Does not matter what “majority” want in this regard, even if this is one of those usual conservative dog whistle topics.
The constitution, Charter of Rights and courts are there to protect us from majority rule. And they have all stated, numerous times, that the death penalty is strictly unconstitutional.
It is not coming back and these stupid “polls” to push “simple” and “common sense” style questions.
Canadians who support the return of the death penalty primarily cite four reasons: Deterrence (50 per cent), a punishment that fits the crime (also 50 per cent), saving taxpayers money and the costs associated with having murderers in prison (48 per cent) and closure for the families of murder victims (47 per cent).
48% of respondents aren’t aware that it’s more expensive to execute someone due to the appeals process.
And half – I’m guessing with significant overlap here – don’t know that punishment only acts as a deterrence if you believe you’ll get caught, and most people committing crimes either don’t believe that they will, or aren’t thinking about it in the moment at all.
A lot of people think the justice system should be about revenge and not rehabilitation.
Anecdotally, I have spoken with so many people that believe criminals should permanently lose their human rights and never be accepted back into society again regardless of crime committed. It is actually legitimately disturbing how many people froth at the mouth at the idea of a government-run institution that enacts petty revenge on its own citizens. I have had numerous people give me a look of absolute disgust when I tell them that justice systems should rehabilitate people so they can enter society again safely and with helpful resources.
Personally I feel that forcing someone to live out the rest of their life in a steel and concrete cube with no chance of ever being released is more cruel than executing them but I can see how not everyone would agree with that.
If they’d rather punch their own ticket than stay in prison, we should let them, but our legal system just isn’t reliable enough for the death penalty to be a good idea. You can always let someone out of prison if new evidence exhonerates them, but if you executed them, all you can do is say ‘whoops’
I also think prisoners should be treated humanely, and wonder why people think if we treat criminals like animals they will stop behaving like animals.
You can tell how humane a society is by how it treats it’s criminals, and–importantly–how they treat criminals is how they’ll treat their citizens if given half the chance.
Not for no reason does the US lead the western world in state-sponsored brutality and casual administrative cruelty, while northern Europe (who locks their irredeemable criminals away in what Americans derisively refer to as “luxury hotels”) leads the world in happiness quotients.
A lot of innocent people found wrongfully guilty have been killed by it and people are people, what are you going to get from retribution by murdering another person
Better a million guilty people serve a life sentence than one innocent person be mistakenly executed. The state shouldn’t be in the business of handing out punishments that can’t be overturned later.
If they could get their share price above a dime it might make them somewhat more credible; as it stands, meh, another wingnut opinion masquerating as fact.
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