The Death Penalty

Yeah I am against the death penalty. "an eye for and eye and the whole world goes blind". The only reason that the world isn't blind yet is because it is the government poking them out and they have control. It is not completely personal but the principle is horrible and I think it will eventually lead to disaster. I hope I will be able to see when it is over.

kitty05158 wrote:Yeah I am against the death penalty. "an eye for and eye and the whole world goes blind". The only reason that the world isn't blind yet is because it is the government poking them out and they have control. It is not completely personal but the principle is horrible and I think it will eventually lead to disaster. I hope I will be able to see when it is over.

an eye for and eye and the whole world goes blind.:confused: I guess that is true. How would u feel if some one killed a person that u was close to and then they only got 4 or 5 years in jail. You would be really :mad: and after they got out. I bet u would agree with the death penalty:)

Quote: It is not completely personal but the principle is horrible and I think it will eventually lead to disaster. I hope I will be able to see when it is over. Tell that to the thousands of family's whose love ones have been murdered.
Quote:
I hope I will be able to see when it is over.

The death penalty will be here till the end of time.

:D So tough luck.:D

kitty05158 wrote:Yeah I am against the death penalty. "an eye for and eye and the whole world goes blind". The only reason that the world isn't blind yet is because it is the government poking them out and they have control. It is not completely personal but the principle is horrible and I think it will eventually lead to disaster. I hope I will be able to see when it is over.
Which is more disasterous?
A: Imposing a penalty on those who have merited death.
B: Or not.

Choice A is more consistant. There ARE some crimes that deserve death, that has been the rule since the beginning of the law. It is better that some should die so that the entire nation does not become corrupt.

I personally wish we did it the way England used to do. Public Executions. It is a more powerful example of what the whole death penalty is really intended for. A deterrent to those who may be weighing the costs of committing the crime. Death is a high price to pay. Too high for most.

Now lets look at option B.

Someone commits a ghastly crime, and is slapped on the wrist, as it were, with a few years in jail. Is the detterent strong eenough? Did they learn their lesson? What does this tell other people that may be considering the same crime?
Answer: The price is not too high, go ahead.
Humans are economic beings. We simply weigh the apparent costs and benefits of situations. ALL the time, in everything. It is the job of the government to make the cost of crime high and the benefits low.

I am sorry for brow beating, but I'm trying to drive home my point.
thanks for reading =)
-Tyler

I have a question:
I read somewhere that the cost of administering the death penalty is more than a lifetime in jail.
Since I'm an economic being like Solar Flare suggests, is this true?
I would be more for lifetime imprisonment than the death penalty if so.

sheltieviolin wrote:I have a question:
I read somewhere that the cost of administering the death penalty is more than a lifetime in jail.
Since I'm an economic being like Solar Flare suggests, is this true?
I would be more for lifetime imprisonment than the death penalty if so.
First off I would ask you where you read that. It seems to me that shooting someone, chopping their head off, injecting them with arsenic, or shooting 10,000 volts of electricity through them would be a LOT cheaper than providing room and board for them from anywhere fom 10 to 80 years...
But I could be mistaken.

Next I would ask you, what is the cost of potentially having these people back on the streets.

Finally, my main point, what is the cost of letting criminals know that they can live out life in a jail cell with a TV and a 3 meals a day if they kill someone, as opposed to demonstrating that anyone who does so forfeits their life?
I think that's a much higher cost than spending a few extra dollars on my taxes, (should your previous information be true).
Thanks as always for the input, sorrow if I'm offensive. Let me know what you think.

*sorry, not sorrow ;-)

Here's what I read solar flare (from the Death Penalty Information Center in WDC)

-The California Death Penalty System costs taxpayers $114 million per year beyond the costs of keeping convicts locked up for life.Taxpayers have paid more than $250 million for each of the state's executions. (LA Times, March 6, 2005)
-In Kansas the costs of capital cases are 70% more expensive than comparable non-capital cases, including the costs of incarceration.(Kansas Performance Audit Report, December 2003)
-In Indiana, the total costs of the death penalty exceed the complete costs of life without parole sentences by about 38%, assuming that 20% of death sentences are overturned and reduced to life. (Indiana Criminal Law Study Commission, Jan 10, 2002)
-The most comprehensive study in the country found that the death penalty costs North Caroline $2.16 million per execution over the cost of sentencingmurderers to life imprisonment. The majority of those costs occur at the trial level. (Duke University, May 1993)
-Enforcing the death penalty costs Florida $51 million a year above what it would costs to punish all first degree murderers with life in prison without parole. Based on the 44 executions Florida has carried out since 1976, that amounts to a cost of $24 million for each execution. (Palm Beach Post, Jan 4, 2004)
-In Texas, a death penalty costs an average of $2.3 million, about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a signle cell at the higest security level for 40 years. (Dallas Morning News, March 8, 1992).

To go on, the death penalty has proved an ineffective deterrent in crime. Here's my proof:-According to a survey of the former presidents and present presidents of the country's top academic criminological societies, 84% of these experts rejected the notion that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. (Radelet & Akers, 1996)
-According to the 2004 FBI Uniform Crime Report, the South has the highest murder rate, and accounts for 80% of executions. The Northeast has less than 1% of all executions and again has the lowest murder rate.
-A 1995 Hart Research Poll of police chiefs in the US found that the majority of chiefs do not believe that the death penalty is an effective law inforcement tool, and place it last in reducing violent crime. Only 1% of chiefs named the item as a primary focus to reduce crime.

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The reason for the high costs of all death penalties mostly because of the legal process it takes to obtain them. It wastes countless hours of legal time to obtain death sentences with all the appeals that must go through.
Besides, shooting someone or chopping their head of is not even an option for capital punishment (not sure whether that was a joke...). It's called cruel and unusual punishment, and will never happen-ever. The electrical chair is currently only used in one state-Nebraska. All other states use lethal injection, which is expensive itself because it must be done in an extremely careful way to be not considered cruel and unusual punishment.
Also, no person being considered for the dp would ever be put back on the street unless they were proved innocent. The death penalty is only for extreme cases (1st Degree Murder&mass murder). If there was no death penalty they would just be thrown in prison for a looooooooong time.
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So, to sum it up, not only is the death penalty expensive, but it is ineffective.
The only real reason for the death penalty is revenge, which honestly I don't care about. Don't worry, I did not find you offensive (I hope you don't find me so either)-just misinformed.

You have some excellent points, I cannot deny that. I was going to ask why how on earth the death penalty could be more expensive, but I see now the court time, appeals, processes, etc. would most definitely do that. So as for the financial expense, you win. I'm convinced now that it's more expensive to kill someone than to lock them up for life. (Doesn't make sense at first glance, but that's not what economics is about, is it? ;-)

I can't help but speculate at this point, though, how much less expensive might it be to execute criminals were we, as a culture, not such legalists. What I mean by this is, I had a lurch in my stomach when you explain that lethal injetion must be done carefully so as not to be considered cruel and unusual punishment.
My first reaction was, WHO GIVES A FLIP?! He's going to be dead! You're worried about weather or not they stick him in the eye or the buttock?!

My second reaction was slightly more calm, and much more grieved. This is how far we've fallen from our original intent. We're so bent on following the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law. Why did our forefathers make the "Cruel and unusual punishment" clause? Was it to make sure criminals got 'nicely' executed? I think not.

Back to original point. Were we not so afraid of using capital punishment, I believe that it would be much less expensive, as it would not require so many hoops to jump through. But now I'm being idealistic. As it is, I think of our nation more a coward in regards to this aspect than prudent and careful.
As usual, my pretense is that God Himself commanded murderers to be put to death, and He gave the government full authority to do so. I don't think He's changed His mind on the subject, and that's why I'm for capital punishment. I think it's scriptural.
I could be wrong, but I'd probably have to have another Christian explain to me why it's wrong using the Bible.

At this point I feel that I'm just pulling the God card, so I feel like I should also explain that capital punishment makes sense to me as a necessary negative incentive. Your information about the north and the south and their respective death penalty/murder rates I would like to see sourced. But again, I would also add that I cannot say those rates to be directly related. Yes, they probably have an influence on each other, but one can't isolate the information and base murder rates solely on capital punishment rates. Other factors must be included, i.e. Standards of living, law enforcement, racial diversities, (racism leading to murder), gang banging, etc.

I'm also curious to know why you chose the north and south, or if that was just a report you found. =)

You have definitely given me reason to question the death penalty, but being the bullheaded person I am, I cannot give up so easily ;-)
Feedback?
-Tyler

I don't think we should so lightly give or take death. To make capital punishment more frequent would serve nothing. To make it easier to sentence would serve no purpose. I think it's a good thing that we are such legalists. It does not make us a coward, it makes us safe. True, criminals may abuse the writ of habeus corpus, but that is how we must have it to ensure everyone gets a fair trial.
I dislike using God for any of my arguments, merely because not everyone believes in one. On the matter 1) Seperation of church and state-doesn't matter if God sanctions executions and 2) I doubt God plans innocent men to die.

And it protects lives of the innocent men. I know it may not seem like that big of a deal if a few innocent men get convicted here and there, but according to DPIC since 1973 over 120 innocent men have been given the death penalty. Why should innocent men have to pay for crimes they didn't commit just so guilty ones can? It's not their fault, and frankly not worth it.
Here is the way you study deterrence.
1. Compare homicide rates in states with and without capital punishment
2. Compare homicide reates for states before and after the reintroduction or abolition of capital punishment
Studies found that murder rates in states with and without the death penalty were not significantly different. They also found that homicide in states
did not decrease after the reinstatement or increase after its abolition. (The particular one I am refering to is the Fordham University's 1999 study, but more have
shown the same such as Erlich, Sellin or Zimrig's tests).

Cruel and Unusual Punishment is an extremely important clause. The reason for this is because it devalues human life. Even if they are murderers, they still have human dignity, and should be treated with it. Without the 8th Ammendment do you understand how easily the system could be corrupted? Not only applying to cp cases, but a small offender could be beaten half to death for a petty crime. It would be an easy matter for immigrants to be tortured or hate crimes to be committed.
Not meaning to kill the debate, but think of the Halocaust. I would consider a concentration camp cruel and unusual punishment. And I'm sure you would too. With out our 8th amendment it would be a possibility, one I'm not really willing to take so a couple of people can be punished for crimes.
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But this really is OFF the topic of capital punishment. It is done the way it is done. But should it exist? I say no. It's expensive and uneffective. And that's all I really care about.

Check back, it's the FBI 2004 Uniform Crime Report. I used the two extremes. The south has the most capital punishment and the northeast the least. Of course I've got nothing against the south (if that's what you mean)-I was born there.
It is possible to say that capital punishment does not deter crime.