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Post by Kit Walker on Jul 29, 2011 10:33:14 GMT -5
Which would have accomplished what? Nobody shot would have been brought back. It wouldn't prevent people from doing it again. It wouldn't have helped the families of the victims. All you would be doing is adding to the violence. Throwing perpetrators in jail doesn't bring any victims back, help the families of victims (at least not in any way more tangible than killing the perpetrator), and it doesn't deter anyone else from committing the crime. All it does is ruin more person's life. If vengeance weren't even a small part of the system, there would be no reason to punish people at all. |
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Post by scotsgit on Jul 29, 2011 10:41:19 GMT -5
Which would have accomplished what? Nobody shot would have been brought back. It wouldn't prevent people from doing it again. It wouldn't have helped the families of the victims. All you would be doing is adding to the violence. Throwing perpetrators in jail doesn't bring any victims back, help the families of victims (at least not in any way more tangible than killing the perpetrator), and it doesn't deter anyone else from committing the crime. All it does is ruin more person's life. If vengeance weren't even a small part of the system, there would be no reason to punish people at all. You can also get situations where you get obnoxious people like Myra Hindley who take pleasure in hurting the families of those killed by campaigning for release - in Hindley's case, she at first claimed she was coerced into it and when that fell on deaf ears, she started saying she'd found religion and should be released because she'd repented: She hadn't, she refused to tell the family of the last victim where he was buried and to cap it all, she had supporters like Lord Longford campaigning for her, despite opposition from the families. Incidentally, no government in the UK ever ordered her release. She died in prison. |
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Post by Vene on Jul 29, 2011 11:34:12 GMT -5
Which would have accomplished what? Nobody shot would have been brought back. It wouldn't prevent people from doing it again. It wouldn't have helped the families of the victims. All you would be doing is adding to the violence. Throwing perpetrators in jail doesn't bring any victims back, help the families of victims (at least not in any way more tangible than killing the perpetrator), and it doesn't deter anyone else from committing the crime. All it does is ruin more person's life. If vengeance weren't even a small part of the system, there would be no reason to punish people at all. Throwing people in jail prevents people who have proven themselves to infringe on the rights of others from doing it again. |
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Post by Dragon Zachski on Jul 29, 2011 13:09:42 GMT -5
Throwing perpetrators in jail doesn't bring any victims back, help the families of victims (at least not in any way more tangible than killing the perpetrator), and it doesn't deter anyone else from committing the crime. All it does is ruin more person's life. If vengeance weren't even a small part of the system, there would be no reason to punish people at all. Throwing people in jail prevents people who have proven themselves to infringe on the rights of others from doing it again. This. |
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Post by Kit Walker on Jul 29, 2011 13:54:53 GMT -5
Throwing people in jail prevents people who have proven themselves to infringe on the rights of others from doing it again. This. So would killing them, in fact killing them would do so even better by making sure they're never out on the street ever again. If the goal is preventing repeat offense, why not just kill them? No criminal justice system is solely about justice. Justice is balancing out the scales, making things equal. A stint in prison never gives a burglary victim their sense of security in their home back, locking a murderer away for life doesn't repair the damage done to the friends and family of the victim, etc. So the system isn't just about justice, and it isn't just about preventing repeat offense. In some cases, rehabilitation is a goal but fuckers (Jeff Dahmer comes to mind) are just fucked in the head and will never be rehabbed. So. What else is there? Vengeance. Punishment. Prison system means nothing without a measure of it. I'm also, not to beat a dead horse, still boggled by that luxury prison from a few pages back. Has Norway no Convenience store clerks? No unskilled laborers? No fast food restaurants? No waiters, waitresses, bus boys? Or do all those positions make enough money to afford flat screen TVs, song writing computers, a rock wall, etc? |
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Post by Dragon Zachski on Jul 29, 2011 14:01:22 GMT -5
So would killing them, in fact killing them would do so even better by making sure they're never out on the street ever again. If the goal is preventing repeat offense, why not just kill them? Because stooping to the level of criminals isn't a good thing. |
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Post by scotsgit on Jul 29, 2011 14:32:21 GMT -5
So would killing them, in fact killing them would do so even better by making sure they're never out on the street ever again. If the goal is preventing repeat offense, why not just kill them? Because stooping to the level of criminals isn't a good thing. But if you know someone (such as Dahmner or Hindley) won't be rehabilitated by prison and that they will use their time in prison to manipulate people and thus cause more suffering to the families of their victims (or even surviving victims), what good does keeping them alive do? |
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Post by Dragon Zachski on Jul 29, 2011 14:40:04 GMT -5
Because stooping to the level of criminals isn't a good thing. But if you know someone (such as Dahmner or Hindley) won't be rehabilitated by prison and that they will use their time in prison to manipulate people and thus cause more suffering to the families of their victims (or even surviving victims), what good does keeping them alive do? The good of keeping them alive is not killing them. You forget, these criminals have families, too. Killing them causes anguish to THEIR families. It's so easy to treat them as something that's okay to kill without thinking about what killing them actually accomplishes. |
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Post by askold on Jul 29, 2011 14:46:50 GMT -5
But if you know someone (such as Dahmner or Hindley) won't be rehabilitated by prison and that they will use their time in prison to manipulate people and thus cause more suffering to the families of their victims (or even surviving victims), what good does keeping them alive do? Because sometimes innocent people are mistaken for criminals. That is the biggest reason to not support capital punishment. If I knew with 100% certainty that everyone who is convicted is guilty then I would support the death penalty for the worst type of crimes. But as long as there is a chance that innocent people are executed I am against death penalty. It is much easier to release the innocent, if new evidence pops up, than to bring the dead back to life. (And if they try to cause more trouble in jail, you can put them in solitary confinement. I admit that this takes up resources and there is always a risk of escape, but I am not claiming that this is the perfect solution.) |
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Post by Vene on Jul 29, 2011 16:17:40 GMT -5
The death penalty is more expensive than a life sentence (link), and others have pointed out that there is the possibility for error. Also, I absolutely love how you are declaring somebody impossible to rehabilitate without any sort of evidence. I had no idea you were such gifted psychologists you could accurately analyze somebody from snippets of news stories. |
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Post by malicious_bloke on Jul 29, 2011 18:40:17 GMT -5
The death penalty is more expensive than a life sentence (link), and others have pointed out that there is the possibility for error. Also, I absolutely love how you are declaring somebody impossible to rehabilitate without any sort of evidence. I had no idea you were such gifted psychologists you could accurately analyze somebody from snippets of news stories. The initial point about the impossibility of achieving 100% accuracy in trials is valid, the argument that capital punishment is "more expensive" than life imprisonment has more to do with the pathetic inefficiency of the legal procedure than the punishment itself. Not exactly relevant. |
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Post by Vene on Jul 29, 2011 18:50:24 GMT -5
The death penalty is more expensive than a life sentence (link), and others have pointed out that there is the possibility for error. Also, I absolutely love how you are declaring somebody impossible to rehabilitate without any sort of evidence. I had no idea you were such gifted psychologists you could accurately analyze somebody from snippets of news stories. The initial point about the impossibility of achieving 100% accuracy in trials is valid, the argument that capital punishment is "more expensive" than life imprisonment has more to do with the pathetic inefficiency of the legal procedure than the punishment itself. Not exactly relevant. The reason for the cost is due to the number of appeals in order to try and maintain even a smidgen of accuracy for such a punishment. And, unless the system is reformed in such a manner as to render the cost cheaper then it remains a valid concern. |
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Post by tolpuddlemartyr on Jul 29, 2011 20:42:18 GMT -5
So would killing them, in fact killing them would do so even better by making sure they're never out on the street ever again. If the goal is preventing repeat offense, why not just kill them? I dunno, America is one of the last western industrialized countries to have capital punishment. I think a fair amount of people killing people goes on over there despite the state killing people who kill people. In fact I think that America has more homicide than other western industrialized countries without capital punishment, so there is that. |
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Post by Kit Walker on Jul 29, 2011 22:13:41 GMT -5
The death penalty is more expensive than a life sentence (link), and others have pointed out that there is the possibility for error. Also, I absolutely love how you are declaring somebody impossible to rehabilitate without any sort of evidence. I had no idea you were such gifted psychologists you could accurately analyze somebody from snippets of news stories. I'm not trying to say "yay capital punishment!", I'm point out that if the big reason we imprisoned people was to keep them from re-offending, summary execution would be a far faster and more permanent means to that end. Since we don't do that, there must be other reasons we lock people up. Vengeance is just one of them. And while I have faith in the ability to rehabilitate, say, a career car thief or bank robber, I somehow doubt that any amount of jail time or therapy is going to turn a guy who sexually assaulted kids, murdered no less than 17 people (many after sex, both consensual and non), and kept body parts as trophies (or possibly as food) into a happy, law abiding, productive member of society. Because that's who I gave as an example of the someone who couldn't be rehabilitated, Jeffery Dahmer. Ed Gein? Now there's a creepy-ass murderer who could have used some therapy and been relatively harmless. It would be nice to live in a world where everyone can be made into a model citizen, but instead we live in the real world. |
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Post by Vene on Jul 30, 2011 0:31:49 GMT -5
Easier to blindly assert than it is to prove.
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