Capital Punishment?

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Then why do we have a judicial system at all?

No one can be punished because they might be innocent, even one innocent man behind bars is too many!

I assume you can see the flaw in your argument.

Throwing someone into jail is reversible, but killing a person is not.

I don't see any flaw in my argument. We have a responsibility to protect society from criminals, but at the same time, we need to protect innocently convicted people from irreversible harm such as torture and death. Incarcerating people under humane conditions is an acceptable compromise, imho.

Ever been to jail? You can let them out, but it is not reversible. People are different after spending any real amount of time in a cell.

Oh yes, the justice system using the name of the "Greater Good" in vain makes us all responsible for accidental death sentences. That must mean you're guilty of rape if the judicial system ends up locking up an innocent person unlucky enough to end up in a cell with Big Bubba. That type of trauma is totally reversible unlike death right? And I guess we should just completely throw the concept of weighing pros/cons out of the window because it's totally worth having a big, bloated, system biting off more than it already chews just to save one person.

Each human is just one person. If the system exists to serve humans, it only makes sense that its focus should be on one living person at a time, instead of some aggregate statistic on paper somewhere.

Maybe I'm just a romantic. I dislike statistics almost as much as I dislike mosquitoes and lawyers.

Being institutionalized can be psychologically damaging, yes. But jail time is still preferable to being executed, imho.

How much time have you spent in jail? I've spent a few days there. I'd much rather be dead, it's kinder.

I've never been in jail, but I've spent a week in a psychiatric hospital back in the day. On a voluntary basis at first, but when I wanted out after a day because my social anxiety got the better of me, I was restrained and pumped full of antipsychotics.

The rest of the week was pretty much like I imagine jail to be. Only that prisoners aren't forced to take meds that give them convulsions and Parkinson symptoms, and turn them into mindless zombies that are barely able to walk. I've read that haloperidol was used in USSR gulags to break the will of prisoners, and I fully understand why.

Anyway, despite the patient abuse, I would rather go back to a clinic -- or alternatively to jail, where I would probably be treated much more humanely -- than being killed on the electric chair. I can't really imagine that anyone would choose death over life in prison. If the US prison system is that bad, there are some improvements needed.

Last edited by CrazyCatLord on 13 Feb 2012, 6:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

There are people that would choose to die and some that would rather go to prison than die.

If I was in prison I'd rather be in solitary than with other prisoners but there are some people that would consider solitary a fate worse than death.

I've been in a mental hospital 30 days and 2 weeks, reform school for 8 months, and jail for 1 day.

I am against the death penalty.
I believe killing can only be justified for self-defense. Therefore, killing a prisoner who is no longer a threat to society is an evil act.
Further, I feel that sanctioned killing devalues all human life, including that of the victims of violent crimes.
If we want to show that our society truly abhors murder, then it must NEVER be legal.

If we do not execute murderers then we have to cage them and feed them. Which means taxpayers are sentenced to forgo some of their income and their time to maintain a person who did not give a damn about his victim's time. Do you think that is just?

ruveyn

Considering the many ways that taxpayer money is wasted, yes. I do think using taxpayer money to uphold an ethical society is just.

YippySkippy's got to it before I had the chance.

I'd like to think that all but hardcore libertarians would agree that welfare is a necessary function of government, though everyone disagrees on the scope and range of that welfare. Prisons are no different -- want to get the criminals off the streets? We could go the way of past totalitarian states and simply do away with the undesirable elements of society - treating society itself as a mechanical apparatus that needs cleaning from time to time - or we could go the way of pursuing a more human[e] approach.

Tax is the portion of our money we spend to keep holding on to what remains. Keeping order in the society is a necessity so we are going to have some kind of government whether we like it or not.

ruveyn

I can keep order myself, I need someone to fix the road!

Shrox, I've got to ask (I know this is off topic) is that Kato Kalen in your avatar? Because he looks familiar. If it's you, then you look like somebody who looks familiar to me.