Another Oklahoma Fail

[EbylHusker]

Now you're intentionally twisting my words. This was a good discussion up until you took it down that path. When you're ready to return to the discussion, let me know.

[Ulty]

Now let's talk about the deterrence issue. Deterrence is hard to measure, but there is certainly more evidence to show that the death penalty is not a deterrent. In fact, the conclusion should be pretty damn clear.

 

Dusting off the old criminal justice notes from college, the theory of deterrence posits that in order for any punishment to be an effective deterrent, the punishment must be swift, certain, AND severe. All three must be present. Of course, there is no perfect deterrent, partially due to our justice system (rights of the accused, due process, cruel and unusual punishment, etc). Swiftness dictates that you are quickly punished after the crime occurs, which almost never happens, and in fact it is rare to even be caught quickly after committing a crime. Certainty of punishment would mean that you are certainly going to get caught and punish if you commit the crime, but we all know that a large number of crimes, including murders, go unsolved. In terms of a severe punishment, it doesn't get any more severe than the DP, but without the other elements of swiftness and certainty, deterrence isn't going to happen. Then of course you can argue whether or not life in prison is on par with DP in terms of severity, or if it is a big enough difference to matter in terms of deterrence. I'd argue that life in prison without possibility of parole is pretty severe.

 

To reinforce this point, if the death penalty was an effective deterrent to committing murder, you might expect that the murder rates in states that use the death penalty would be lower than states that don't use capital punishment. Nope.

 

States that do not use the death penalty have significantly lower murder rates.

 

http://www.deathpena...er-murder-rates

 

This is not totally conclusive, you can argue correlation/causation or whatever else, but the people who really study this stuff agree:

Criminologists report that the death penalty does not deter murder

A recent study published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology reported that 88% of the country’s top criminologists surveyed do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to homicide. Eighty-seven percent of them think that the abolition of the death penalty would not have a significant effect on murder rates and 77% believe that “debates about the death penalty distract Congress and state legislatures from focusing on real solutions to crime problems.”

http://www.deathpena...d-death-penalty

 

There's also this little theory called the "Brutalization Effect," which suggests that executions actually lead to (or at least correlate with) an increase in crimes:

Studies of capital punishment have consistently shown that homicide actually increases in the time period surrounding an execution. Social scientists refer to this as the "brutalization effect." Execution stimulates homicides in three ways: (1) executions desensitize the public to the immorality of killing, increasing the probability that some people will then decide to kill; (2) the state legitimizes the notion that vengeance for past misdeeds is acceptable; and (3) executions also have an imitation effect, where people actually follow the example set by the state, after all, people feel if the government can kill its enemies, so can they (Bowers and Pierce, 1980; King, 1978, Forst. 1983).

http://www.e-archive...ime_control.htm

 

That same article also says this about deterrence:

he scientific conclusion is clear. The death penalty does not deter homicide. No study has ever found a deterrent effect, no matter how skewed the research question was in favor the death penalty. It's alleged deterrent value is refuted by everything we know about violent crime. The death penalty, if it is to deter, must be a conscious part of a cost-benefit equation in the perpetrator's mind. There are very few murders that involve that level of rationality or consciousness of the outcomes. Most murders are (1) committed under the influence of drugs or alcohol; (2) committed by people with severe personality disorders; (3) committed during periods of extreme rage and anger; or (4) committed as a result of intense fear. None of these states of mind lend itself to the calm reflection required for a deterrent effect.

 

Finally, there is another kind of deterrence. I've been talking about general deterrence here, the idea that the notion of punishment will have a deterring effect on the general population. There is also specific deterrence, which means that when you punish someone, you deter that specific person from committing the same offense again. The death penalty is a damn effective form of specific deterrence; that person is not going to kill anyone else. But that same objective can be achieved with life in prison without parole.

 

So there you go. Feel free to provide an argument to show that the death penalty has any added benefit.

 

I got to use my CJ degree today!

[tschu]

Bringing both religion and abortion into this issue (or any issue aside from religion and abortion themselves) are the ultimate red herrings by the way. No wonder productive discussion is so hard to come by.

[tschu]

Ulty, I'm out of +1s. Great post. I apologize profusely.

[BigRedBuster]

So I assume you have no problems with the Syrian government using chemical weapons on dissenters, right? Governments do apparently have the right to decide who lives and who dies, you know.

 

Wow...I'm not necessarily for the death penalty but that is just simply an attempt to inflame the debate with something that isn't even remotely similar.

[carlfense]

Ending the Death Penalty Should be a Conservative Priority

 

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences released this week shows that over 4 percent of people sentenced to death are innocent, making it all but certain that innocent people have been executed in the last three decades. I could have been one of those people. I was wrongfully sentenced to death and am only alive because the real killer had a religious epiphany and confessed to his pastor shortly before my scheduled execution.

 

 

Read more: http://dailycaller.c.../#ixzz30UXjmRCj

[Junior]

So I assume you have no problems with the Syrian government using chemical weapons on dissenters, right? Governments do apparently have the right to decide who lives and who dies, you know.

 

Wow...I'm not necessarily for the death penalty but that is just simply an attempt to inflame the debate with something that isn't even remotely similar.

 

Not really. He says "We have the right to instate laws that allow us to take other people's lives when we deem it necessary (or warranted)."

 

It's not a leap of logic to look at brutal authoritarian regimes and say "well, hey, look they made a law that allows them to take other people's lives when they deemed it necessary".

[JJ Husker]

Personally I don't think the death penalty serves as much of a general deterrent. But, as Ulty pointed out, it is a very good specific deterrent that would sure keep those executed from becoming repeat offenders (as would life in prison without parole).

 

I would not consider myself "pro" death penalty per se. I think we could accomplish pretty much the same ends without it. But I also don't find it so abhorrent that it should never happen. IMO there are much worse things than killing a convicted heinous criminal. It just seems to me that some criminals have earned this penalty and do not deserve our compassion. God may forgive them but I don't think that means I have to. It is unfortunate and unacceptable that innocent people may be killed but imo that is the fault of the CJ system and not the punishment itself. If anyone wants to claim that guilt has to be 100% assured before administering any penalty, then we might as well quit enforcing any laws. Sometimes the best we can do has to be good enough.

[BigRedBuster]

The trend on this graph is a very positive thing. Murder rates have basically been cut in half since 1990.

 

[BigRedBuster]

So I assume you have no problems with the Syrian government using chemical weapons on dissenters, right? Governments do apparently have the right to decide who lives and who dies, you know.

 

Wow...I'm not necessarily for the death penalty but that is just simply an attempt to inflame the debate with something that isn't even remotely similar.

 

Not really. He says "We have the right to instate laws that allow us to take other people's lives when we deem it necessary (or warranted)."

 

It's not a leap of logic to look at brutal authoritarian regimes and say "well, hey, look they made a law that allows to take other people's lives when they deemed it necessary".

Yes really.

[Junior]

So I assume you have no problems with the Syrian government using chemical weapons on dissenters, right? Governments do apparently have the right to decide who lives and who dies, you know.

 

Wow...I'm not necessarily for the death penalty but that is just simply an attempt to inflame the debate with something that isn't even remotely similar.

 

Not really. He says "We have the right to instate laws that allow us to take other people's lives when we deem it necessary (or warranted)."

 

It's not a leap of logic to look at brutal authoritarian regimes and say "well, hey, look they made a law that allows to take other people's lives when they deemed it necessary".

Yes really.

 

Feel free to explain. It seems to be his point that governments have the right to decide who deserves to live and die. Hell, half the people posting in this thread don't care that we killed an inmate with a chemical weapon. So, why is my statement a stretch? Just because in the US, we feel that extends only to people guilty of heinous crimes like murder, doesn't mean other governments have to limit themselves in such a way. He's already on record as saying we should be executing more people, maybe we should add shoplifters to the list. It'd be a helluva deterrent.

[Junior]

Or maybe it is only the US government that is allowed to kill people. Helps to explain why we think invasion of another country is wrong (See Crimea, Ukraine), unless we are the ones doing the invading (See Iraq).

[BigRedBuster]

You are comparing:

 

a) a system which gives the alleged person a trial and if that person is convicted of a capital crime bad enough, the system has the ability (through a jury of the person's peers) to sentence that person to death.

 

b) a government that feels threatened by people who want change so they gas indiscriminately hundreds of thousands of people which includes elderly, women and children. And, has a so much of a higher rate of killing innocent people that it isn't even comparable.

 

Matching those two things together is nothing more than throwing something out there so outrageous it is an attempt to throw gas on the flames of the debate. It adds nothing.

[carlfense]

The trend on this graph is a very positive thing. Murder rates have basically been cut in half since 1990.

It's not just murders . . .

[Junior]

You are comparing:

 

a) a system which gives the alleged person a trial and if that person is convicted of a capital crime bad enough, the system has the ability (through a jury of the person's peers) to sentence that person to death.

 

b) a government that feels threatened by people who want change so they gas indiscriminately hundreds of thousands of people which includes elderly, women and children. And, has a so much of a higher rate of killing innocent people that it isn't even comparable.

 

Matching those two things together is nothing more than throwing something out there so outrageous it is an attempt to throw gas on the flames of the debate. It adds nothing.

 

Our government kills innocent people at a lower rate, so that makes it better.

 

And really, I wasn't comparing the two at all, because I agree, they aren't the same. I was making a commentary on his statement "We have the right to instate laws that allow us to take other people's lives when we deem it necessary (or warranted)", which, as I mentioned before could be broadly interpreted.

 

Additionally, it was meant to be an outlandish statement designed to address the question of why we feel it is alright for governments to deem people unfit to live and execute them in some circumstances, yet it is not alright in others. A moral question that would be avoided if we didn't kill our own citizens.