And? It’s better than filling up prisons and treating the prisoners as slaves. Some people just cannot be rehabbed, so ending their life is a respite to all. Finally, it sends the ultimate “fuck around and find out message” which is needed to keep potential criminals in check. Not sure what the obsession with no death penalty is.
Note: not defending the Saudi Royals because they deserve the death penalty themselves.
Because you will wrongly execute people. It is not a matter of if, but of when and how often. There is no standard of proof good enough to be perfect. And the more effort you put in to try to be sure, the more expensive it is, so it winds up not even being cheaper.
There's not even any actual evidence that it's an effective deterrent. People don't do things like that with the expectation of being caught.
It sounds like there’s an acceptance of a broken system that doesn’t remediates wrongful conviction. If wrongful conviction is the problem, we need to go fix that. Expense and cost shouldn’t be a factor when human lives are at stake and justice shouldn’t be measured via money.
The point is that you can't remediate a wrongful conviction if the person that was wrongfully convicted is dead. It's awful to wrongfully imprison someone, but if you do then at least you can let them out.
If you've got any ideas on how to make a perfect justice system that makes no mistakes, please do share. Nobody else has ever managed it, and not for a lack of trying.
Even if you do manage to solve this unsolvable problem, what's the benefit to executing people? Like I said, there's no proof that it's an actual effective deterrent. There isn't an elevated rate of heinous crimes in places that don't have the death penalty.
That is one of the main reasons I’m against the death penalty. There is no way to correct a wrong decision Also I think it’s cruel to hold someone for 30+ years then execute them.
What I’m saying is that the chances of wrongful conviction shouldn’t arise. Ever. That should be how serious we should be rooting out systemic inequalities. If a society is actually just, wrongful convictions become a non issue. Does that mean that it won’t ever occur? No, but the chances are significantly decreased to where the ones that do occur have the legal frameworks in place to prevent and minimize such occurrences. Perhaps additional appeals, considerations, pardon process from victims etc.
Think of it something like airline regulations, where the process is so stringent, that every single incident is analyzed, learnt from and guarded against in the future. I bet you, that if we were really serious about this, we can collectively solve it. We’ve solved it for space travel, airlines, medicine and countless other fields with implications far beyond what we can cover here. All it takes is collective willingness.
The benefits:
Tax payer dollars are routed to rehab services instead of subsidizing prison operations and budgets.
Deterrent for people thinking about committing egregious crimes, think serial rapists, mass murderers, serial pedophiles etc.
Closure for families that go through traumatic events such as these.
Laws value human life, equity and justice above all because there’s lives at stake and each conviction has gravity to it.
In terms of proof of ineffectiveness, can you point me to some research?
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: The committee concludes that research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide is not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases, or has no effect on homicide rates. Therefore, the committee recommends that these studies not be used to inform deliberations requiring judgments about the effect of the death penalty on homicide. Consequently, claims that research demonstrates that capital punishment decreases or increases the homicide rate by a specified amount or has no effect on the homicide rate should not influence policy judgments about capital punishment.
What I’m saying is that the chances of wrongful conviction shouldn’t arise. Ever.
Right, well in reality they do. Everywhere. And it should be pointed out, your initial comment was that you don't see a problem with Saudi Arabia executing people in the present; do you think that Saudi Arabia has this perfect justice system already?
We’ve solved it for space travel, airlines, medicine and countless other fields with implications far beyond what we can cover here. All it takes is collective willingness.
You know people still die from all three of those fields all the goddamn time, right? Even in spaceflight, the one with by far the fewest operations in which something might happen, we're fewer than ten years out from the VSS Enterprise crash that killed Michael Alsbury
Purported benefits in order:
In the real world, executing someone costs more than life imprisonment due to the costs of investigation and appeals. And it's still not enough to prevent errors.
See research above
That's literally just revenge. Do you have any data showing that execution is actually good for the mental health of the families of crimes that, in your opinion, deserve the death penalty?
I will concede, until I look into this further that on face value maybe capital punishment isn’t as effective deterrent as I initially thought. That said, deterrence via capital punishment is one small piece of the problem. So let’s not lose sight of the main point here. Capital punishment literally has irreversible consequences, which means we need laws to be upheld. Just because it’s norm to have wrongful convictions, doesn’t mean we should accept that. That is the ultimate problem we need to go chase, not capital punishment. Focusing on capital punishment is deflection from systemic injustices. So when articles like this come out pointing fingers, my response becomes… “And?”
Right, well in reality they do. Everywhere. And it should be pointed out, your initial comment was that you don’t see a problem with Saudi Arabia executing people in the present; do you think that Saudi Arabia has this perfect justice system already?
Maybe re-read my initial comment stating that I do not believe what Saudi is doing is correct either. A differing opinion =/= implicit agreement with a regime. Wtf?
You know people still die from all three of those fields all the goddamn time, right? Even in spaceflight, the one with by far the fewest operations in which something might happen, we’re fewer than ten years out from the VSS Enterprise crash that killed Michael Alsbury
So that’s it? Society stops trying? What sort of asinine view is that? Fear of failure should not impede progress. This also applies to laws, regulations, legal frameworks etc.
In the real world, executing someone costs more than life imprisonment due to the costs of investigation and appeals. And it’s still not enough to prevent errors.
If we aren’t subsidizing prisons, we can afford it. Although your claim seems far fetched as defacto statement. Costs seem to be variable depending on state, conditions, sentence type etc.
That’s literally just revenge. Do you have any data showing that execution is actually good for the mental health of the families of crimes that, in your opinion, deserve the death penalty?
Says you. Go ask the parents of the kids that died in Uvalde massacre on what they want done with the murderer.
The law values human life by… ending it?
Accountability of our own laws, enforcement and the justice system… it’s thing you know.
Are you sure this is the link you were looking for? It literally has a header saying "There is no proof that the death penalty deters criminals."
Capital punishment literally has irreversible consequences, which means we need laws to be upheld.
This is no less true without capital punishment. We shouldn't and don't stop worrying about wrongful convictions for other punishments.
That is the ultimate problem we need to go chase, not capital punishment.
One of the two is actually possible to solve immediately and basically for free. If you get rid of the death penalty then there is nothing taken away from any other effort to improve the justice system and ongoing miscarriages of justice become less severe. Do you think that everyone gave up worrying about miscarriages of justice in the over 100 countries that don't have the death penalty?
There are also other points against the death penalty even if you assume it is being used only in a justice system that makes literally no mistakes. How do you know who can and can't be rehabilitated? Who carries out the executions, and what are the effects on them? Do you actually want the state to hold the power of death over its own citizens?
Maybe re-read my initial comment stating that I do not believe what Saudi is doing is correct either. A differing opinion =/= implicit agreement with a regime. Wtf?
I read it just fine. You said you're not defending the Saudi royal family. That doesn't mean that you're not rejecting criticism of the system. And if you are trying to say that, it is really odd to have started the comment by dimissing the whole article with "And?"
So that’s it? Society stops trying? What sort of asinine view is that? Fear of failure should not impede progress. This also applies to laws, regulations, legal frameworks etc.
No? How the hell did you get to that? Society should recognise that it cannot do these things perfectly and act with that in mind, like by not using something so permanent as execution as a punishment.
If we aren’t subsidizing prisons, we can afford it.
"We can afford it" is a much weaker position than "it will save money over the alternative", because it permits execution being more expensive. If execution if more expensive - and in the US, it is - then you can put more money towards rehab by not doing it.
Says you. Go ask the parents of the kids that died in Uvalde massacre on what they want done with the murderer.
I'm literally asking you for data to support your point. I'm not sure how the parents of the kids at Uvalde would have a particular opinion on what they want done with the murderer considering that he was shot dead at the scene though.
Accountability of our own laws, enforcement and the justice system… it’s thing you know.
Are you suggesting that it isn't a thing in countries that don't have the death penalty? I don't understand the point you're trying to make here.
The main problem with the death penalty is the number of people who have been found to be not guilty years and decades after their conviction.
You just can’t be 100% sure that someone’s guilty - even if they confessed or there were witnesses because people lie. Nowadays even video evidence can be faked.
“Beyond a reasonable doubt” isn’t a good enough bar to meet to take someone’s life in my opinion.
Nothing in life is absolutely certain. Heck even the next few mins aren’t guaranteed. Just because you’re not “absolutely certain” doesn’t mean we go easy on a serial rapist, or a school shooter. Like I stated in my other reply, if a broken system is a problem, we should go fix that instead of incurring the running costs of for profit prisons filled with those that deserve to not live anymore.
So you’re saying that the government should have a profit incentive to LITERALLY KILL PEOPLE. That sounds like a great idea! I’d love to live in a country that decides to kill you because they want to save a few bucks.
Brother how twisted do you have to be to think that all the people executed by Afghanistan Iran and Saudi Arabia actually deserve to die? I mean you have to know what those countries that people are getting murdered for the most innocuous things. You just have to.
Interestingly enough, there doesn’t seem to be correlation between having death penalty in law and lower crime rate. Many countries without death penalty or with death penalty only “on paper” have lower (serious) crime rates than those with death penalty in their jurisdical system. It could also be said that death penalty leads to heavier crimes since once criminal realizes that he crossed that line, it no longer matter how heavier crime gets but hope of getting out over the death bodies becomes the variant too.
Now I’m curious how that list looks if one counts extra-judicial executions. I.e. when the police kill someone.
From what news I get, total gut feeling here, there’s gotta be way more than 30 deaths from police action per year in the US, but I’ve no idea what the equivalent rates would be in those other countries.
When I google “ killed by police Saudi Arabia” for SA, I just get Jamal Khashoggi. For Iran, it seems to happen and be reported on, but not as thoroughly.
It helps when the primary law and religious text of your religion MANDATES execution as a punishment for whichever infraction some sixth century cunt thought you deserved death for.
Before industrialization and the infrastructure to use oil, religion was the main source of wealth and power. These assholes simply changed work modes.
Yeah that’s true of every place on earth. It’s just a coincidence that people in power in oil rich parts of the world are assholes? Putin, Mister Bonesaw, Maduro in Venezuela, whoever runs things in Iran these days… all a bunch of assholes. All in places where religion was dominant in the past, but is that really the determiining factor?
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