What do you think of the death penalty?

[CD]

Personally,  for the vast majority of situations - actually, all situations, I am against the death penalty.  With the possibility of false convictions or being used to kill off opposition (or gay people in some places), it's horrendous.  With the fact that dead people can't help us figure out how to prevent pedophilia, it's pointless. 

But then again there are some major suck in the world and sometimes it would seem nice to just see the back of it. On the plus side we'd have less people, and the world is overpopulated. Or would we?  Populations tend to rise dramatically after wars, like people are having 10 kids to counteract all the death.  So mebbe the families of death penalty recipients have more kids than average?  I don't know but it's an interesting thought.

What about you?  What do you think?

[TheUrgeToSneeze]

The death penalty, on a purely economical basis, is obscenely stupid. The cost of keeping inmates on Death Row for years - sometimes decades - is exorbitantly expensive. I don't think there is ever a need for a moral debate here. No government smart with its coffers would continue with the death penalty. I can't believe it has not been fully eradicated in the United States yet considering our budget crisis.

[Latch33570]

It doesn't have to be expensive a bullet is cheap it is all the bs that people insist on doing for someone. Once someone is convicted and appeals are done just take them out and do it. I don't agree with all these years of death row just do it and get it over with.

[Carrie]

In a totally simplistic, black and white, normal world, the death penalty is wrong and should never be implemented; however, as we know, the world is not simple, nor is it black and white. In the case of most killers, rapists, and such it is vastly against what I believe for them to be executed. On the other hand, with people like H.H. Holmes, who killed at least 4 (at most 200) people, Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed 17 people, or Dennis Rader, who killed 10 people, it's hard to say that they should live out their lives in jail without parole. These type of people will never change, and that need to kill will always be in them. In fact, Jeffrey Dahmer was beaten to death in jail by fellow inmates because they were terrified that he would eat them. I guess, what I'm saying is, even though it's never an easy choice, sometimes it's one that has to be made, because, it's in our nature to want to protect ourselves from things that we know will hurt us. Personally, I don't think I could ever sentence anyone to death. Then again, I'm a writer, not a judge. 

[Lori S.]

We have prisons to protect us, though. In most of our societies, at least, the death penalty is unnecessary.

I think it is always wrong to kill somebody, but I would agree that, in lieu of any other way to protect the population from an extremely dangerous, violent criminal, the death penalty might be necessary. Thankfully, though, we don't live in that sort of society. Our prison system, while deeply flawed, does manage to do the job of keeping people separated from society for the length of their sentence. We have ways to protect the populace from very dangerous people without having to kill those people, and so I think we've lost any justification, practical or moral, we might have had for the death penalty.

[Puddlewhite]

I'm sorry, there's a whole 100 answers to this thread and i dont feel like reading them all... Ill just answer the starting question.

I'm against the death penalty for two reasons;

-1st, we don't know what comes after death. I personally believe ''nothing'', but there;s no proof. It might be endless happiness, for all we know. If a sentence is supposed to be punishment, why punish the worst of offenders by sending them painlessly to a place that we have no information about? For me, being condemned to rot in a cell for the rest of his life, going slowly insane, is far worse punishment than a few weeks of tribulation, and then... what?

-2nd, there's always, always the chance that the man is innocent. A life sentence is reversible, a death sentence isn't.

[Latch33570]

Some people just need killing

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

How would you feel about long term suspended animation. IE they are kept frozen and unconsious indefinitely (fed introvenusly etc), and are only revived if they are found innocent at later stages.

[Latch33570]

Now that is an interesting idea. I am ok with that I think. I have to give it more thought though. The research could have interesting alternative uses also.

[Theo Lloyd]

It's pretty hard to draw a line at what someone's done and why they should get the death penalty, for example who should get the penalty, a thief? a rapist? a serial killer? How do you decide who dies and who doesn't? I'm on the fence about this  because some people are probably better of dead for the benefit of society, but these people have families, they go home each night and tuck their kids in and play with their dog, They are human beings, even if they've commited crimes do they deserve to face the consequences of death? I can't really make my mind up, I'm gonna have to see what everyone else thinks i guess.

[Latch33570]

give the prisoners the option of suicide by pill. To me it would be better than being locked up in a cage.

[Libbi Gildea]

I'm completely and totally against the death penalty and since it's literally my job to talk about why, I'll try to keep it concise and only address a couple of the MANY reasons I think it's one of the most important problems that needs fixing in the US

Basically, my own philosophical beliefs aside, I'll accept for the sake of debate the premise that perhaps some people "deserve to die." My problem is that we have no real way of judging who those people are. Yes, serial killers and terrorists do terrible things. But SO many factors go into the formation of those people. Psychological and biological problems, environments, racial bias and lack of money affecting the trials... not to mention the fact that many people can be rehabilitated. True, not everyone can. But doesn't everyone deserve the right to go through the process, since we have no way of knowing whom it can positively affect? And is it truly consciousable to execute someone when there is no guarantee of a trial free of bias and socioeconomic disadvantage? 

[Latch33570]

I agree that many factors that go into making those serial killers and terrorist but they are there and we have to do something with them. To me it is crueler to lock them up for life than execution. There is some prisoners locked in solitary confinement for years. That is cruel but they are there for a reason. I have a different perspective than you because I was paralyzed and also couldn't speak. It was hell and I thought it would be permanent. It only lasted a few weeks. What do you do with those people, the serial killers. terrorist, and people in solitary for long periods. We have an obligation to outside society and the prison society. Killing is not the worst thing that can happen to you.