Quote:
Originally posted by ScottT1980
The "an eye for an eye" ideology always perturbs me a bit. It is an ideology based on hatred masked by justice. .
It is something I struggle with quite a bit but I just feel that killing a man, any man, is and always will be murder, no matter who that man is or what he has done.
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Scott,
I respect your opinion, life is definately something that should be valued. But I feel that if someone has committed a crime so heinous that they have to be locked away from the rest of society for the remainder of their lives that another solution should be considered besides a tax payer funded incarceration. I believe that the death penalty should be enforced more than it has in the past. The recidivism rate post execution is zero. It may not make an example of violent criminals or act as a deterrant to other would be offenders, but it would remove the ones who were caught, given a fair trial, and sentenced by a jury. That would also lower the cost of running prisons through out the nation. If Max security prisons were a short term holding area prior to execution, (eventually) they would be less crowded, would require less room, and less personnel to operate, etc, and be less expensive to run. I'm not suggesting this for medium or minimum security prisons, just those that currently incarcerate felons for life. This would of course also require a re-vamp of the judical system's appeal process. I'm all for throwing out appeals that do nothing but delay the execution. I'm not talking about bonafide appeals that have a chance of introducing evidence that could affect a prisoners sentencing, just delaying appeals that do nothing but waste time and money of the tax payers. What about those falsely accused you say.....well, we have the ability to test for DNA, and have had since the mid nineties or just before. We definately have it for this particular trial...use it. For those prisoners tried and convicted before DNA was testing was available, another solution would have to be implemented, as I dont feel that its an acceptable answer to say thats the price of safety...
If the death penalty is still thought of as too barbaric, I'm all for moving towards a Turkish mindset towards impisonment. If convicted to say...one year in Turkey. You will serve one year, no exceptions. You will also need to find someone to feed you, clothe you, and pay for any medical attention needed. If you're still alive at the end of your sentence, then you are free to go.
I would have no problem w/ a prison system based on this line of thinking. The cost of running a system like this is much less than the way we do business now. Don't get me wrong, I'm not after the almighty dollar. But I fail to see why anybody who has shown such blatant disregard for another's life, that they commit a crime and are removed from society for the rest of their lives, should get anything more than a room to sit in for the next 30 years. Why should I waste my hard earned money housing these people, giving them medical attention beyond whats reasonably necessary, (ie...Estrogen pills to males who are transgendered, or my favorite, the heart transplant for the murderer on death row in CA. who was going to die w/o it. They actually had to stay the execution in order to perform the surgery. There were many people on the list for heart transplants that he was bumped in front of. And when it was all said and done, the heart was wasted since it couldnt be harvested after the execution.) when they 'v already demonstrated that they're quite willing to take my life, rape my children, etc.... Sorry I dont have much sympathy. I know there are many ways to debate this, I'm under the gun so to speak, cause I've only got a few minutes left before I run off to work. But these are my thoughts, if anyones interested, I'd be more than happy to debate all of this later.
Nick