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13 Brutal and Inhumane Judicial Punishments Still Used Today

brainz.org — The 13 Most Brutal and Inhumane Judicial Punishments Still Used Today

Who dugg this? Made popular Jun 29, 2009

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  • Zippo, on 06/29/2009, -5/+39I'm glad I live in Canada. No corporal or capital punishment... and a peaceful and rational people (for the most part).
  • jofwooster, on 06/29/2009, -7/+39Fairly revealing that so many of those in the list are tied to Islam.
  • novakaine, on 06/29/2009, -2/+29As much as I hate to say it...the guy sentenced to chemical blinding, no sympathy.
  • SarcasticPirate, on 06/29/2009, -0/+26I agree with most of the article, however I fail to see how death by shooting is inhumane. If anything, getting shot in the back of the head with an assault rifle round at point-blank range is probably more humane than execution by lethal injection.

    Gruesome? Yes. Inhumane? Not any more than executing someone in the first place.
  • wright3279, on 06/29/2009, -2/+24Actually, the bullet in the back of the head is the most humane method. Instant unconciousness. And it's quickly done after the sentencing. I hate to read of executions in the U.S. carried out 20 years or more after the crime. That constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" supposedly prohibited in the constitution.
  • angelschambers, on 06/29/2009, -7/+24After seeing the video of the guy taking 20 cane lashings, I feel that I have to support Amnesty International's efforts even if it barely makes a dent. Though I've never actually been involved, I feel this link is warranted here

    http://www.amnesty.org/
  • doctechnical, on 06/29/2009, -0/+16However, the recidivism rate amongst the executed is vanishingly small.
  • inactive, on 06/29/2009, -2/+16do NOT watch that video of the caning.
  • absolutionist, on 06/29/2009, -2/+15I honestly don't see what the big deal is. I know people who get publicly stoned all the time and they actually seem to quite enjoy it.
  • InorganicMatter, on 06/29/2009, -1/+14I don't understand why shooting is on there. Death is instantaneous, they're gone before they even feel anything. Hardly "cruel."
  • c010rb1indusa, on 06/29/2009, -17/+27Notice Europe is absent from that article, mainly because they did away with capital punishment years ago and we should do the same. No nation should sponsor the killing of anyone unless it is necessary i.e war, millitary conflict, or the person is an immediate danger of killing others around him.
  • MonkeyOverlord, on 06/29/2009, -0/+9Firing squads, if done right, are faster and cheaper and probably no more painful than a lethal injection. By virtue of being faster than lethal injections, they are more humane.
  • smacksaw, on 06/29/2009, -2/+11If you have ever read Starship Troopers, Heinlein makes very interesting predictions about the criminal and social ills of society. As time goes on and things don't change, but get worse, I see where he is coming from more and more every day. Some people you can coddle and be proactive and help, but some require punishment. Incarcerating people is only suitable in certain instances and ends up turning your nation into a police/jail state, especially as it doesn't work. Whether you jail or rehabilitate positively, victims rarely feel as if there is justice. That is why corporal punishment is an idea he put forth.

    If a normally productive person made the choice to drink and get behind the wheel and killed one of my children without intent, I would not be satisfied to have the person languish in jail. It's a waste of the person's time; they are otherwise normally productive. I would not feel as if justice were served. They lived and get to go free and enjoy the rest of their life. But if they are lashed with the cane a few times and then set free, I could accept that.

    The optimal thing would be that no one drives drunk, commits crime, etc - that our society transcends all of this. But the truth is some people are motivated by punishment and deterrents that are not so proactive. And lost in all of this is satisfaction and justice for the victims. It's like why people spank their children. Spanking teaches children very little. It just makes the parent feel better, it gives them a release. Having a neutral party administer corporal punishment takes out that part of the equation. Corporal punishment is something people really don't think about other than that they are totally against it or totally for it, as opposed to certain situations and admitting when it's selfish or actually viable.

    All I can say is Singapore. Why does it work? You can't say it's a common social harmony. These people were are 3-way race wars with each other 50 years ago. Mortal enemies in Islam and Hinduism. There's no reason they should get along. But they have a complete circle. One half is being proactive with the rule of law, the other half is being reactive with the rule of law.
  • TheSpook, on 06/29/2009, -0/+8heh, "makes a dent."
  • insertAliasHere, on 06/29/2009, -0/+8The 20 years or more bit is so that they can exhaust all legal avenues such as appeals. That's better, in my opinion, than dragging them out into the street after the trial and shooting them.
  • paperclipsNsoup, on 06/29/2009, -0/+8I agree, there have been many times in US history that people have been wrongly sentenced to death and appeals have saved their life (Excluding years in prison) because of new evidence or new technology for examining evidence (ie DNA)
  • BurgGuy, on 06/29/2009, -0/+7He missed this one: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howabou ...
    Judge sentences noise polluters to listen to Barry Manilow . Judge Paul Sacco says his unorthodox punishment of forcing noise ordinance violators to sit in a room and listen to music they don't like has cut down on repeat offenders in the small prairie town of Fort Lupton, 25 miles north of Denver.

    Four times a year, offenders troop into a room and endure one hour of hits from Barry Manilow and Barney, the purple dinosaur.
  • PlanckTime, on 06/29/2009, -1/+8I believe in the last case mentioned that the woman who was blinded actually gets to be the one to drop acid in his eyes. If I recall correctly there will be doctors on hand to make sure she puts it in the right place.
  • willisan, on 06/29/2009, -1/+8http://thafeedback.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/ ...
  • c010rb1indusa, on 06/29/2009, -6/+13Whose the idiot now? The person who explains the reasoning behind his opinion or the guy who just calls someone he disagrees with idiots.
  • ruarctb, on 06/29/2009, -0/+7A teacher's dad saw a sword execution in Saudi Arabia. Police had actually interrupted a rape in progress. They chased the guy down, and then killed him with a sword on the spot.
  • akchrs, on 06/29/2009, -8/+14"But bear in mind that to receive such a sentence he will most likely have committed a truly wicked crime such as, perhaps, the rape of young children."

    20 lashings is not enough.
  • 10ofDiamonds, on 06/29/2009, -1/+7and your point is? There were plenty of Chiristian nations listed in this article too. Dont blame the religion, blame the men who practice it. Blame yourself for standing by idly, and making useless comments.
  • inactive, on 06/29/2009, -0/+6and yet crime still happens, amazing.
  • bmcnally, on 06/29/2009, -2/+8You obviously do not follow a lot of the research that has been done with other animals, nor do you actually observe the world around you.

    Read up on chimpanzees and dolphins for starters. Other good examples are animals which eat their young, plants which drown their prey, and animals which digest their prey while it is still alive and kicking.

    If you just look at violence within a species, every single species competes for land and resources.
  • inactive, on 06/29/2009, -0/+5Americans mocking Canadians for saying "eh" say it more than actual Canadians though eh
  • Hetman, on 06/29/2009, -4/+9I agree the death penalty is barbaric. It saddens me that the US is one of the only western countries who still practice it.
  • abeewon, on 06/29/2009, -2/+7im not a war hawk by any means, but afghanistan was a "pre emptive" war? hows that?
  • BabyWookie, on 06/29/2009, -0/+5I depends on the caliber and the type of bullet used. A 9mm Parabellum P+ HP round would probably do the job well yet, in places like the USSR, China and most other places where they execute(d) with the shot to the back of the head, they use(d) relatively underpowered pistol calibers like the 9x18 mm Mak or the 7.62x25 mm, with standard FMJ bullets. There have been instances of people getting shot in the back of the head with a 9x18 mm Mak bullet and then proceed to run away.
  • elmuerte17, on 06/29/2009, -0/+5we make fun of ourselves for it.
  • Hetman, on 06/29/2009, -0/+4Turn the other cheek my friend. I thought this was a country of christian values?
  • elmuerte17, on 06/29/2009, -1/+5Also interesting that Saudi Arabia keeps coming up, yet America is friends with them but enemies with other Islamic nations.
  • Heiminator, on 06/29/2009, -0/+4its because an appeals process is automatically set in motion,i condemn the death sentence and i am glad that we got rid of it in most parts of europe decades ago,but this long timespan is actually in place to give the defendant more time to prove his innocence (a few convicted "murderers" from the 1980's got released years later after dna-testing became more commonplace)
  • kingcam, on 06/29/2009, -0/+4Basically your whole argument is based around the fact that you don't think that victims feel like justice has been done. That and the fact that you believe, despite the statistical evidence otherwise that deterrence is an effective way to prevent very serious crimes.

    Firstly, am I the only person here who doesn't care about whether or not the victim feels avenged. The law is not a tool for retribution, that idea died out hundreds of years ago. The singular aim of the legal system, or what is ideally the only aim, is to preserve order in society by being consistent in its rulings and attempting to prevent crime.

    Now, as for your claim that deterrence works. Well, it might for small offenses however the correlation, if there is any to begin with, breaks down for any sort of serious crime, especially murder. This is because there are really only 3 people who commit murders: People in the heat of passion, someone who thinks he can get away with it and psychopaths. Non of those people are going to be deterred.

    All the evidence that we have points to the fact that rehabilitation is really the best solution to crime, societies that rehabilitate have lower recidivism rates and crime rates overall. There is also the additional fact that our legal system isn't actually that good at catching criminals, estimates have it that 1/3 of all people on death-row are actaully not guilty, are you really willing to kill these people so that their 'victims' feel avenged?

    As for your Singapore example, I feel that you have defeated yourself. Do we really want to model ourselves after a society with such incredible social tension?
  • Hetman, on 06/29/2009, -0/+4I agree novakaine. I just find that the people that are most christian conservative and are pro life are the first ones to advocate greed and the death penalty. Which are not christian values the last time I checked.
  • smacksaw, on 06/29/2009, -0/+4@kingcam

    Except that we have a spate of gang-related murders. Don't invoke "dumbest thing ever" if you don't even know what you're talking about.
  • randomjames, on 06/30/2009, -0/+4Also pretty damn cruel to bill the family for the bullet.
  • mksmothers, on 06/29/2009, -3/+7No surprises here, most of these punishesments are used in predominantly muslim countries.
  • SalmonGod, on 06/29/2009, -0/+4"It's like why people spank their children. Spanking teaches children very little. It just makes the parent feel better, it gives them a release."

    Revenge spanking? No good parent engages in this. Punishment (of any kind) is a tool for when reasoning can't work. Often children either don't have the attention/memory span or the comprehension to accept explanations as to why they should or shouldn't do things. So punishment is a way to get their attention, add weight to words, or simply condition when words serve no purpose.

    For instance, kids try to do all kinds of things that could get them seriously hurt or killed. Below a certain age, you simply can't explain to them the potential consequences of their actions. You can only condition them with punishment. Parents are busy people, so often something like spanking is the most practical approach.

    But that's kids. When it comes to adults, punishment is pretty stupid. If a person doesn't understand right or wrong, they need to be educated. If they suffer a condition which prevents them from understanding right or wrong, they need to be in an environment where they can't do harm. If a person does willfull wrong, then their motivation outweighed their sense of morality, in other words they felt "justified" in their actions OR they acted impulsively based on immediate overwhelming emotion or need. In this case, it's the circumstances, not the person, which needs to be dealt with (rehab for drug abusers, financial education/aid for impoverished thiefs, etc).

    In any case, harms to a victim should be constructively corrected in any way possible by an offender. This isn't punishment, it's simply right. In all of the above cases, punishment serves no practical purpose. It's just revenge for the victim, which is meaningless and only perpetuates cycles of hatred, creating more victims. Society in general frowns on the concept of revenge, so we re-label institutionalized acts of revenge as "justice."
  • SalmonGod, on 06/29/2009, -0/+4I'd take it over lethal injection. I imagine all the anxiety during set-up as you're strapped to a table, fitted with IVs, etc would be far more agonizing than any physical pain. Don't give me a chance to anticipate so much. Just march me outside for my final words and put a bullet in the back of my head, please.
  • JohnInMT, on 06/29/2009, -0/+4Except the rich kid most likely gets a competent pricey lawyer, and therefore never faces punishment. The poor kid, who can't afford a high priced legal team, gets the public defender, who spends about 15 minutes with his client.
  • bdigital24, on 06/30/2009, -0/+3So incredibly awesome and so incredibly wrong at the same time
  • agbullet, on 06/30/2009, -0/+3ITT: newfags
  • Fizzypops, on 06/30/2009, -0/+3There's actually a more humane method for the death penalty. Hypoxia. Only, people aren't looking for a "humane" method of killing. People want criminals to suffer when they die.

    Sad truth.
  • singingsox, on 06/29/2009, -0/+3I didn't know there were so many different ways to hang someone.
  • MikeOxbigg, on 06/29/2009, -0/+3I....didn't listen.

    I just need some time away from the computer now. Seriously. There are some things you just don't think you'll forget for a good while.
  • paku, on 06/29/2009, -0/+3Did I see Japan on this list?
  • ShiftyBizniss, on 06/29/2009, -1/+4'cept for that whole beheading-on-a-bus thing...
  • 10ofDiamonds, on 06/29/2009, -0/+3Islam does not murder people, Men murder people and pervert Islam as justification for their deeds. No religion is immune to this phenomenon. Also notice that in countries that practice "Islamic" law there is often no jail sentence included with this puishment. That is to say, which is more cruel, locking someone away for many years for their crimes, or meeting out some form of capital punishment? Are both equally as cruel? But surely they must be punished some way? Using Islam as a scape goat just eases your own conscience for the ill that is done to men in so called more civilized nations.
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