Death penalty have its place in human history, that's all i can say.
But we're not living 'history'. A lot of stuff had its place in history, like torture, slavery, tyrany etc of which some is still present in this world.
However, I often see people arguing in favour of the Death Penality for rather strange reasons. I mean let us stay with the facts.
Is the Death Penality effective:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/stu...not-believe-death-penalty-effective-deterrent
A recent study by Professor Michael Radelet and Traci Lacock of the University of Colorado found that 88% of the nation’s leading criminologists do not believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime. The study, Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists, published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Crimonology, concluded, “There is overwhelming consensus among America’s top criminologists that the empirical research conducted on the deterrence question fails to support the threat or use of the death penalty.” A previous study in 1996 had come to similar conclusions.
So, it is a rather ineffective system in avoiding or preventing crimes and it is also a rather useless as punishment - someone who's dead, can't be punished anymore, right? It's not even really 'cost' effective' in that sense, as it simply leads to more viollent crimes - they will now execute me! No reason to hold back anymore.
The reasoning against 'torture' as punishment for example is, that it would be inhuman. So you just put them to 'sleep' with an lethal injection rather than torturing someone to death, as how it was done in medieval times, even hanging is seen as inhuman by todays standards. So they practise today a so called humanly way of killing.
But keeping someone in prison however, would be a far greater punishment at this point - particularly when you consider the conditions prisoneres experience in the current US prison system.
The death penality is one huge oxymoron. Either you have penalities to punish people, or to prevent crimes - deterrent for example. The Death penality however seemingly doesn't do anything of it very well.
So why is it still around one might ask? And the answer is as simple as revealing.
Revenge. It is really as simple like that. It gives people the feeling that "this person got what he deserved!", and it makes you look tough on criminals. Certain punisments are not done to serve justice or to punish the criminals, they are actually done to satisfy the people. Each time when you see someone saying stuff like, "They should cut the dick of from that child-killer/rapist/serial-killer!", it goes in that direction.
But at some point, the punishment is not in relation to the crime anymore, but serving a totally different purpose - see the criminalisation of weed and the people that smoke it, pretty much any statistics and research by now, shows that the laws against it are ineffective and that the drug is even less lethal compared to alcohol and tobacco and that it isn't even a gateway drug.
And this actually says a lot about the US prison/crime system as a whole, where it is much more about criminalizing people even for already 'small' crimes and appearing tough on 'hard' crime rather than looking for solutions, preventions and keeping people out of prison and curt rooms, which is a lot more effective, cost effective and saver for the population than an expensive punishment and prison system.
But the current system allows for two things. It allows politicans like governors and officials to remain 'tough', while it also alows a whole industry to stay in charge and earning money, the prison system in the US has undergon a huge privatisation, and a lot of it with very bad side effects not just for the prisoners, but for the judiciary as a whole.
To think that this has anything to do with solving crimes and or/preventing them, is ludicrous.
Everyone talking about revenge like its a bad thing.
I dont see the problem with revenge. Whats up with getting revenge?
Because you can't lead a society based on it.
. Also, it's not as rare as you might think it is. Sadly there is no 'accurate' data on the cases. Your trust in the system is admirable. But I am the better save than sorry kind of guy.
