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Story here

   

Boo Hoo. Am I suppossed to cry for killers.

   

Boo Hoo. Am I suppossed to cry for killers?

   

I totally oppose the death penalty. It's interesting to note:

that of the above, the United States is the only one where a full public and fair trial is a right, n'est paw?

Spandau Prisons, that's what we need - more of those. Total solitary isolation - just ask Rudolph Hess.

   

Capital Punishment
Around 90 countries retain the death penalty (including China, Islamic countries, and 37 states of the US). Like the debates on Prison v. Rehabilitation, Mandatory Prison Sentences and Zero Tolerance, this debate calls into question what the purpose of punishment should be - is it purely for retribution or should there be an element of rehabilitation of the offender too?

Pro -
In any country - democracy or dictatorship - one of the roles of the state is to punish criminals. In the case of serial murderers, terrorists, 'cop killers', etc.. they should be punished by death. Our human rights are given to us as part of a contract - which says that we can do anything we want as long as it does not hurt anyone else - and so if we take away the life of another person, then surely we forfeit the right to our own life.

Con -
If killing is a crime and immoral in the eyes of society, then for the state to kill its citizens is equally barbaric. Two wrongs do not make a right, and it is never right to put someone to death no matter what the crime. The death penalty is a 'cruel and unusual punishment', especially in view of the psychological torture inflicted on those on Death Row who know that they are going to be executed but do not know when.

Pro -
Use of the death penalty deters criminals from murdering. Numerous studies in the US(e.g. Utah from 1976 to 1988) showed a noticeable drop in murder rates in the months directly following any execution. One study concluded that each execution prevents, on average, eighteen further murders. Since capital punishment was abolished in the UK in 1965 (for all crimes except treason) the murder rate has doubled.

Con -
If the death penalty is such a deterent, then why is the murder rate so high in the US where it is employed in many states? There has been virtually no change in the overall rate since 1976 when the death penalty was reinstated, despite an enormous increase in the number of executions. Also, death penalty states often have a higher murder rate than their neighbouring non-death penalty states. A distinction also needs to be made between local short-term deterrents (immediately after executions in particular places) and long-term deterrents that have an effect on national crime rates, for which there is less evidence.

Pro -
Executing murderers prevents them from killing again. In Britain over seventy-five murders have been committed by released killers since the abolition of capital punishment. Serial killers - those who are so 'evil' or hardened as to be incapable of reform -- can be removed permanently from society.

Con -
Execution may remove some killers from society, but in return it brutalises society and invests killing with state-sanctioned acceptability. Not only is capital punishment not a deterrent but it can even increase the murder rate; California's rate showed its biggest increases from 1952 to 1967 when executions occurred every two months on average.

Pro -
The other possibility of removing killers from society - life imprisonment without parole - impses an immense financial burden on the public purse. A study by TIME magazine estimated the cost of keeping a prisoner for fifty years in the US at about $4 million, more than twice the cost of a death penalty case. If the prisoner has to be kept in a maximum security cell, this figure would be over $2 million more.

Con -
We cannot kill prisoners because it is too expensive to imprison them, or we would start executing burglars to pay for tax cuts. More money must be found for prisons if the funding is currently insufficient; law and order should be a priority in any government's budget. It is also arguable whether life without parole is cheaper than death penalty cases, which can cost $1.5 million or more because of the lengthy and complex appeals procedure.

Pro -
the death penalty is only given when the facts are certain and the jury has no doubt whatsoever, and only carried out when every right to appeal has been exhausted. There have admittedly been some cases of wrongful conviction leading to execution in the UK (notable Timothy Evans and, probably, James Hanratty) but, although it may seem harsh, this is negligible when compared to the number of murders prevented by the death penalty. The discrimination between various degrees of homicide or manslaughter allows the jury plenty of opportunity for clemency, and insane murderers are never executed.

Con -
A single mistane execution of an innocent person, among no matter how many thousands of cases, is utterly unjustifiable and is enough to destroy our trust in the death penalty and in any judicial system that uses it. Second, rehabilitation is part of the purpose of punishment, and who is to say that any guilty criminal cannot be reformed? Any prisoner must be given every chance to come to terms with the wrongdoing and perhaps be rehabilitated into society - a chance that execution denies.

Pro -
If there is no death penalty then there is no incentive for prisoners sentenced to life without parole not to commit crimes while in prison - to kill warders, other prisoners, or to try to escape and kill again. Nothing they can do can result in further punishment.

Con -
There are several ways of dealing with misbehaving prisoners: revoking of privileges if their disorder is minor, and solitary confinement in a maximum security cell if they are violent. There will always be psychopaths who need to be confined in this way. Those who are not should not be sentenced to life without parole - if they have the chance of parole, they have an incentive towards good behaviour.

Pro -
The death penalty is a harsh but fair punishment and an effective deterrent. That criminals fear the death penalty more than life without parole is shown by the fact that, when it comes to the punishment phase of their trials, 99.9 percent of convicted defendants argue for life rather than the death penalty. The appropriate punishment for the murder is execution, not life imprisonment.

Con -
Life imprisonment can be a worse punishment than execution, and therefore a more appropriate one and also a better deterrent. The prisoners who argue for life imprisonment have not begun to experience a lengthy stay in prison yet; many later argue to be allowed to die. IF we want to punish killers, then execution is too lenient.

....and there you have the arguements. I agree with the Pros, but that is because my sense of morality is different than more of you people, so don't go off saying names just because I have a different opinion than you all....

   

Yes, and in another thread you firmly stated that you would change your mind about capital punishment if you found out that the US had executed one innocent in the last 50 years (or something like that). I then showed you that the US has executed more than 25 innocents in the last 100 years, seven of them in the last ten years.

So you've recantered? Innocent blood is now acceptable? A sign of a truly barbaric, backward socitey if you ask me. The same kind of society that might commit its young to war over a weak suspicion...but I digress.

You can never prove beyond a reasonable doubt. It doesn't matter how good the technology gets, how good the evidence gets, you can not remove the human factor. Somebody who is incompitent handling the evidence, or worse, somebody very compitent and with an agenda...

It's insane.

   

i personally do not believe in the death penalty. but, i DO believe in the maximum sentence (life in prison) in canada. but, i do not agree how in canada "life in prison" means 25 years. it is sad how a lot of killers in can get parolled after only 25 years.

i think parole for murderers should be abolished.(cost be damned)

   

Yeah, I suppose when we watch a women run over her husband on Camera, or watch someone kill someone on camera, there's still a good chance they didn't do it. Maybe I think it's barbaric and backward to let murderers live. Considering how many nations have the death penalty, you could almost say it's backward not to have it. It's all about point of view. How do you define something as barbaric? I don't believe the world is that black and white, and I have retracted my point of view because there's never been any proof that any of the 'innocent' people were really innocent. I looked up your information on the US executing 25 innocents, and found NOTHING, I even went to some deathpenalty information website, which said that around 20 something people have been sentenced to life and then taken off death row, but it never said anything about 25 people being innocent. It did say that like 2-3 people in the last few decades might have been innocent.

Who's innocent anymore anyways? To a christian I might be guilty of sins, to a buddhist I might be impure, to an anarchist I might be guilty of being a herd animal, and so on. Innocence is such a vague term, and what you are doing is trying to claim that morals are rational. Morals vary from person to person, and to tell me my thinking is wrong or right is just your will to have power over what you see and hear, and to shape things to how you think the world should be. Maybe I find you barbaric, or maybe I find you average, but whatever I find you, it will never be a truth, because in a universe that is constantly changing, I find it hard to find an absolute truth, such as death being wrong or right....

   

http://www.amnestyusa.org/rightsforall/ ... ent-1.html
http://www.tcadp.org/factsAndFigures.htm

Innocent people are executed.

   

So wait, in the last 10 years, 7 of the innocent people who were killed between 1900 and 1985 were killed? That makes no sense. You got a study of executed people between 1900 and 1985, and from somewhere you pulled this figure that of the 25 innocent people executed, 7 were in the last ten years. According to time, and years, we would have to be living in 1985 for that to be true....

   

I beleive it's unfair to have the death penalty in a society that promotes violence. You see violence on t.v. everywhere. Even in kids shows kids are taught to beat up other kids or fight the bully instead of resolving problems in a better way. People are brainwashed from a very young age into beleiving violence is alright and then they grow up and do something that lands them in jail. Society has to have some other way of detering criminals from criminal behaviour other than the death penalty because its shown it doesn't work very well. If people are brought up to learn that violence is bad and they still do it, then there is something wrong with them and they can be treated. This would result in fewer people ending up in jail. There has to be better social programs to deter the violence as well. If people have enough money to get by comfortably they won't resort to theft and violence.

   

Hmm, so you are a determinist. You believe that people don't have free will, but that they act from heredity and from environment. I don't know if I agree in that though because I grew up seeing violence on Tv and I never thought it was right. What people see when they see violence is usually a good guy, and a bad guy. The bad guy kills people, and the good guy tries to stop him and save lifes. The underlying message of this could be that bad people kill, and killing is bad, and good people try to stop them and don't kill.

I guess you never had to deal with a bully at school, but let me tell you, the bully is the one who starts stuff with kids, and there's never any way out of it except standing up for yourself. You can't walk up to some bully in the 4th grade and be like, "i would like to talk my problems out."

If anything people are brainwashed into believing that violence is wrong. I think the whole issue of violence is not so black and white, and you can't just blame television. Maybe how the person grew up, how their family life was, things that happened to them as a child, all facter in. Maybe violence is just human nature, I mean since when have humans lived without violence?

I think this whole "if people have enough money they wont resort to violence" thing is just ridiculous. The head of the Tycos company had money, yet he stole millions of dollars from the company. There's so many examples of people with money and great lifes who have ended up killing people.

Society is not brainwashing people to be violent, because there was violence before the information age, and to ignore the fact that violence is human and will always go on, is to be brainwashed....

   

What planet do you live on? Kids donÂ’t care about the underlying message, kids donÂ’t even understand that. All they see is violence. Violence that is condoned by there heroes on TV and violence that is condoned by there government.



You are 100% wrong. Though i wouldnt use the term barinwashing but society does condone violence, its everywhere you look. The USA is one of the most violent countires in the world. Why do you think that is?

   

How can it be true that violence on tv makes people commit crimes, when I grew up in the US and I have never commited a crime or done violent things, yet I watched violent shows my whole life. What about the people who come from over the border from mexico or any other country and commit violent crimes in the US? The heroes on Tv don't go around killing innocent people, while the bad guys do, so it could put the subconcious message into kids that killing innocent people is wrong, and stopping the people who kill the innocent people is right. Kids of course aren't going to see the underlying message, because it's underlying and meant to get to them subconciously. Alot of times if there's someone who is bullying people at school, he's doing it because he might not get enough attention at home, or because of how his parents are treating him. Blaming violent television doesn't account for why one person doesn't commit violence, and another does. Under your theory, everyone in the US should be murdering and robbing people because everyone there has access to the same television shows.

Another reason why your theory wouldn't work is because there has been violence before television. Under your theory, the Roman empire and numorous civilizations were never violent, because they didn't have television, so how could they have been violent. How did violence even come about? Why is violence on Tv? Why does violence even exist? In order for violence to turn up on Tv there has to be something in people which would create it. The person came before the Tv, and Tv is an expression of how people think, so how can Tv be the cause of something when it's humans who created Tv and the shows, and violence has been around before Tv.

Back in the 20s there were gangs, people doing drugs, and so on, yet no Tv. Back before then there was the Wild west which had robberies and famous outlaw murderers like Billy the Kid. You need to face the fact which history shows us that humans are by nature violent creatures. Television is just a cop out, because Violence has existed for centuries. The crusades, numerous wars, death penaltys, murderers, and so on. Violence is not just some modern thing which Tv has created....

   

Not once did i say TV was the cause of all violence so stop saying i did. It's not TV in general, it's pop the pop culture of the USA. It's society and Goverment. It's a lot of things. But the point is violence is seen by the eyes of Americans as ok, but sex is bad. Doesnt make much sense to me.

Sex=Good
Violence=Bad

[Edit]
The death penalty is permitted in these countires. Looks strange to see the USA on a list of those coutires. Seeing the USA wants to be an example to the world, yet its on a list with countires who havnt been so forward.
* Afghanistan
* Algeria
* Antigua and Barbuda
* Armenia
* Bahamas
* Bahrain
* Bangladesh
* Barbados
* Belarus
* Belize
* Benin
* Botswana
* Burundi
* Cameroon
* Chad
* China (People's Republic)
* Comoros
* Congo (Democratic Republic)
* Cuba
* Dominica
* Egypt
* Equatorial Guinea
* Eritrea
* Ethiopia
* Gabon
* Ghana
* Guatemala
* Guinea
* Guyana
* India
* Indonesia
* Iran
* Iraq
* Jamaica
* Japan
* Jordan
* Kazakhstan
* Kenya
* Korea, North
* Korea, South
* Kuwait
* Kyrgyzstan
* Laos
* Lebanon
* Lesotho
* Liberia
* Libya
* Malawi
* Malaysia
* Mauritania
* Mongolia
* Morocco
* Myanmar
* Nigeria
* Oman
* Pakistan
* Palestinian Authority
* Philippines
* Qatar
* Rwanda
* St. Kitts and Nevis
* St. Lucia
* St. Vincent and the Grenadines
* Saudi Arabia
* Sierra Leone
* Singapore
* Somalia
* Sudan
* Swaziland
* Syria
* Taiwan
* Tajikistan
* Tanzania
* Thailand
* Trinidad and Tobago
* Tunisia
* Uganda
* United Arab Emirates
* United States of America
* Uzbekistan
* Vietnam
* Yemen
* Zambia
* Zimbabwe

   

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