Is Capital Punishment really a deterrent? How effective can it be when hardly anyone sees it happen? What about all the controversy on methods of execution? Should we really care about how the condemned feel when they are executed?

What are your thoughts? I have some rather extreme ideas of my own. You tell me yours, I will tell you mine.

Let it frakking stay. Give Criminals the punishment they deserve.

I agree. My view is use an ancient device for exectutions the The Guillotine. It was created by a doctor in France. I also believe executions should be made public. What good is a deterrent when no one sees what can really happen to you??

In other words, let them rot in prison for years instead of killing them in a few seconds.

Only kill those who have reached extremes. (Wait. Did I just contradict myself?)

And, a plus to that. Some innocent inmates won't be immediately killed off. There have been cases of innocent people on death row.

I agree. I propose we give the inmates a choice. If they truely believe they are innocent, we give a free DNA test on any evidence from their crime. The results come back negative and the prisoner is immediately released with a cash settlement. On the other hand, if they are proven guilty, they are instantly put to death. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

But most prisoners on death row are convicted in a court of law, meaning, they are already proven guilty. If he wasn't proven innocent at the courts, what makes you think that the result will be any different at death's door?

I am against the death penalty. It is a barbaric practice, completely at odds with the humane society we are supposed to be building. What harm can a criminal do behind bars?

Execution for the most horrific crimes and jail for the rest, but i mean jail as in a 'Prision that is a nightmare to live in' and not these bloody hotels they've become.

And society can benefit from it-- make them do work! Though what kind of work a convict can do, I have no idea, since hard labour has been replaced by machinery, mostly.

They could mass-produce sandwiches for free (sandwiches given away to charity)?

The problem isn't that the criminals deserve to be put to death or that they can avoid it by doing work, but that it costs too much to keep a prisoner for a year. Prisoners live on the taxes of normal, law-abiding citizens, yet they do little to benefit society while behind bars.

My view is this, for a clearly convicted criminal, one where the chance that the criminal is innocent is lower than 5% due to a multitude of evidence, and the criminal was involved with an extreme crime such as murder, rape, etc., the criminal should be put to death painlessly.

For other criminals, put them on HARD work, not making daisy chains, but working on chain gangs, with tough conditions. That way, they learn a trade and will be more willing to avoid commiting a crime.

Only should a small number of criminals be put on life in jail; it doesn't benefit anyone.

My problem with the current system of capital punishment is the cost of housing them until sentence is carried out. They are not housed with the rest of the population in prison. they have special guards and other considerations. Their housing costs at least 2x as much as regular prisoners. Either begin carrying out the capital sentences or commute it and move them in with the regular prisoners.

I guess I see your point. My point, though, is that it is plain inhumane to operate on the basis of 'an eye for an eye', which is in my opinion what capital punishment is. I think it probably depends on what your view of the purpose of prison is. I think prison is a place where you put those people who will do more harm at large. And, as I suggested, they don't have to be just a burden. They can contribute too, by, as I suggested, working.

I think most people in prison have already been proven to be not innocent. That's why they're in jail, no?

Still, I think with the advent of advanced machinery, chain gangs are not that efficient anymore. Some other work will have to be found-- some monotonous, low-level work, perhaps, like construction. This way, the demand for illegal immigrant labour can be reduced too.

So you think executing random people who might have actually been wrongly prosecuted is right? You think that murder; playing G-d, is the right thing to do? You truly believe that taking a life is going to solve all the worlds problems? Capitol punishment does nothing. The person dies. That's taking someones life that you don't have a say as to whether they live or not.
I am fully fledged against capitol punishment. If you're rich and live like a king, you get away with it, but if you're poor and from the slums of an area, you get executed, Killed. And half of the people in prisons around the world aren't even guilty. And half the people on death row probably aren't guilty. Who are we, as human beings, to decide if someone deserves to have their life taken from them? Surely that is the decision of G-d. And if you're atheist, then it is our moral values that should tell us this. No?
Furthermore, we as human beings devalue life to the point where we do not mourn the cold blooded murder of a neighbor. Or a countryman. Rather, we turn the other cheek and say to ourselves, "Just another death. Nothing new." What chootzbah do we have to act this way? To devalue human life in this manner? Have we come to the point where we believe vengeance is the only answer, and that peace is irrelevant? Have we become so brainwashed and so morally obligated to think in a certain manner that we are simply afraid to act differently? To care about one another? To fight for what's right?
Capitol punnishment was created by men who were barbaric in the early stages of human life. Capitol words is just a fancy word for vengeance. Have we become so instinctual, that we cannot make good judgments based on what's right? Or must we do what we are told is right? I for one am completely opposed to capitol punishment. Those who believe in it are barbaric, uncivilized and not prepared for this day and age. Those who are against it are quite the opposite.

Whoa. I wouldn't go quite that far..... O.o

How so? Explain.

Hmm.... I just think that to condemn those who believe in it as "barbaric, uncivilized and not prepared for this day and age" is maybe a bit judgemental, not to mention needlessly inflammatory. I think that the practice of capital punishment is barbaric and inhumane, but those who believe in it do have pretty valid reasons for supporting it, too.

For example, TwilightZekk says:

While I don't neccesarily agree with his point of view, I feel that this merits more than a sweeping snub.

Also, IMO, God and/or religion has nothing to do with this.

I know G-d has nothing to do with it. I was using it as an example for those that are religious.

And I'm not flaming anyone with this, or being judgmental... It's my honest opinion. It's like stoning people. Do you think it's an all right way to kill people? No. It's barbaric, and pre-historic. Same with capitol punishment. It's wrong, immoral, and should not be used. Ever. Is killing not barbaric? I think not.

It's like war, but in war many people die. Get used to it. It's how we live now. All we can do is get rid of those who are different. We can never really accept werid and odd people. =] It's life.

For those people who kill and are now being sentenced, they knew it was coming and they accepted that fact, that is why they did it. I mean if they didnt want to die why did they do it?

See the murders and killers are different because they are killers and murders and with those non murders and non killers, we hate them, we dispise them. We want to get rid of their extinction from this world and of course my bad grammer.

But aren't we not so different from those murders and killers. We aren't at all. It was just because they did something we know we could never do in life. It's not that we knew better, we just didnt want to be named as one.

And with all those murders and killers that we sentenced them to death. Even now we think we didn't do anything wrong. But did we? We took someone life like they did to someone esle, but why should we care when they started it first?

Even if it was for a good cause or whatever, maybe those murders did it for a good cause to them, but to you it didnt seem like it.

You will only feel grossed out and pity for that fool. But really you couldn't put yourself in your shoe, because you couldn't think that you could kill.

Everyone could kill, they just choose not to. And for those who kill they just gain death to themselves.

I believe that was the logic of dictatorial minds from the past, and present. No? See, the nice thing about being a human being is that you are an individual. You can make choices for yourself. Let me ask you this. Are you for or against abortion? From the looks of it, you seem like you'd be against it. Is killing a baby not the same as killing another human being? Yes, we may not be putting ourselves in these murderers shoes. But tell me. Who the hell are you to say who lives and dies? They may have killed another individual, but that doesn't automatically give you the right to do the same to them. That's what we call vengeance, which is a barbaric act. Just answer that one question:

Who the hell are you, as an individual, to decide who lives, and who dies?

Hey, you can be expressing a frank opinion and be judgemental at the same time. They're not mutually exclusive. I wasn't accusing you of being dishonest. =)

Well, then I was judgmental. Sometimes you've gotta' be in order to make a point. Yah?

Hrmm I am someone who look above the box and live it and not inside the box and die from it.

I don't personally like abortion. because of course you are taking someone'slife away. And what I wrote was just like what you were saying.

Since they kill they think that they have the right to take the killer's life, because he took a life that he though should have be dead.

We are not different from being killers or whatever, once you said that he deserves to die, you become one of them. the end no judgement in that.

Ah. Now you're making pro-life look like it was invented by Stalin himself :P See, just because they don't value life, and think that they can go around killing whoever does not mean that you have to do the same. When you kill them, aren't you no better than them? I full heartedly believe that any act of murder is wrong; as should you, and capitol punishment is no more similar than to someone killing someone over killing someone else. Ie vengeance. I really don't think you have an argument here. At all. Capitol punishment is murder. There are international laws which make it illigal to kill an individual. Why make an exception?

People on death row haven't simply been put there by one person's decision. The person has to go through the justice system, otherwise it would be tyranny. Stop using the argument.

Dont people even get me. That is what I was saying, but I was just making them thinking about what i was saying. What the hell. GAWD.

But hell without it, we would ardy have too many dumbasses in the world. Hell I think we have to many.

Okay, are we more or less agreed? The difference between murder and capital punishment is murder is done by an individual and capital punishment is done according to the rules of law.

I believe capital punishment is a form of vengenance that only the government can do. Look at it this way. The person killed represents a loss of money for the government. One less person to pay taxes. More importantly, that person may have made other contributions to the state. Instead of assigning a monetary value for a person's life, the state uses a life for a life.

I'm all for an eye-for-an-eye, limb-for-limb. If you murder, you deserved to be murdered. Not killed. Murdered. You will wait in your house and be unexpectedly killed. I agree with capital punishment to the point that they should get pains inflicted on them as they have inflicted onto others, but the method of punishment is something I somewhat disagree with.

You see eye for an eye to be barbaric. I see it, in most cases, to be fair. For someone to take another persons life with no real cause, such as self defense or protecting one's family against certain harm, is barbaric.

Crime is barbaric. Prison should be a place where to lower level criminals, the theives and the other minor criminals should be given work that would let them benefit society and have a stable job after prison.

Those who kill others in cold blood should die, quickly after a full trial and with a jury of their peers.

Those who are mentally insane, send to a hospital. Those who did it in an act of passion, who weren't thinking rationally, send to jail for 30 years doing something that benefits society.

The ones who knew what they were doing or killed more than 3 people, DEATH.

It's vengeance. That's all it is, buddy. And we all know vengeance won't solve anything. Get a grip on yourself. Do you really think that killing someone for vengeance is going to bring the people the person killed back?

No it won't. However, unless the punishment is sufficiently horrible, what prevents someone else from killing? Some people may believe a life in jail is something they can handle. As long as the the criminal can receive death, they must think even harder before commiting the crime. I'm not saying it is a perfect system. I am saying it is the only one we have.

Before this turns into some kind of flame war, be mindful to keep the debate clean and flame free. You can express your opinions, but please, don't get into it so much that you are basically ready to go beat the guy up over it. Please do remember that. I will be watching this thread from now on. Any sort of flaming or baiting from this post on will result in a warning to be handed down and this thread to be spliced.

Putting them in prison for the rest of their life doesn't bring back anyone either. Plus it costs everyone else taxes to keep them alive. How do you feel about giving money that you earn to feed these criminals? You should stop using arbitrary arguments.

Oh. So just because 'you don't have the money' to keep people in prisons justifies their death? What is this, the American Mafia all over again? Millions of people are kept in prisons all around the world. See, taxes actually might just have a purpose, you see. Is a death really justifiable over five shekels or so? That's how much is used, assuming you live in the US, which you probably do. Think about it. How much is really needed to care for one prisoner? There's over three hundred million in the US, I believe. Five shekels, or to put things in your perspective an American dollar could take care of countless prisoners.

Just because you don't want to give your money to, say, a murderer, doesn't give you the right to have them killed. No one deserves to die. Not even Hitler did. No one deserves to die.