news.yahoo.com— A series of academic studies over the last half-dozen years that claim to settle a once hotly debated argument — whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. The analyses say yes.
Jun 11, 2007View in Crawl 4
I used to think that the death penalty was a good thing, but my high school current events teacher convinced me otherwise.Here's the plan: Violent offenders are put to work (hard, manual labor, in a chain gang) 8 hours per day, providing some service which is useful to society (if they are contracted to private jobs, they will be paid the market rate, but proceeds go to the victim's family). Another 8 hours are rec hours to be used for eating/showering etc. The final 8 are to be used for sleeping. Offenders are not assigned a cell. Instead, these 8 hour shifts are alternated, so that while one group is working, one group is in rec, and one is sleeping in the cells. This way the actual cells are able to hold three times as many prisoners and the entire jail is being utilized at all times. The increased efficiency of inmate storage, as well as benefits of cheap manual labor (hey, people always say there are jobs that regular Americans just won't do, hence the illegals) should more than offset the cost of increased staffing required by this system.Somehow I just think a life of hard labor is far worse than a quick and (supposedly) painless death.
@ northwatuppa"Sorry. I still think you guys are full of it. People who support the death penalty are just self-righteous power freaks who enjoy killing people.Anyway, you ignore a fundamental ethical principle. Just because something works, doesn't mean you have the moral right to do it. I mean, we could cure migraines by shooting people in the head--it would work, but .... Or we could cure athletes foot by cutting off feet. If you're so logical and scientific and enlightened and all, why can't you understand this ethical principle. You don't, because you don't want to. You just want to think you have an excuse to kill people."If the death penalty is morally right is deabtable (i would argue that it is, but i raelize this is just my opinion), but this isn't the tpoic of this article, which is does the death penalty work. Your unwillingness to even think about it shows you are the "self-righteous" freak who ignores reality.Why don't you try and be "enlightened and scientific" for a minute and think of the implications of this study. Every time you put a convicted killer to death you save 3-18 lives. If this is true (which the research indicates) then it puts your moral judgement against killing people into question. By sparing the life of a convicted killer you are encouraging more deaths. By not killing them you cause more deaths. If this is true I think the morally questionable action would be not executing the convicted killer.
@liam76 - Oops, good catch. After re-reading, my sentence should have been.. '93 foreign nationals were executed between 1993 and 2003, more than 2/3 for drug charges.'
slezzzterJun 12, 2007
I used to think that the death penalty was a good thing, but my high school current events teacher convinced me otherwise.Here's the plan: Violent offenders are put to work (hard, manual labor, in a chain gang) 8 hours per day, providing some service which is useful to society (if they are contracted to private jobs, they will be paid the market rate, but proceeds go to the victim's family). Another 8 hours are rec hours to be used for eating/showering etc. The final 8 are to be used for sleeping. Offenders are not assigned a cell. Instead, these 8 hour shifts are alternated, so that while one group is working, one group is in rec, and one is sleeping in the cells. This way the actual cells are able to hold three times as many prisoners and the entire jail is being utilized at all times. The increased efficiency of inmate storage, as well as benefits of cheap manual labor (hey, people always say there are jobs that regular Americans just won't do, hence the illegals) should more than offset the cost of increased staffing required by this system.Somehow I just think a life of hard labor is far worse than a quick and (supposedly) painless death.
malarkeystoneJun 12, 2007
If you give the death penalty for stealing chewing gum, it will deter more people from stealing. But is it just?
Closed AccountJun 12, 2007
not surprising and the death penalty is still morally wrong.
liam76Jun 12, 2007
@ northwatuppa"Sorry. I still think you guys are full of it. People who support the death penalty are just self-righteous power freaks who enjoy killing people.Anyway, you ignore a fundamental ethical principle. Just because something works, doesn't mean you have the moral right to do it. I mean, we could cure migraines by shooting people in the head--it would work, but .... Or we could cure athletes foot by cutting off feet. If you're so logical and scientific and enlightened and all, why can't you understand this ethical principle. You don't, because you don't want to. You just want to think you have an excuse to kill people."If the death penalty is morally right is deabtable (i would argue that it is, but i raelize this is just my opinion), but this isn't the tpoic of this article, which is does the death penalty work. Your unwillingness to even think about it shows you are the "self-righteous" freak who ignores reality.Why don't you try and be "enlightened and scientific" for a minute and think of the implications of this study. Every time you put a convicted killer to death you save 3-18 lives. If this is true (which the research indicates) then it puts your moral judgement against killing people into question. By sparing the life of a convicted killer you are encouraging more deaths. By not killing them you cause more deaths. If this is true I think the morally questionable action would be not executing the convicted killer.
liam76Jun 12, 2007
RTFAThe guy doing the study is against the death penalty.
spacejackJun 12, 2007
You're the arbiter of who has the right to live? Very interesting.
yahoofromJun 12, 2007
Exactly.According to cost benefit analysis, we have to terminate all human beings.
br0ckJun 12, 2007
@liam76 - Oops, good catch. After re-reading, my sentence should have been.. '93 foreign nationals were executed between 1993 and 2003, more than 2/3 for drug charges.'
froggy57Oct 22, 2008
((statement to express solemn ratification or agreement))**Exactly what I was doing.