The Death Penalty Thread

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What is your opinion on the Death Penalty? Right? Wrong? When should it apply? How can it be made safer? Etc...


In my country, there have been several high-profile criminal cases involving people with Psychopathic or Narcissistic personality traits. These traits seem to make violent behaviour inevitable for said people, in some cases violence including rape and murder has become a way of life for the said individual, as "normal" to them in everyday life as any other activity.

Under current law such people would eventually be released back into the community (in fact a few of the high-profile criminal cases occurred because said offenders had been paroled), to offend again and harm others again. Even remaining in prison they pose a risk to other inmates.
Pressure to keep these offenders in prison for the rest of their natural lives is increasing.

But personally I think it would actually be humane (and permanently remove the risk to the community), to end their lives.


I think people who who kill or rape, then do so again, or are professionally identified as having a psychopathic personality or other psychological personality disorder that means a likelihood of long-term violent offending, should be eligible for the death penalty.

Mandatory in all instances.

Preferably using the Hang, Draw, Quarter, method. The use cable TV and internet streaming could also make this a very lucrative enterprise

Maybe they could kill each other in gladiatorial contests.

There are have been instances where innocent ppl have died under the penalty.

Though as much as I'd like to see ppl hanged and tortured for murder and rape...I sometimes question the reverse effects it has on a society and people. Doesn't seem to be very effective in the states.

I do support the death penalty for really heinous crimes, but the criminal justice system needs some improvement regarding DNA and evidence, so that innocent people are not executed. Much to the surprise of many people, Texas may consider a moratorium on the death penalty, similar to the recent one in Illinois, until the bugs are worked out in the criminal justice system here.

On a more serious note

I find this view particularly abhorrent, in effect you are saying "you have a malfunctioning brain, as a society we cannot be bothered looking after you - in a secure facility that will care for you in a humane - ,instead we are going to kill you"

The sick and in our society should be cared for regardless of their illness. if that illness requires their removal from free society so be it, but that does not mean the conditions in which they are contained should be anything less than what is required to maintain them in a decent state of mind (notwithstanding their brain disorder) and body.

Oh how very christian of you

Legal punishment in general and the death penalty and prison in particular are indicated symptoms of the failure of society. The more people in prison, the more society has failed to give the individuals involved some way to fulfill their expectations of a satisfactory life. The general assumption that all people start out as babies with the possibility of a decent respectable life is probably not too far off the mark and the degradation of those expectations into anti-social performances is probably more the responsibility of society than that of the inherent possibilities of the individual. No doubt there are some individuals who probably have some major genetic psychological defect which cannot be remedied by the actions of current society but these are also probably a very small minority.

US society has, at present, proportionally the largest prison population in the world and this seems to be a clear indication that something is radically wrong with the society.

Is it your position that the death penalty should not be invoked at any point in time? It seems to me that the death penalty is most humane in situations in which the person who is the problem has an incurable condition that causes themselves to permanently be a threat to themselves or others and particularly in cases where the person in question has problems that degrade/eliminate their moral faculties.

That being said, in some sense, I care a lot less about ethics than a lot of people. Cure a sick person or kill them, in either case it is just a changing of the arrangement of atoms. The only people who are going to care are them, and us. And if they don't even have regard for morality, then what moral complaint can they lodge against us? How can they really morally dialog with us? What makes them really different than a rabid dog, other than the accident of having a human genome? Perhaps I am being too cold though.

I don't trust the government enough to let them determine who needs killing, I have more of a problem with the system than with the actual death part.

I agree absolutely. There are various motivations for convicting people and some of them are merely the convenience of the system. The death penalty is essentially the slicing of the Gordian knot since no one really knows what to do with some people who commit horrible crimes and the solution is to get rid of the problem without solving it. To claim some generosity in depriving a prisoner of life is totally self serving.

Well, now you're screwed. They don't like people like you saying that. *sigh* Well, I guess we know now who is going to the electric chair.

You're way out of date.

I'm pretty extreme on this but I think the death penalty should used for most murderers. It should be an option for child molesters and rapists too.

Right. You're pretty extreme.