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What's your stance on capital punishment?
I want to hear what you think. Is it morally wrong? Should it be abolished or reinstated? What's the situation where you live?
I want to hear what you think. Is it morally wrong? Should it be abolished or reinstated? What's the situation where you live?
The death penalty is an appropriate punishment for certain heinous crimes in a perfect judicial system.
Unfortunately no judicial system is perfect.
Therefore the only conclusion is that under normal judicial circumstances the death penalty is unjustifiable.
I disagree with the first premise: I fail to see what makes killing the perpetrator an appropriate response to any crime. It is based on the assumption that the perpetrator will never create anything of value to someone else later in their life, which I would argue is unknowable. And assuming for sake of argument that we could know that a perpetrator is completely irredeemable, I think we need to consider what the goals of our justice system are. Killing the perp won't undo the damage they have caused, and it won't necessarily deter future perps -- having death listed as the punishment for a crime should be enough for this, no? -- so if we want to repair the lives of victims and prevent future crimes, are there not other options which might better serve those goals?
The death penalty is a permanent solution to a permanent injury, and one that is digestible by society. Failure to abide by the general rules that all of society has agreed to means you forfeit your privilege to participate within it. Being that resources are finite, the justification that maybe the perpetrator might be a mathematician, poet, or something other than a waste of oxygen is too unlikely to make their lives worth continuing. Why should society continue to pay for the housing, feeding, and care of someone that is overwhelmingly likely to have zero net positive impact?
No amount of apologies, groveling, or group therapy with the perpetrator is going to "repair" the victim of a heinous act. Not killing them does not undo the damage caused, however killing them does stop them from causing further damage.
Fear of punishment is a well known motivator to prevent crime, even if it cannot be absolute. It's why you do your job and don't steal things. You don't want to pay for anything, no one does. You don't want to do your menial job, but you do. Why? Because fear of punishment, be it criminal or simply loss of income.
The death penalty is a "solution" to nothing. No more good comes from putting someone to death than imprisoning them for life does. Who are you to determine how much someone's life is worth? Since when did we start valuing human beings by how much they contribute to society? A person's life has value inherently, not because it benefits "society" in some way. (Also, it's cheaper to house, feed, and take care of someone for the rest of their life than it is to put them to death, at least in the US, anyway).
Victims of heinous acts get nothing from a criminal being put to death. There are whole groups of victims' families who oppose the death penalty, because it does nothing to heal them. Apologies and therapy go farther than an execution ever would. And killing them stops further damage no better than a life sentence does.
Saying that fear of the death penalty prevents crimes is completely unproven, and shows a complete lack of understanding of the motives of criminals. Putting aside that criminality is caused by a variety of socioeconomic factors and not by any innate "evilness" of a person, the vast majority of criminals do not calculate to the letter whether a crime is "worth it" based on weighing the benefit to them of committing the crime versus the punishment if they get caught. This is especially the case when it comes to murderers and the like.
The death penalty is not okay under any circumstance. It provides no value to society or humanity to kill someone for a crime, and even if it did provide some small benefit, that would never justify the act of extinguishing a human life. A criminal may become a poet, or a mathematician, or simply remain a burden on the criminal "justice" system for the rest of their lives. It doesn't matter; their inherent worth as a human being remains all the same.
I would argue that James Holmes (the Aurora theatre shooter) is an appropriate example of someone who could be killed by the state. It seems like a reasonable first step in providing 'Justice' (as most see it) to the families who were hurt and to keep him from using any further societal resources. As long as the state could be a lot more efficient in its killing.
A key part of this is that while the Justice system should be focused on rehabilitation and not simply revenge there can also be limits to that philosophy where it can be more reasonable to do something else. I think that's where we start talking about capital punishment.
I'd offer this page which also links to studies showing that victim's families don't find closure from the death penalty. There are national coalitions of victims families actively petitioning to abolish the death penalty. Obviously, its not a simple issue and victim's families fall on both sides of the issue, but I don't agree that harming others because they harmed you is "justice".
Isn't it based on the assumption that said perpetrator will end the lives of others with reckless impunity given the chance, and that cost you describe, spread across multiple murder victims, is vastly larger than the cost of just stopping that lone problematic criminal?
It was a lot simpler when you could just 'exile' people instead, but the world's become far too small for that to work anymore.
This is the justification I most like to see.
Do I think certain crimes deserve the death penalty? Yes. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a person that doesn't find at least some kind of crime so abhorrent that the perpetrator should die to pay for it in their eyes. But do I trust any system built by humans to perfectly carry out said justice? Especially something like the state or the judicial system, which may have ulterior motives and be influenced by other biases? No. Therefore I am against the death penalty.
This needs more justification. Firstly, I think this ties into an earlier discussion on personal responsibility. Is the heinous crime X solely the fault of the perpetrator OR is it a failure by us as a society in prohibiting it? Of course one can argue somewhere in between too.
Secondly and maybe more important is what we want our justice system to provide. Is it there to dispense retributive justice, eg an eye for an eye? Is it there to minimise the future harm?
If the justice system is supposed to meet out retribution, why just capital punishment? Why not subject the perpetrator to torture? When is the amount of retribution enough?
Clearly the justice system killing a member of society causes harm to that person. Ideally, the perpetrator would make amends for their crimes and realize the error of their ways and victims would forgive the perpetrator. That is clearly infeasible in some cases, however it should be the ideal to strive for. There is no improvement for society in killing its members if it is instead capable of taking care of and potentially rehabilitate them. If resources were scarce I think there might be a case to be made?
I have said that many times so I’ll quote myself:
I came up with this argument almost 20 years ago in a booze fueled party late at night and managed to change my friend’s mind in 30 seconds or less. Have been using it ever since.
I don't support capital punishment for the same reason I don't use fear-based training methods with my dogs. However, I still feel compelled to argue for the sake of it.
Death is irreversible sure but let's not pretend any other form of intervention is somehow reversible either. Whether it's rehabilitative or punitive, intervention is irreversible in a very real physical sense.
I think this is arguing with the semantics rather than the substance. Death is irreversible, and there is no way to sufficiently apologize or compensate that individual is a mistake was made, because they no longer exist. Other forms of punishment cannot be completely reversed, but they can be apologized and compensated for in part if not whole, simply by virtue of the person continuing to exist.
They are not entirely irreversible like the death penalty, but they are at least partially reversible. A life sentence that is commuted after ten years, for example. You cannot undo the past ten years, but you can certainly prevent the remaining of the sentence from being served, and even make efforts to mitigate the long lasting effects of incarceration.
I cannot see any reasonable parallel between inducing fear on a dog and taking a human life.
This person does pretty long videos on political/philosophical subjects, here's one on the death penalty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L30_hfuZoQ8
I'm in UK, I don't think we use it under any circumstances here.
I prefer the term 'death penalty' to 'capital punishment', let's not beat around the bush.
I agree with Shaun (linked video) that it is not appropriate because it is absolute, and we know that the justice system is not 100% accurate in its judgements. Shaun makes additional arguments about the economics of the death penalty as well, which I think are important.
So, not entirely what I alone think, but I hope that is a good enough response for you. :)
I immediately think of this video every time the topic is brought up. Shaun goes into an incredible amount of depth discussing the different perspectives and walks us dialectically through the history of arguments and counter-arguments culminating in the strongest arguments that exist each way today.
I am staunchly opposed. I grew up in the American South and have absolutely no misconceptions about the "justice" system here. The death penalty, as well as false accusations and extra-judicial killings (lynchings), have long been unjustly carried out against Black citizens. It is something that is inseparable from the racial politics in the US. And, as an example, the fact that until recently Louisiana allowed non-unanimous Jury decisions is a strong part of that. The corruption and racism that plagues the justice system makes the death penalty a complete nonstarter. That's before considering how awful the modern, "humane" drug cocktail is.
Rehabilitation is a better solution than punishment. Punishment does not solve problems and while it will make some people think twice about committing the same crime in the future, the reality is that it does a much worse job than rehabilitation and preventing future crime. Unfortunately, humans are incredibly varied and some people are rehabilitation resistant. I would prefer, however, that they spend their lives in a rehabilitation facility than one aimed at punishment in the hopes that something may eventually reach them.
This is probably the comment that's most in line with my own opinion. I think the justice system in general is fundamentally flawed because it is focused on using punishment as a deterrent. Which is not to say that I think people should not be punished. If someone causes harm to society, they should face consequences.
However I think the type and severity of consequences should change as society grows and changes. In a society with very limited resources if someone steals food, the consequences are likely severe because that could result in someone else literally starving. In a more affluent society if someone steals food, the consequences should be much less severe or perhaps even non-existent depending on their circumstances.
In any society if someone steals, there is a reason for it. They might be broke and desperate, they might be addicted to something, they might not have ever been taught that it's wrong, and any of a stack of reasons. Same with any crime, including murder. What I don't believe, is that any person is inherently evil or malicious. Everyone has their own demons, but some of us are lucky enough to have enough support that we can deal with them. I do believe there are people who are so broken they can never be rehabilitated. However I think they are also so far and few between that a modern society can easily shoulder the cost of imprisoning them and making the attempt to rehabilitate them for the rest of their lives.
I think every case of a law being broken is a failure of society itself. Either the law itself is flawed or outdated (eg, no wearing chicken suits on Wednesdays before sundown), or someone has been driven to a point where they decide they will accept the possible consequences and break the law. (I'm discounting ignorance) The remedy in the first case is to change or abolish the law. The remedy in the second case is to examine how we as a society have failed that person. What can be changed to prevent someone else from arriving at the same scenario in their life?
So I reject that the purpose of a judicial system should be punishment, even though punishment should be involved. As a result, I reject the idea that any harm an individual can commit against society requires a punishment so severe that their life should be forfeit.
My main gripe with the death penalty is that it's a get-out-of-jail-free card: Being stuck in a cell for the rest of your life without any hope of getting out just seems like a much harsher punishment than nothingness.
For those who believe in an afterlife, obviously this calculation is different. The other parts of finality, economics and so on are secondary advantages of not killing people in the name of justice.
I've always opposed the death penalty, I think mostly because I grew up in a society where it is prohibited and well, we tend to inherit the views of the culture we live in.
But if I were to give some reasons; for me, I dislike the use of killing as a punishment from a moral / empathetic point of view, and the reward or utility of executing people I have no empathy, or have antipathy, for is hugely outweighed by the bluntness of capital punishment in general. We should be better than this (for ourselves, not even for the criminals to be executed), and we have more humane punishments which are just as good of deterrents. I don't know of anybody proving that the death penalty existing acts as a sufficient deterrent above and beyond imprisonment.
I also heard a convincing argument on a podcast lately: having capital punishment as a power of the State, giving it that power, only encourages a bloodlust and appetite for violence in society. It sends a sign to society that dealing death as a punishment or a reaction or a defence is acceptable, and that's how you get people shot for knocking on the wrong door, or for being black to close to a paranoid white man with a gun. It's how you get police who are encouraged to respond to criminals immediately with their guns, because they were doing a crime, they deserve it! No matter how restricted capital punishment is under law, while it exists, extrajudicial killings will be that much more accepted and more excused. I don't want to live in a society with that culture, either.
Related to the above capital punishment of course gives the State a lot of power, which it can wield just as arbitrarily and unfairly (and incompetently, as others have said) as the other violence and harm we agree it can use as tools. Like, we agree that there is this theoretical state monopoly on violence, but I think you can limit that power somewhere before execution.
I think there is a more important question that must be resolved prior to tackling this one.
What is the function of a criminal justice system?
The purpose of such a system seems to be one of defending class interests. In a monarchy, the manifest function of a criminal legal system seems obvious to us: maintaining and defending the conditions that make such a society possible and dismantling movements that could pose a threat to the ruling class.
One might ask in a monarchy: "whose heads is it appropriate for the crown to have removed?" This clearly sounds like an absurd question, because the validity of a monarchy's right to rule isn't inculcated into us, this is not an aspect of the dominant ideology. Further, to even formulate the question, you presuppose that the monarchy is justified in using violence against people at all. "The monarchy doesn't represent my interests, why should I support their removing of anyone's heads?"
If we understand "criminal justice" to be a functional component of a class society (specifically one of maintaining the position of the ruling class,) the contradictory and destructive behaviors of criminal justice systems can be demystified. Class domination in the US exists along social and material structures; not only does this system represent a defense of a capitalist class, it also has a functional role reinforcing social structures like white supremacy and settler-colonialism. If one has a liberal view of police, their actions are either unintelligible, or the result of "bad apples" somehow consistently corrupting an otherwise legitimate institution anywhere and everywhere.
A materialist analysis can demystify what the role of a criminal justice system is in a way that liberalism cannot. The question from this perspective could better be restated as "does the criminal justice system represent my class interests, and can it do so more effectively when capital punishment is permitted?"
Theoretically permissible in heinous cases, impossible to administer fairly and impartially. I don’t support it, but if we are going to continue to utilize the death penalty, it shouldn’t be medicalized. Firing squad sounds reasonably humane but without the clinical aspects.
I don’t believe in retributive justice, so the only goal of imprisonment and capital punishment is prevention of future harm and redemption. I think that capital punishment can be justified when the government has no other option to prevent known future harm. Modern governments have the ability to guarantee no future harm through life inprisonment (theoretically). Therefore, capital punishment should not be used.
I don’t think government should have the right to take someone’s life if at all possible. I would gladly pay increased taxes to keep death row inmates in prison for life if it was a financial issue (in practice, death penalty cases cost significantly more than life in prison).
I also think that governments not having the right to take anyone’s life should extent to all humans and include military and war. I know that this opinion lacks pragmatism. This is a belief that I have wrestled with constantly.
I support the death penalty in theory for people who have committed absolutely heinous and irredeemable crimes, but not in practice (especially in the US).
As others have said, most justice systems around the world are horribly biased against minorities. And as we've seen hundreds, if not thousands, of times across the world, convictions on supposedly solid scientific evidence are overturned as we develop new technologies like DNA testing. So many cases have been overturned because DNA testing revealed that convictions based on circumstantial evidence or disproven scientific theories were wrong. That alone is enough to give me pause. One innocent person dying is enough to make me say we should not use the death penalty.
I've mentioned this when this was discussed previously, but if you give someone life in prison and find out 50 years later that they are innocent, at least you can let them go free. You can't do that with the death penalty. Once it's done, it's done.
But, the example that I keep coming back to is someone like Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrator of the Oklahoma City Bombing. He killed 168 people and showed absolutely no remorse. The case against him is airtight. He even admitted and gave a very, very detailed confession once he was convicted.
Why should he get to live when he took the lives of 168 people? There's no rehabilitating someone like that. And even if there was - why should we waste our time on someone like that? Our efforts at rehabilitating someone should go toward a person who might actually get out some day and become a productive member of society. A case like that is pretty cut and dry to me.
Obviously there are tons of other cases where things aren't so cut and dry, where nuances have to be considered. It's cases like that where I'd be much more reluctant to say someone earned the death penalty.
But for those small amounts of cases where someone murdered dozens of people and would never get out of prison, I can support the death penalty.