Who’s this god, you speak of?
Cthulu, duh.
Cthulhu allows no heaven.
@ Fancy Pants: about life in prison being a worse punishment than death penalty, it is not. The convicted criminal that faces a death penalty has to stay iirc around 3 years, he keeps thinking that his death coming. He gains the feeling that he does not have control over his life. Some of them might face with their heads up, but most of them stay very stressed because of their inevitable fate. Survival instinct is some powerful shit, it’s not for no reason that many make deals to get life in prison instead of death penalty.
That said, let’s say we are just going to give everyone its due punishment. Two questions crosses my mind. Is it possible? Obviously not. Supposing it is somehow possible, is it worth it? In other words, is there a benefit from punishing everyone?
The big problem with prisons is the same problem with public schools: the inmates - or kids - don’t have anything to do, so they invent stuff to do. That stuff is popularity competition, and in prison that means proving everyone you are the toughest guy, everyone does what you tell them to because they fear you. That is not what everyone does, of course, but hardly prison rehabilitates anyone. They are being punished, but they don’t learn the lesson.
I think the best way to revert that scenario is to make prisoners to work. Give them something to do and they will stop punching each other, teaching and learning how to be tougher, more violent. They might even actually learn something. Hopefully some of them would leave their criminal life and show a different life to the other criminals around them. Forget about punishment, that doesn’t make society better, at all.
that’s exactly what i think
also fuskox, i’m sure this has been said before, but who are you to decide who deserves what?
anyway, if you really believe in heaven and hell and god obviously that would be for god to decide
Nice, I wasn’t aware prisoners had to wait a few years before getting executed, thought death row was a little bit faster.
Do I have to reply to this or can you just read my other posts?
Sorry for double post.
They have to wait because they have the right to appeal in the mean time.
That’s the real problem with the death penalty- there is a ton of appeals to wade through, and the convict must be held in custody until then, making it a rather expensive endeavor.
Life in prison, however, would be more costly. After all, which is more expensive- killing someone after three years of appeals and lawyers fees, or letting them live thirty and dying of old age? Which is more morally defensible, and which is more economically viable? Personally I defend the use of the death penalty, due to it’s sensible economics and theoretical effect on an area’s crime rates.
Why would you defend something that works theoretically but it actually doesn’t work IRL?
- It has been pointed out time and time again that death penalty costs more.
- It has been proven, I’m pretty sure, that capital punishment doesn’t actually decrease crime rates.
I guess the only reason left is that politicians will become popular for “putting” “bad” people to death.
Or hey, they could just streamline the process.
Yeah, like after trial there should be already a guillotine ready and waiting for you outside 
Seriously, now, that would increase even more the number of innocent people wrongfully being put to death. There is a reason for the process to be complicated and expensive: the convicted must have time to appeal and to hire an attorney to make another investigation that might show his innocence, or at least that he does not deserve death penalty.
escape from new york. good, and keep it slightly better so if they are proved innocent, we can find them, and get them out,and by slightly better, i mean everyone isnt killing everyone else
Here’s my take, and I’d like to say upfront that this is going to be completely separated from any religious belief:
The first priority of laws and prisons should be to protect innocent people. The purpose of prisons should be solely to protect the public from the people inside.
I don’t care about punishment; everyone has different ethical standards so it is impossible to come up with a definite crime/punishment system, and in the end it all boils down to revenge, in my opinion. But if we decide that death or torture as punishment is ok, inevitably someone innocent will be killed or harmed, and this system should be in place exactly to prevent that.
That isn’t to say prisons should be comfortable. Prisoners should be provided with enough to survive. This is food, heat, and shelter. Whether they should be allowed socialize or not is a matter of opinion.
I don’t believe the want or need of many should necessarily outweigh that of few. Rather, I believe that the few should be protected from the want of the many. In a recent survey, over half of Americans surveyed were against gay marriage. Does that mean the gay minority should conform to those desires, or that the law should enforce them? Granted, you can argue that those figures are not entirely accurate. You might say that not enough people were surveyed, so the figures are irrelevant.
In hindsight, one could argue that one person should have been murdered to save ten. We don’t have that hindsight at the time of the crime. If you witness one person clearly and maliciously intending to cause immediate harm or death to another, then yeah, I’d say stop him if it will protect the innocent. Killing should be a last resort; there are plenty of ways to incapacitate someone with out killing them. But if they’re detained, typically there no immediate risk. Just keep detaining them. You might argue that that costs money.
You can always cite specific exceptions, or play the “what if” game, but these are exceptions, not people we should be basing our standards around.
Short Version: Laws should protect innocent people. Punishment is based on opinion, which is subjective.
Any other opinions?
marioandluigi206 your post inspires extended pondering. Thank you for that.
Yes, it is a very nice point of view.