A word to those against the death penalty...

[strredwolf]

Okay, so you've caught and solidly convicted Jack the Ripper.  He's out of appeals, as every angle conceivable has been covered.  So he's going to be there for a long time, well past his natural life span.

Um, there's a problem.  Infact, three problems.

1. The current jails are overcrowded, irrespective of race and gender.  Alot of them are shuffling around, or giving out good behavior credits like candy.  Unfortunately, you can't build any more due to the budget and the usual "Not In My Back Yard" syndrome everyone is afflicted with.
   
2. They are also understaffed due to budget cuts, and the staff there is constantly put into stressful conditions.
3. And in the long term, a lifer (w/o parole or parole past his natural lifespan) will use more financial resources than a death row inmate.  In some cases, the lifer uses much more year-to-year than the death row inmate.

So you want all death row inmates to be lifers?  You need to come up with solutions to the above, without increasing the financial strains and blowing up the budget.  Besides, Maryland's in a long-term deficit, and the feds aren't much better now with a war going on and whatnot.

You can't.  You need more resources, and it's a growing problem.  While you can legislate some of the problem away (adjusting what is a crime, and their penalties), you need to address overcrowding.  The cheapest way is the death penalty.

Is it humane?  NO IT'S NOT.  NETHER IS GETTING KILLED/ROBBED/MAIMED/ETC.  So stop saying it's so.  We know already, and you're missing the other side of the coin.

So?  I'm for the death penalty.  I'm against "life w/o parole" as it's a waste of money and space.  I'm for a law which requires judges to upgrade the sentence to death for any sentence that gives the convicted at least 150 years of jailtime before parole.  And frankly put, I'd give them a time limit of 10 years for direct-from-inmate appeals while raising the bar for third-party appeals.

Comments

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

How many people get put to death a year in the US? (1099 in 31 years; about 36 per year.)

How many people are in prison at the moment? (2.2 million as of 2006.)

Divide the one by the other and you'll see where your argument falls apart. The death penalty is not a major pressure-release valve for the prison system; you'd have to put 20 times as many people to death as the entire total since 1976 in order to reduce the prison population by 1% across the country, and that's not enough of a change to really affect the situation.

And that's not even addressing the moral and ethical issues behind a statement like "We're putting you to death because we don't have room for you."

Frankly, your entire argument is ridiculous. There may be good arguments in favor of the death penalty, but this sure isn't one of them.

[strredwolf.livejournal.com]

You are right, it's not much of a release valve. However, I can't look at Amnesty International protesting in front of a jail against the death penalty when (my memory will fail here) they haven't come up with a good alternative to the death penalty in the face of what the penal system is undergoing.

I don't address the moral and ethics issues because killing someone at it's core level is immoral and unethical, period. Why should we let someone live out of the compassion of our hearts when that person hasn't, and we've proven that to the ends of the earth and back? No, the murderer's pure evil, kill it kill it kill it!!! As I mentioned, Jack the Ripper. The mass murderers. The Timmy McVeys.

If I came across as "We don't have room for you," then that wasn't what I ment, especially in the first paragraph. It should be "Why should we even let you live after all you've done?"

I think I set the bar rather high -- If parole is denied for a lifer, or if parole is scheduled past 150 years, he's going to die in jail and we should get it over with now. But give him some time to appeal.

[kazriko.livejournal.com]

Darn it, Darth beat me to the argument... Granted, I'm reading my friends page really late.

[galish.livejournal.com]

Someone needs to invent "mindwipes"

[strredwolf.livejournal.com]

We then get into issues surrounding Babylon 5... Ugh.

But my mind wants to go into comedy. "MINDWIPES! Wipe those memories clean away! Leave your brain spotless in JUST! ONE! APPLICATION! Mr. Clean Mind Wipes, from SC Johnson Wax."

Eternal Sunshine of a spotless mind?

[galish.livejournal.com]

Actually my version of "mindwipes" comes from Alan Dean Foster's "Commonwealth/Flinx" novels. Theres varying degrees of mindwipes, but if your a real killer, etc. you get totally wiped and re-educated into a good little citizen.

[bibliophage.livejournal.com]

I'm _for_ the death penalty. However, I'd prefer to see sentence executed at the scene of the crime, preferably at the hand of the intended victim.

Death row _does_ cost more, but that's because those inmates are We from the rest of the criminals. They don't tend to do any more appeals than other high stakes crimes, they just get the attention for it.

The 'three strikes' rule has helped a lot, however. (No, that doesn't mean you only get three trials. It means you only get three appeals based on mistrial. You can have all you want based on new evidence)

Our system, and that of most countries, is broken at a more basic level. We criminalize behaviors that should more rightly be handled through societal pressure - drug abuse, for example.

In Victorian England, it was legal to smoke opium, inject morphine, and similar - and it wasn't a huge problem. It was VERY frowned upon by society itself, because it was though to be a sign of a weak person - and that it reflected not upon society, but themselves.

Every time something gets criminalized, it then generates more crime, and more _interest_ in the activity. Look at drugs. We've gone from the opiates and generic cocaine to crystal meth and a host of designer drugs - each one invented to be 'legal' to start with or to give a new criminal thrill.

Death penalty? Heck yes! Cruel and Unusual? I don't think so. We're not pulling them apart slowly by iron hooks, for example.

We could move to crucifiction, that was certainly not unusual historically. It was the main form of punishment in the Roman Empire (and Republic). Therefore, it's not 'unusual', and I don't see how it's more cruel than leaving them on a 'death row' for five years waiting for that last minute.

I'm in favor of firing squads; or at least one person with a gun.

"You've confessed to the crime to the jury, to me (the judge), and to the police. Sentence shall be passed immediately. Baliff, take him out back and shoot him"

As far as I'm concerned, confession should short circuit EVERYTHING. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. If someone later wants to try that it was a 'false' confession, then they just picked a REALLY interesting way to commit suicide.

As for moral and ethical? Right. "Thou shalt not commit murder" is not the same as putting down a rabid animal. (That's the better translation, rather than 'thou shalt not kill'). That's all that people like that are. When there is no way they can grant restitution for their actions, then the only thing they have left to give up is their life. You aren't doing it to 'punish' them. That's a stupid way of looking at it anyway. Punishment is to teach someone not to do things again. The death penalty is to say "You can't atone for your actions, and we're going to make sure you can't do it again." You don't agonize over shooting a rattlesnake that just bit your best friend - it's pointless, and the rattler doesn't care. It's a snake, and you simply deal with it before it can bite you.

[kesarra.livejournal.com]

If you really want a relief valve on the prison system, start looking at the nonviolent crimes. Namely marijuana. Those are long term sentences for no real crime other than possession of a substance proven over and over again to be less harmful than alcohol, which is legal under most conditions (you can't walk around the streets with an open bottle that's not in a paper bag). People are more likely to use pot than commit murder.

When you have full jails you get systems like Britain, where you can physically assault someone and be out in under six months.

Reform current laws, then look at the death penalty.

[strredwolf.livejournal.com]

I'm with you there (and everyone else here), the laws will need tweaking. I think marijuana use should be heavily regulated, as there's companies outside the USA that are removing the addictive nature and producing rather good drugs from it. Hemp itself is banned by association, when it's nonaddictive and useful in place of cotton.

Oh, and you can't ride the Light Rail here in Baltimore with an open bottle that's IN a paper bag. Guy got arrested while I was on there and hauled off.

[kesarra.livejournal.com]

Marijuana just needs to be taxed like everything else. Hemp is banned because the police can't seem to find the time to recognize the differences in the plants.

The bans on alcohol vary from city to city. California has a similar predicament in its knife law. Unless a city says otherwise, you can legally go around the state with a halberd strapped to your back. It makes it a big place for the Recreationist Society. For the most part, the booze just has to be in a bag and nothing open in a driven vehicle.