We as society need to respect each other instead of treating everyone like a bunch of thugs.
And I'm with you there. Laws ultimately do not prevent crime. Good will and respect for everyone else does. However as much as want to believe in the goodness of human nature, I have to recognize that many individuals do not possess those virtues. Therefore laws are stablished to deal with the aftermath, and to certain degree make us feel secure. And notice that I say "to certain degree".
That doesn't mean society has to degrade itself into the sewer where the criminals live. Just because they commit horrible crimes doesn't mean we have to be like them.
No it sure doesnt...........
Apparently the crucifictions was not much of a deterrent because people still, after 2,000 years, commit the same crimes. And even today people still commit the same crimes over-and-over knowing full well what the penalty is. As much as I'd like to agree with Dcc's punishment, that would make us not any better then the sex offender. Preventing cruel and inhuman punishment is not meant for the criminal but to prevent society from degrading to lawlessness. We as society need to respect each other instead of treating everyone like a bunch of thugs. The movie Escape From New York comes to mind.
You need to remember that the crucifixions were popular because of their public display, and don't forget the games at the colosseum...the public looked forward to them.
Making and enforcing stiffer sentences is not going to reduce anyone to the level of the criminal breaking these laws. I certainly don't believe that respecting these criminals has been effective either. We have underage teens killing people to gain their gang status knowing that they most likely won't be prosecuted as an adult, these kids don't respect life. The closest that the majority of the public comes to being violated by a crime is watching the evening news, I guarantee that if more people had personal experiences with these violent crimes the general pacifist attitude of the public would change. I would also like to remind you that what you are comparing life to is a movie based on fiction.
I don't mean to say we should respect criminals -- from what I understand prison life can be pretty tough, and that child molesters don't live very long there. But I don't know that for a fact because I've never been there except on a grade-school tour. Putting someone in prison for life would be a lot more punishment then the death penalty.
I don't mean to say we should respect criminals -- from what I understand prison life can be pretty tough, and that child molesters don't live very long there. But I don't know that for a fact because I've never been there except on a grade-school tour. Putting someone in prison for life would be a lot more punishment then the death penalty.
Yes, prison life is pretty tough from what I've seen myself.
My business communication class went to a local prison nearby that was very secluded and strict. We went there to witness what it was like on a daily basis for prisoners and to let them talk to us. No girls were even allowed to sit on the first row.
Anyway, I agree that is would be worse to live in prison then to just die.
Anyway, I agree that is would be worse to live in prison then to just die.
Christina you are playing safe there. I don't think any dead person
is going to come back to just disagree with you on you statement. :)
Christina you are playing safe there. I don't think any dead person
is going to come back to just disagree with you on you statement. :)
Well hopefully I won't have any zombies visiting me tonight. ;o)
If you had the choice of living in a 6'x8' cage or be put to death what would your choice be.
If you had the choice of living in a 6'x8' cage or be put to death what would your choice be.
Can I have a book with me?. ;)
If you had the choice of living in a 6'x8' cage or be put to death what would your choice be.
I'd want to die.
Well you're already living in a cage, which, dietary anomalies aside, is already less than 6' by 8'.
Well you're already living in a cage, which, dietary anomalies aside, is already less than 6' by 8'.
It is the illusion of freedom what makes us keep going.
Can I have a book with me?. ;)
What we have here is you basic good news bad new situation. The good new is yes there will be books available from the George W. Bush library, the bad new is you will have to provide your own crayons.
Our freedom is unique in our perception of what is real, I can't help wonder what my cat thinks.
>there will be books available from the George W. Bush library
That's it!. KILL ME!.
of course a far more profitable way to do it (and at the same time helping society a LOT) is to dismantle the convict and use the organs and limbs for transplants.
There's an eternal shortage of transplants, and a lot of (mostly) healthy people in prisons sitting around costing money.
Those prisoners could very effectively help solve the problem of people dying in hospital for lack of organ donors.In fact in several countries that's what convicts are used for, China for example.
Well for one, if you believe in an eye for an eye then that isn't very fair. If the killer didn't dismantle the victim's organs then why should he get his dismantled? Considering the fact that not all those convicted are actually guilty that would just be horrible. I'm against the death penalty. I think saying that it costs more to keep them in jail is a bad argument because you can't put a price on peoples' lives. And who are we to judge people? For all we know a murdurer may have completely changed. Maybe they truly, at heart, realized what they did was wrong. Maybe the found religion. Maybe they are truly sorry for their wrong. No court can ever measure these things so how can we say that they necessarily deserve death? Of course it is an equal punishment in a way, but I would rather allow ten murdurers to walk the street than to let one innocent man sentenced to the death penalty. As for the arrest, conviction, denial of appeal, and execution all in one day, I don't think it's necessary for me to explain why I'm against that. There are already too many innocent people convicted, that would only cause more. Think of it this way: Everyone thinks Michael Jackson molested children, but they couldn't prove it in court. There's little doubt in most people's minds, but when you think about it, when there is no proof we really don't know if he did those things or not and it isn't fair to convict someone without proof. What if he was convicted and later it was proven that he never did such things? It would prove the system has major flaws in it. A life imprisonment is equivalent or even worse, in my eyes, to the death sentence because the person can't be relieved of his/her life and the mental anguish has to be unbearable. It also gives them time to actually decide some things for themselves. Although most of them wouldn't care much about what they did, some can change just as all people can, and they still have to live out their life sentence but this way you aren't putting a man's life down and you're giving them a chance at seeing themselves differently. Even if it's only a small percentage of them. As humans it seems unfair to judge some humans as more important than others.
This is a very difficult issue because we can not be absolutely sure we are right every time we convict and sentence a person to death. Until this issue is resolved there are going to be people who will want the death sentence suspended or abolished. I have to admit that I see the practical aspect of this, but do believe that we need to have some means of imposing some form of deterrence. Unfortunately the same laws that we have passed to protect us also protect the convicts.
Personally I would like to see sentences that would make others think twice about trying it. For example...take a child molester, there should be a sentence where this person is taken out into the desert where a six by six foot cabin has been built. The prisoner will have his pecker nailed to the floor and a knife left within the prisoner's reach, the cabin will then be set on fire leaving the prisoner to make a choice. Would this be cruel and unusual punishment? You bet! Would it deter the next person thinking about committing the same crime, if the person had a healthy mental state yes...and that's where the problems begin. Most of the heinous crimes are committed by people that we recognize as having mental disorders. Cho Seung-Hui is a good example of this, here's a person that was recognized by his peers and counselors to be mentally imbalanced, and because of the same laws that protect us from being unfairly incarcerated in similar situations he was not stopped. It will be interesting to see what comes from the legislation recently passed in Virginia making it a disqualification for purchase of a fire arm to be diagnosed with certain mental disorders.
There are no easy answers, perhaps with the advancement of our forensic sciences we one day will be able to say without question that a person is guilty. And perhaps in the future our understanding of the brain will allow us to evaluate individuals who are at risk to themselves and others and be able to act on that without the the legal ramifications of our civil rights.
Yes, what you say is logical but I think there are still a few problems with it. For one, when someone murders someone else they usually don't plan on getting caught (obviously not all murdurers are caught). I don't think there are many people that actually ask themself, "Is killing him/her/them worth life imprisonment" and then continue to commit the act expecting to be convicted. To me it isn't a good deterrent. I don't think people will kill any less. Numbers might change a little but who says, "the only thing I'll get is life imprisonment, that isn't too bad." Nobody wants that. But then again I can't speak the minds of everybody because I don't know how everybody thinks, but I don't think that's a good deterrent. I hate child molestors just as much as you and anybody else but again, we don't know how people think so who knows if someone truly does regret what they did and is willing to face the punishment? He would be just as unaccepted by you, me, and just about everyone else, but at least to himself he realizes he was wrong and regrets ever doing it and wishes he could take it back. The already cruel and unusual punishment you proposed would then be even worse.
>I would rather allow ten murdurers to walk the street than to let one innocent man sentenced to the death penalty.
Big thought. However society most like will always "by pass" the feeling of justice that is in your statement, and think more in the lines of "is better to sacrify the life of one, for the benefit of the many". Specially if those ten murderous are going to be loose in your back yard.
>I would rather allow ten murdurers to walk the street than to let one innocent man sentenced to the death penalty.
Until a dear one gets killed by one of them, whom the police had had and went up before a court only to be let go on a technicallity.
Murderers have been let go here because someone signed a search warrant a minute too late, despite overwhelming evidence against them and admissions of guilt.
They usually go straight on murdering, repeat offenses are at something like 85% for violent crime (the 15% being purely domestic disputes which went out of hand, the classic "I didn't mean to do it" cases, people who never get off on technicallities and wouldn't want to because their own feeling of guilt is worse than whatever a court can do to them).
Yes, what you say is logical but I think there are still a few problems with it. For one, when someone murders someone else they usually don't plan on getting caught (obviously not all murdurers are caught). I don't think there are many people that actually ask themself, "Is killing him/her/them worth life imprisonment" and then continue to commit the act expecting to be convicted. To me it isn't a good deterrent. I don't think people will kill any less. Numbers might change a little but who says, "the only thing I'll get is life imprisonment, that isn't too bad." Nobody wants that. But then again I can't speak the minds of everybody because I don't know how everybody thinks, but I don't think that's a good deterrent. I hate child molestors just as much as you and anybody else but again, we don't know how people think so who knows if someone truly does regret what they did and is willing to face the punishment? He would be just as unaccepted by you, me, and just about everyone else, but at least to himself he realizes he was wrong and regrets ever doing it and wishes he could take it back. The already cruel and unusual punishment you proposed would then be even worse.
These people never think that they are going to get caught, and unfortunately there are a lot of murders that don't get solved. As forensic science and investigative techniques improve more cases will result in being resolved. There is always going to be the action taken in the heat of the moment, and there are always going to be mentally imbalanced time bombs looking for a place to happen. Deterrents aren't going to stop those types of people, we can only hope that this does make an impression on the remaining idiots out there. As I said, there are no easy answers to this problem.
As for child molesters showing contrition, I guess there are people out there that get that warm and fuzzy feeling that we can all be saved or reformed from their transgression...I've lived long enough to have seen that is not going to work. The only type of regrets these people have is that they got caught and know that if they are sentenced to prison their chances of survival are poor. Inmates take action against these people because they recognize these people to be beyond any social redemption.
Now let's look at what is cruel and unusual punishment. I hate to even think about this, because if I can see this some other bleeding heart is going see the same thing and want to have something done about it. Specifically...let's look at this convicted child molester who gets sentence to prison and knows that there is a very good chance that his days are going to be numbered if he is kept in the general population, isn't this a form of cruel and unusual punishment? It's a known fact that prisoners have their own social order and that pedophiles and child molesters are at the bottom of the food chain.
Well, that isn't recognized as cruel and unusual punishment because they are given the same punishment as the other criminals (I mean if they're in prison) but the other inmates treat them differently and that isn't considered cruel and unusual punishment by the government.
If a dear one of mine were killed I'd be really sad and I'd be really angry at the killer, especially if they got away with it. But I'd think to myself, "An innocent person close to me just died, I don't want that to happen again. In the form of a convicted murdurer that was actually innocent. That's just as bad as my innocent close one being killed." (Of course I'm not speaking of the killer of my family member/dear one) I think that's more a case of double jeapordy. O.J. Simpson got away and they later proved he was guilty after the trial. That's a little different. If he's guilty, he's guilty, and there's proof, and he wasn't convicted. That's a big flaw in the system.
As for the child molestors, I detest them as much as anyone else but that doesn't give anyone that right to perform inhumane acts on such a person (Like what was discussed by someone earlier). Prison life for that person will be difficult enough, (and personally I'd rather die than go to prison as a convicted child molestor).
Well, that isn't recognized as cruel and unusual punishment because they are given the same punishment as the other criminals (I mean if they're in prison) but the other inmates treat them differently and that isn't considered cruel and unusual punishment by the government.
Convicts on death row are common in the same respect that you have listed, yet the different means of execution have been under fire as being cruel and unusual. The only reason that the situation that I mentioned isn't on the same level is because some bleeding heart just hasn't gotten around to adding to the list yet.
Idealism is great, but it ain't practical.
When I said that it isn't cruel and unusual punishment because other criminals are given the same punishment, what I meant was that normal convicts are given sentences that aren't considered cruel and unusual. Someone said earlier that a child molestor in prison can be considered cruel and unusual because of the way they are treated. I said that it usually isn't considered cruel and unusual because others are given the same punishment and isn't considered cruel and unusual. If that makes sense. I think the death sentence itself is cruel (not really unusual though). If we are to sentence such people for committing murder, a cruel act, to death, it is the exact same act which was already deemed cruel. The only difference is that the second time it is justified by the courts.
Consider this: What if someone killed someone else and got away with it through the courts. A family member of the victim feels it is rightful of him to kill the murdurer. If the death sentence is justified then this should be too. But this person is then conicted of murder and he his sentenced to the death penalty. Is then, THAT sentence truly justified? The real deciding factor isn't what we think is right, it's what the courts think is right. What do you guys think of this scenario? I want to hear your opinions.
Your line of logic took a left turn and has ignored the obvious fact that they are two separate incidents legally. What happens through the courts is considered legal, what you're talking about is a vigilante act.
[sarcasm]We could close all our prisons if we just gave everyone immediate death sentence -- to be carried out about 10 minutes after sentencing. Got a speeding ticket? death sentence. petty theft? death sentence. white color crime ? death sentence. We would not need any jails, prison wardens or prison guards because nobody would be sent to prison.[/sarcasm]
> white color crime ?
;)
Ancient Dragon for President. YES!.
;)
> white color crime ?
;)
under the new "hate crime" bill currently before congress it would effectively be a crime to Caucasian (aka white), because everyone knows that all white people are racist...
Racism sucks. I get picked on all the time because i am scottish and ginger and live in england, probably worse than if i was black, but the problem is that you can get away with being racist to a scotsman whereas if you said the same sort of things to someone who was black you would never get away with it.
What's ginger? Isn't that a low-alcohol beer?
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