Capital Punishment

[summer]

3. With the current system, an execution costs more than a life sentence.

I say if they are a murderer, hand them over to the victim's family. Won't cost a cent.

[Beany]

I say that they shouldn't kill, cos the ppl won't learn from their mistake and there is NO such thing as legal murder, so murdering murderers is illegal!

[chex]

I may not agree with the death penalty, but saying it's illegal is absolutely ridiculous.

[Eff]

ppl won't learn from their mistake

It isnt ment to teach the 'soon be dead body' person a lesson ,it should make other ppl scare not to do things that could make them be 'soon be dead body' person.

I am against it anyway only coz of the fact that lots of inoccent ppl got to be 'soon be dead body person' and ther is no way to bring them back to live.
I believe in torturing the person yourself instade of letting the police take care of the case..

[Beany]

it's unfair though cos if they're suddenly found innocent, there's a bit of a problem

[Eff]

Listen to Chexy now:

[chex]

Ali, have you ever seen the movie, The Life of David Gale? If not, I highly recommend it. I think you'll enjoy it.

[sizz]

This thread is really old now, but I was gonna start a thread on something like this and thought i'd check to see if there wasn't one already, and found this.

For as long as i've known what capital punishment is, my opinion is always the same: i think it's wrong. my reasons for this were basically how they're still human and what if they're innocent blah blah. that, along with how people who commit those crimes are normally mentally ill in some way and yes they should rot in a cell, but also be rehabilitated. I just don't think people should be killed, no matter what they've done, really.

I've never been particularly interested though because a) capital punishment isn't legal anyway here and b) everyone i know, ie. all my friends and family (whenever the subject's briefly come up, which it rarely has) is against it anyway. i think when something's illegal in your country, you're more likely to be against it because that's just what you've always known.

I watched this documentary (i love documentaries) a couple of days ago where they went to America to this high security prison where there were all sorts of inmates and also some on 'death row' (there's a short review of the program here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvan ... eview.html if you're interested). I get quite affected by these things sometimes but I love watching them. they went to death row and talked to the prisoners, and they went to the places where they housed the prisoners who'd committed less serious things, and it was so interesting. there was this one guy who committed a double homicide when he was 13, and because of that was in prison for life really (at the time of the program he was 38 years old, regretful and quite nice, and still in the high security part). And I now think it's even more wrong.

Firstly, like chex said, it really is a huge expense to the country. i know america's a big country and stuff but in the uk we have no massive prisons like that... so much money is spent on prison and security and shazam! and you could be spending it on, say, education which would hopefully help to get people out of crime. in Death Row, prisoners can be sentenced to death but be kept there for like 25 years before being executed, and they all have a tv and these special cells with electric doors and it must be really expensive.

also, these people on death row are responsible for a big range of crimes from the really horrible (killing their wife and two children) to the still horrible, but not quite as bad (shooting a policeman chasing after him with intent to 'distract him' apparently- this i highly doubt but it's still not as bad as killing children in my opinion). I find it weird that two people like that get the same punishment- i can understand the first being on death row, but the latter... surely they should just get years?

but i think my main reason is basically because death is a big thing... i guess personally its always been something i've been quite uneasy about for a number of reasons. you can't just be like 'they killed someone, we'll stick them in a cell on death row for 25 years then kill them'. these people are humans, surely it can't be as simple as 'life for a life'? It reminds me a little of what that National Rifle association or whatever were saying after that shooting in the school- a completely tragic event but they said 'the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun' and that honestly makes me absolutely fume because personally i think that is the most ridiculous, stupid and crazy thing i have ever heard... i'll stop talking about that now because it makes me really angry how someone can say that and be WILLING to let tiny kids be around armed guards and thing 'guns are good they keep us safe' stupid stupid stupid. sorry.

what i'm trying to say is i have pretty strong feelings about death and to waste someone's life by just killing them... it just sounds wrong. also this:

1. It scares people thinking that if they do something bad that they will get killed, thus reducing crime

I disagree with that because surely rather than scaring people into not committing crimes, surely it's better to keep kids in schools, try and get them to get jobs and get them to interact with people, get empathy with them... try and change their mindset, so they see crime as wrong. 'Scaring' people into not committing crimes will never work because thousands of people commit crimes every day not giving a shazam! about getting caught. But change their mindset completely... that's the way to reduce crime.

that's just my opinion, obviously you all think quite differently but contrasting opinions are always fun, right?

[chex]

I really want to debate with you for the sake of activity, but I agree with you. So instead, I'm mentally high-fiving you.