Should the death penalty ever be used?

one must decide what's a worse punishment for the crime? is life in prison a true punishment? or is the death penalty sufficient? i tend to think life in prison is worse but many of these convicts love their lives and are narcissists and fear death. or would killing them be an escape from their prison sentence? or would killing them allow them to be judged by "god" be the real punishment, eternity in hell? these are the questions we must ask..

 

And what happens if they find out WHO REALLY DID IT after they murdered someone??

 

sure I can. Just because it doesn't jive with your sensibilities, doesn't speak for everyone.


(yeah I know I just responded to a 6 year old post)

 

The reality of it is the death penalty is an excellent crime deterrent, but not the way it's done today.
How much of a deterrent is it when it's hidden away, barely talked about and treated like a "hush" "hush" type of problem.
If we were to implement public executions, that would revive capital punishment as a excellent deterrent.

may not be the popular, politically correct, pseudo-altruistic answer, but it is the reality.

 

Leave it to the States and their citizens to decide. Then violent criminals have a choice of where to commit their crimes, knowing in advance the punishment if caught and convicted.

 

Heck with that,
Kill 'em.....Kill 'em all :mickey:

 

no for two reasons. if they ARE guilty then why put them out of their misery?

and if they're not guilty, its an innocent life lost.

its a good either way. not saying putting innocent people in prison is a good thing but why kill an innocent person. sad thing is, we say in the US "innocent until proven guilty" but it's actually the other way around. and then sometimes innocent people are released. where is the justice in that ever? you're freed! you should of been free in the first place! no compensation. even money cannot give someone the time they lost back. its so sad, we need more lawyers and judges for our population but the money behind being a lawyer is so much it becomes corrupt.

 

Depends on the crime, and the individual in my opinion.

For the extremely violent and sadistic, yes I do think it should be as simple as prosecuting them and removing them from the demand for Earthly resources.

The problem is the irreversibility of the action before a mistake is made, and based on the quality of jurors the system generates, I don't feel very comfortable with the level of critical thinking and analytical skills the common man has to have this as an option for a verdict.


In principle I'm okay with it, in reality I am not okay with it.

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Instead I advocate life in prison doing hard labor, and endless mathematics problems.

 

i think a thinking, sentient human life is too sacred for us to decide whether they live or die. and it's messed up that we allow the government to commit murder and other crimes, like somehow they are above it. why do we trust them so?

 

I think the death penalty could be used if you want someone dead.

Death doesn't require a penalty to transpire or we all share the same verdict.

 

According to this poll, 95% of hipforumers disagree with the death penalty, and 55% agree with it. Enlightening.

 

????

I guess the poll app doesn't comprehend percentages are based on 100, not 149.

 

No, it's a multiple-choice poll, usually used to look at pluralities, and non-linear type answers.


The 100% structure polls, tend to be linear, and box people into answers they wouldn't otherwise choose.

If anything the OP, is to blame for any errors in the poll's setup.

 

"Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 183"

The correct number of Voters should be 273, which explains the percentage errors.

The same thing occurs in political elections in areas where more votes are cast than the number of eligible/registered/living voters exist. A result of the "new math" taught back in the 60's?

 

Teacher: Johnny, how much is 2 plus 2?

Johnny: I know for a fact that it is NOT 22!

Teacher: Yes Johnny, you are absolutely correct, now the next question is ...

 

Haha well as long as you aren't in a numerology class.

 

Yes and No!

In 1984 the average time that a convicted person spent on death row was 74 months. In 2012 it was 190 months. That's an increase from 6+ years to almost 16 years. Even 6 years is too long for it to be an effective deterrent. Costs to keep someone in prison range from $31,000 to $61,000 a year depending on the state. Got to be a more useful place to spend this money in my opinion.

 

Has anyone found a breakdown of how that money is being spent? Sounds like it's about 10 times what it should cost.
How about charging a daily fee, allowing their execution to be put off as long as they are not costing the taxpayers, and allowing (non tax deductible) donations by those who oppose the death penalty to keep them imprisoned. Would that not be satisfactory to both sides?

 

the kind of world we have to live in is the only logically deciding factor. i believe socraties was making that point when he accepted to be exicuted, though he had done no tangible wrong.

though i don't believe that makes it right to kill someone, because a large number of people, even an actual majority, agree to do so.

if killing someone were the only way to remove a real major threat to many people and they all agreed to it, well that would be what that is.

no one should be left free to repeat an offense they've already demonstrated an intention of repeating and continuing to repeat.

but there are many more ways to deny someone the opportunity to repeat a crime then killing them.

 

It seems people in general want to see punishment to feed their own satisfaction, and this doesn't help really help any in the long run.