisonment is cheaper (in the US) for the taxpayer than execution. Morally, I think the death penalty does not have a leg to stand on. Even in the most egregious cases, who truly has the right to end a life? Can any justice system be 100% accurate? If there is even a slim chance that an innocent could be murdered by the state, the state should not murder. It's valid to have a visceral reaction to horrific crimes like this, but to advocate for murdering even of a guilty party just doesn't mesh with at least my ethics
That visceral reaction is exactly why victims or their families can't have input. Of course you'd want them to be punished, of course you'd want it to be cruel and unusual.
While I agree the State shouldn't kill, if someone decided not to spend those millions of dollars and instead took these bastards behind the jail and put a $0.15 bullet in each of their skulls I wouldn't be angry.
You say that now, but what about death penalties in Sudan? Iran? China? Are western executions more moral? What is the purpose? Revenge? Deterrence? The death penalty in the real world disproportionally affects minority and disadvantaged populations. It is not a deterrent to crime, and there is truly no humane way to end a person's life. What of the executioner's psyche? What of the innocent family of the condemned? There are so many terrible consequences.
As tired and trite as it is, "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" applies and is true. The death penalty only continues the cycle of violence.
edit: I missed your point 😅 I still can't condone violence in any capacity
Add a dude eating chips, another dude eating a cupcake, pad it out with 11 hours of nothing at all happening and you've got a hit on your hands somehow
You know, in political theory the entire conceptual basis of the state is that the state is the has the sole monopoly on violence. That’s it, that’s what the state is. It is the sole purveyor of social norms and order by using violence as a tool of enforcement.
It isn't clear to me if execution is actually cheaper or not. And the 8th amendment effectively bans the simple methods of killing. It needs to be sterile and mostly painless for most people.
Would I like to make an exception for pedophiles, where we castrate them, physically and chemically? Yes. But we've agreed as a society that we won't dole out cruel punishments as a cost for ensuring our government stays in check. I generally prefer lifetime imprisonment without parole for two reasons.
There were a lot of executions where, when we went back to look at them with newer technology for DNA evidence, we realized the accused was actually innocent, and the criminal got away. You can imagine there was a racial component as well which meant death sentences were assigned more often to non white people than white people. It would be hubris for us to think that our systems are perfect now. Another technological development in the future could exonerate people we think are definitely guilty. I don't want any more innocent people to die where we realize their innocence too late.
Being locked up for life sounds like a fate worse than depth, especially if it's solitary confinement. Let them rot and go and insane.
If life-imprisonment is a fate worse than death (most prisoners disagree, that's why it's common to plea a death sentence down to a life-sentence), then doesn't this mean that it is preferable to erroneously execute innocent people rather than give them life-imprisonment?
Your second point really severely undermines your first argument.
Only if additional evidence emerges. Innocent people are still going to face life imprisonment, and the argument is that it's better to execute people than life imprisonment.
Even then this is extremely subjective, many people who have never been imprisoned or faced imminent death think that they would prefer execution, and somehow generalise this feeling to all people when in reality very few people choose execution when given the option.
I prefer a 3m steel cube, welded shut, with a poop hole, a human-sized gerbil spout for water, and a hole for gruel to be pumped in twice a day. No clothes, bedding, or even a bowl for the gruel.
Not for nothing, but in the US, the pedophiles that end up in the prison system are very likely to experience hell on earth as the other inmates will certainly not be a fan of theirs. It's like some criminal pecking order. I have no idea if that's a thing outside the US, but maybe...
This is almost certainly a myth. Prisons are full of rapists and pedophiles, nobody cares. The only actual code of ethics criminal organisations have is no snitching or defrauding because it hurts them, that's all they care about.
If a claim is made that anecdotal evidence is incorrect then presenting anecdotal evidence does not refute that claim. Even worse your sources basically say that it's not really a big deal, because it isn't. Criminals really don't care what you have done so long as you don't hurt them.
Yes, and you have presented a giant pile of conjecture, followed it up with a bunch of judgment, and then made a major effort to let us know how much insight you have, without actually providing any insight. Way to go, Jasory!
Even a bit of personal experience goes further than a pile of conjecture spewed from an internet "know it all."
On what basis do you determine that my claims are not sourced? You have no information that my claims are less credible than those of the interview subjects. They are both unsupported and anecdotal at the worst; however you can actually find information on prison socialisation in academic papers and they largely support my claims. Swindlers are treated worse than sex offenders because this idea of moral code among criminals doesn't really exist, they only care if you harm them directly.
"Made a major effort to know how much insight you have"
Where? Do you even understand what this sentence you wrote even means? Until this reply, I never claimed having a source of insight or argued for why my statement is correct. I merely made a statement that the common notion of "honor among thieves" doesn't really exist, and personal stories aren't sufficient to prove that it does. I do have personal experience with this, so technically my claims have just as much basis as the random people interviewed. However this is irrelevant because there are better sources than personal stories.
Additionally if you think that anything in this discussion is a "major effort", you have abysmally low standards. Writing one or two paragraphs is highly trivial.
You made a profound statement, almost of fact. "This is almost certainly a myth". This is your argument statement, it's your conjecture and your major effort to show the audience your insight.
Stop back peddling.
You presented no sources of any kind, and then you started turning things into a research paper where I needed to submit my work in MLA format for the professor. I gave you people's experiences; you replied with a mouth full of shit (conjecture) with no basis of any kind other than your claimed philosophical knowledge.
No, sir, you seem to have a very, very high opinion of your intelligence. You are also very insecure with this opinion. Just one glance at your social history shows how hard you try to let everyone know how much higher your intellect is than theirs. It's problematic when you spout unfounded conjecture as fact; it's worse when you believe the bullshit coming out of your shit box.
I don't give two fucks how many papers on thieves you have written, or what your criteria are for the conversation because the first two sentences out of your mouth are pure elitist garbage. Go back to your hole of correcting the internet Jasory, I have no time for your bullshit.
I love how this community is extremely against death penalty to the point of brigading posts here, but as soon as the skin pigmentation goes even slightly darker than tan, those people are nowhere to be seen.