Gem
Rookie
- Aug 11, 2004
- 2,080
- 783
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- Banned
- #41
Perhaps people choose to view or not view the death penalty as a means of disuading other would-be criminals from acting on their homicidal urges...however, whether it works or doesn't work, it is a side note to the fact that the death penalty is not supposed to be primarily a deterrent...
It is supposed to be the ultimate punishment for heinous crimes.
I agree with everyone who says that the death penalty does not stop anyone who wants to murder or who murders in the heat of the moment. I am willing to hypothesize that it might be more effective as a deterrent if it was enacted across the board for all murders that were not accidental or in self-defence...or if criminals were executed more swiftly...however that is not the case, and more likely than not wil never be the case...so we must work with what we have at hand...
The death penalty as it stands today does not act as a deterrent...but guess what...neither does our prison system. In fact, our attempts at rehabilitation in the prison system have been a dismal vailure overall. The statistics of criminals who commit crimes and are re-arrested is ridiculous...we are failing in our efforts to take criminals and make them non-criminals...so if we are talking about getting rid of the death penalty because it doesn't stop crime...we may as well talk about getting rid of the present prison system because it is just as ineffective for crime prevention...
(Talking about reforming the prison system is a matter for another thread altogether...my point is simply that the "the death penalty doesn't stop crime" argument is, in my opinion, ineffective in this discussion.)
What we have to decide instead, is: Are we a society that punishes heinous crimes by killing the murderer? And if so, where do we as a society draw the line in the age of the person we consider executing?
We are one of the only remaining nations of our size, development, wealth, etc. who was executing minors...while we do not have to follow the rest of the world, we should most certainly be examining what other nations have chosen not to execute 16 and 17 year old murderers.
It is supposed to be the ultimate punishment for heinous crimes.
I agree with everyone who says that the death penalty does not stop anyone who wants to murder or who murders in the heat of the moment. I am willing to hypothesize that it might be more effective as a deterrent if it was enacted across the board for all murders that were not accidental or in self-defence...or if criminals were executed more swiftly...however that is not the case, and more likely than not wil never be the case...so we must work with what we have at hand...
The death penalty as it stands today does not act as a deterrent...but guess what...neither does our prison system. In fact, our attempts at rehabilitation in the prison system have been a dismal vailure overall. The statistics of criminals who commit crimes and are re-arrested is ridiculous...we are failing in our efforts to take criminals and make them non-criminals...so if we are talking about getting rid of the death penalty because it doesn't stop crime...we may as well talk about getting rid of the present prison system because it is just as ineffective for crime prevention...
(Talking about reforming the prison system is a matter for another thread altogether...my point is simply that the "the death penalty doesn't stop crime" argument is, in my opinion, ineffective in this discussion.)
What we have to decide instead, is: Are we a society that punishes heinous crimes by killing the murderer? And if so, where do we as a society draw the line in the age of the person we consider executing?
We are one of the only remaining nations of our size, development, wealth, etc. who was executing minors...while we do not have to follow the rest of the world, we should most certainly be examining what other nations have chosen not to execute 16 and 17 year old murderers.