"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

How much do lifetime imprisonment fees cost? How about paying for a good state-appointed attorney-- or a team of them, if we're talking defending a really sick puppy? Let's talk about fuss... Whatever happened to efficient justice?

I researched this for a 10th grade sociology class. It's typically breaks about even. Can you see why vigilante justice is so attractive to some folks?

Cooped, you just involved yourself. State your opinion.

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

Murder, as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent (or malice aforethought), and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide. Homicide in self-defense is lawful.

In other words, the death penalty isn't murder, but I know what you're saying. Taking life is wrong, two wrongs don't make a right etc etc

Aw, shucks. Let's just have a government that mandates hugs and hand-holding. Serial killers should sit down with the mothers of the people they killed in a circle with a "talking stick," talk about how killing is wrong, and make friendship bracelets for eachother.

that's a ridiculous strawman of the arguments i've been making. i mean, that's really, really weak.

i don't know why you're mocking the idea of changing things and new ideas when you're clearly as dissatisfied with the prison system as any other rational individual.

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

Bad mutations are things that are harmful to society.  I realize that this stance has gone quite wrong by different definitions of what is harmful.

But my opinion on the death penalty is- You can be opposed to it until the day that someone rapes and murders your six year old daughter.  Can anyone explain the good in keeping people like this around?

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

That is, satisfaction that the other person is no longer a burden to society, or a hideous blight on this planet and humanity. Not "ha ha, got you back." Many say death is a mercy to the criminal, and imprisonment with a life of (maybe) guilt is the true torture.

It's like the decision to have an abortion in that it shouldn't be an easy one to make, yet in some cases it is the right thing to do; for the mother, the infant, and the world. Pro-lifers get hung up on the fetus- the precious spark of life- and don't care about what the child's life will be like, or what it's chances of survival to get the chance to become a functioning member of society. (Only with criminals, pro-lifers don't care if he is a part of society, other than a massive expense, just that he's alive.) If you can't be pro-life and pro-capital punishment for that reason, maybe it works the other way, too... Where do you stand on abortion, Nefud?

like the vast majority of pro-choice people, i am pro-choice because it seems like the option that probably causes the least amount of suffering. i think the real decision is "pro people killing their fetuses" or "pro people killing their fetuses in back alleys with coat hangers or drinking drano." we're probably not going to stop people, so we might as well make it safe and legal (see also: prostitution, drugs)

 edit: also, as a human without a uterus, it would HILARIOUS if i tried to tell a human with a uterus what to do with it.

There is very little suffering in a quick, premature death.

Rehabilitate a murderer and "release them back into society", and they won't have that luxury anymore. And the suffering of the lives he already ruined will be increased because the government jumped in to "fix" someone who ruined other peoples' lives. Where is the fix for their anguish, fear, and hate?

At least in prison, criminals are kept safe from those who wish them harm for what they did.

**********

You say we can't truly rehabilitate them right now? I disagree! We had lobotomies, intensive electro-convulsive theraphy, and castration. But humanists like you cried "cruel and unusual," and thus the gentle "talking stick" system of modern rehabilitation was instated.

If you dream of another way to "fix" human nature, it is going to be subject to the same complaints, because it all means erasing free will and individuality (I know, the Socialist Utopia!)

Imagine a new conditioning therapy that allows doctors to forcibly penetrate the human mind and change the essence of who are person is, their drives and desires, in order replace the criminal personality with a set of socially acceptable, easily subdued personality traits and ideas.

But what about a young mother who kills her toddler in the heat of passion and isn't likely to do it again? You can't rehabilitate her. You can't erase the crime she committed from the public memory.

So let's say she's a good person who made a mistake. IMO, society's obligation to take care of her, except in the most perfunctory and efficient way, ceases the second she's found guilty.

 i said "truly rehabilitate" which i admit at this point is wishing for a magic wand. it's WAY beyond science at this point, but our reach should always exceed our grasp. and wow, i like the ninja move where you accused me of hating lobotomies because i'm a big old pussy liberal like it's a bad thing. lobotomies and shock therapy were like 2 steps from those caveman skulls they've found with surgical holes cut in the head.

 i know you don't think it's possible, but humanity will continue to get better. we already have. there's no immutable "human nature" to overcome, just some leftover primal instincts and a whole lot of conditioning. like throughout most of history, we progressives will have to drag the rest of you kicking and screaming into a world without fag-drags or lynchings. just 2000 years ago, you didn't even need an excuse to go to war, you could flat-out say "they have something we need!" these days you have to at least pretend to have a better reason. progress! things are going to keep getting better thanks to progressives like myself (gay marriage states on the rise, etc), and you're coming along whether you like it or not. :)

so because everyone else can't deal with the fact she's actually rehabilitated (which again, i admit isn't possible right now, but this is your hypothetical-- even though you tried to describe it in the most sinister terms possible), she needs to be killed?

And I've never seen Fox News. I don't own a television. Thanks, though (for playing).

p.s. I'm all for progress, but it's a very subjective concept that can't very well encompass everyone definition of what that progress is.

The idea of finding a way to correct everyone so that they're all the same, behaving the same, believing the same. Just kind of reminded me of 1984.

Like it or not, the need for justice is an essential element to human nature. Telling everyone to shut up and not be angry, love thy neighbor and turn the other cheek is, wow, emotional tyranny. Not progressive. Oppressive.

I don't thin Casey needs rehabilitating. She's human, she made a mistake. It's not going to happen again. She does need to be punished. I'll be interested in seeing what that punishment is going to be.

wanting to correct people so they don't murder anyone isn't the same as wanting everyone to wear identical grey 1-piece jumpsuits and drink victory gin.
 

justice is not inexorably tied to capital punishment like some kind of universal truth.

"how dare, how DARE you care about your fellow man!!! why don't you go hug someone, HITLER!!!"

You can set forth rules and urge people to follow them, but you can't force an unnatural state of permanent compassionate forgiveness on the entire world. They sort of tried to do that with organized religion. It's hypocritical. And, going back to 1984, the word "rehabilitation" is doublespeak.

btw, Colo. House voted on a bill to repeal the death penalty today by one vote. The Democrat who made the deciding vote said he wrestled with the moral good of ending it versus the practical good of prosecutors having a tool to use as leverage against suspects.

"Hopefully this will make us a better society in Colorado by not having a death penalty," Vigil, a Democrat from Fort Garland, said, "though I have my reservations." " -Denver Post

I guess it comes down to idealism versus pragmatism.  Wishing in one hand and shitting in the other type of thing. 

yeah i mean if i had to sum up the way we differ on this in one sentence, it's that you're more eager to deal with the here and now, and i'm more concerned with trying to strive for an idealized society. which makes each of us the correct one in our own eyes. :)

ok i'm hereby done with this arguement, and i'm going to start a different thread with a whole new thing sometime soon.
 

I didn't realize it was a true story. I read the Crime Library article, and alternately had to fight from crying and throwing up.

1965, a woman leads her children and their friends to help her imprison, torture, mutilate, starve and force other humiliations on a 16 year old foster child. This includes pushing her down the basement stairs where she was tied up until she died, tattooing "I'm a prostitute and proud of it" on her stomach (she was a virgin), forcing her to eat her own waste, kicking her in the crotch until it was "mauled" and she was incontinent, burning her with a cigarette 100 times and rubbing boiling water and salt on the burns. She died of brain hemorrhage from beatings to the head, malnutrition, and shock trauma to the skin. She was starved and not permitted to use the toilet throughout the torture.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/young/likens/1.html

This woman was released from prison in 1985, presumably rehabilitated,and died of lung cancer in 1990. Her defense: she was on drugs.

How can anyone justify allowing that woman to live, temporarily insane or not? Words really can't express how truly horrified I am by this crime. The only adequate punishment I can imagine for forcing an innocent girl through something like this is death.

From Wikipedia:

In 1966, Schmid was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.[5] When the state of Arizona temporarily abolished the death penalty in 1971, his sentence was commuted to 50 years in prison.[6]

[edit] After incarceration

After a couple of attempts to escape, there is evidence that Schmid was trying to change his life for the better. In the early seventies, Schmid became interested in poetry. He sent his work from prison, to a professor at the University of Arizona, Richard Shelton. “For all the wrong reasons, I critiqued his work and discovered that he was quite talented,” Shelton says.[13]

On March 10, 1975, Schmid was stabbed forty-seven times by two fellow prisoners[14]. He lost an eye and a kidney. He died twenty days later.

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper