Death Penalty: Vengeance or Justice?

[DTRV]

Is the death penalty a justified consequence for a horrible crime or is it simply vengeance. Keep in mind that the death penalty obviously does not rehabilitate the individual so if you support a criminal justice system that seeks rehabilitation, you are implying that some murderers can not be rehabilitated. I understand that this is a controversial topic that has been historically discussed in criminal justice classes and even philosophy classes, but I think it is a topic that has timeless value so please share your view on the merits or lack of merits of the death penalty in our criminal justice system.

[johnp3907]

1. It's a career booster.

For politicians, prosecutors, judges and such.

[wryter2000]

2. The choice isn't between death and rehabilitation

You can keep the public safe from someone by keeping them locked up until they die. You don't have to kill them.

Welcome to DU, btw.

[Ocelot II]

3. I'm against it, period.

The legal system is not perfect and there have been too many convictions of innocent people. It's a mistake that can't be undone, so to avoid ever making that mistake the death penalty should not be an option. Some criminals probably can't be rehabilitated but they can be kept in prison if they remain dangerous to society.

But what if the perp is caught red-handed or confesses freely and not under compulsion, so there's no mistake as to his guilt? That raises the question of whether it is moral for the state to do what the criminal did - that is, take someone's life. Seems to me that if we consider killing to be so wrong that we impose the harshest penalties for it, it's still wrong if the state does it. Most countries have abolished the death penalty. China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran, along with the US, still use it. QED.

[grumpyduck]

4. Personal opinion:

If the law says, "If you do this, the penalty is that," and someone breaks it, then they have to pay the price. No different than any other law. We have to think about the victims and their families too, not just about the perpetrators.

The main problem I have is how much it costs taxpayers to keep someone in prison for life with all the attendant trials and such.

There are a ton of arguments back and forth, and they will go on forever.

[jimfields33]

5. There's so few that it seem like a lot of effort for nothing

Get rid of it. It’s expensive for one of many reasons to rid ourselves of it.

[femmedem]

6. I'm against it for a few reasons.

Primarily I oppose it because it makes murderers of the executioners. It normalizes murder as a response to an offense. It increases blood lust and decreases empathy.

I don't believe everyone can be rehabilitated. There are some people who would always be a danger if they were free. But there are also people on death row who have been wrongfully convicted, people who received stiffer sentences than other people who committed similar crimes, and people who can and have been rehabilitated.

But again, I think the death penalty damages our society by promoting the idea that some people are so worthless that they deserve to die because they took a life--and that the remedy for that is to take another life.

I say that as someone who decades ago was the victim of a violent crime and who had to talk friends out of violently going after the perpetrator. I also say that as someone who was more recently the victim of a nonviolent crime--just a purse snatching--and who wrote to the prosecutor asking that the person not serve jail time. Later I bumped into the perpetrator (I live in a pretty small city) and he apologized, thanked me for keeping him out of jail, and told me he had separated himself from his criminal friends and had enrolled in a community college.

[Chainfire]

7. Is there something wrong with vengeance?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. Vengeance is a sick, ill, disgusting system of ethics. And leads to never-ending cycles. cf Mid-East

[Chainfire]

14. Like it or not vengeance is as human as love. It must be, most of our recorded history,

deals the subject. When something survives as long as vengeance, it must create an advantage to survival and procreation, otherwise it would have been abandoned long ago.

That said, I do not support the death penalty, even if an SOB deserves it.

[Binkie The Clown]

8. Devil's advocate: A way to reduce the expense of keeping dangerous people out of society.

I can't help but think of a scene from the novel Earth Abides. A small community of post-apocalypse survivors is joined by a man that turns out to be a criminal, syphilis-infected probable rapist. The community is barely hanging on and needs to protect itself from this dangerous threat. They certainly can't afford to imprison him forever, and banishing him would hardly guarantee that he would not return in the night to exact revenge. They really have no choice but to execute him.

Modern civilization is not living on the edge, and can probably afford to imprison people for life, but the fact is, there are some people who must, for the safety of the public, be kept away from society, and locking them up for life is very expensive.

So, as devil's advocate, it might be neither justice, nor revenge, but self preservation.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. I read that death penalty prisoners end up being more expensive bc special housing, lawyers, etc. nt

[edhopper]

12. This is true

and are we really basing killing someone or not on the cost?

[edhopper]

10. We put innocent people to death

if you can live with that, you can support the Death Penalty.
If you support the Death Penalty you accept and support putting innocent people to death.

You must also accept and support the inequality of the Death Penalty for people of color versus white people.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. This is the key point. . . . nt

[I_UndergroundPanther]

15. It stops 1 sociopathic criminal

From harming others,forever.

And some crimes and some psychopaths won't ever stop hurting people. They can't be trusted around anyone if guards are not present to subdue them. These criminals end up in solitary for years.

Solitary confinement is torture.

I am totally against torture.

Death is less torture than living 20 years in solitary .

[MarineCombatEngineer]

16. All depends on one's perspective,

it can be justice for some, and vengeance for others.
Myself, I'm against the DP, so I guess for me, the DP is vengeance.