I am not afraid to admit when I am wrong, so here is some evidence of such an occurrence.
This is a great post for those interested, and I encourage you to click on all of the links....they lead to very interesting info on the subject.
If you take a look at this blog you will find some compelling evidence that the death penalty is not especially effective. What does interest me however, is the claim that "In general, people believe harsh penalties deter misbehavior more than they do. (As Mark Kleiman's new book points out, certainty and immediacy of punishment are much more important [than the penalty itself])." This seems to get at the problem of implementation though. I may be wrong that harsher penalties are more deterrent, but that may be due to failure in implementation, in which case: would it be justified if it were an effective deterrent.
Also interesting is the claim that "I think death is an appropriate sentence for lifers who commit murders in prison - tacking on more years simply isn't a meaningful deterrent in that setting."
What should we do with such a person who we literally cannot stop from committing murders except by killing her?
It concludes by saying that this is far more complicated than any pollsters or thought games could account for.......so what is left for us to try to solve this problem: trial and error?
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“What should we do with such a person who we literally cannot stop from committing murders except by killing her?”
ReplyDeleteI think this is a very interesting question. It is one that is not easily answered. The solution, in my opinion, is not to kill the inmate. That seems like a moral surrender. If we refuse to use the death penalty for moral reasons but make an exception like this, it appears that our moral rectitude has lost out.
The prison system should have penalties in place to deal with such offenders. We can take away the rights of inmates and punish them for these actions without resorting to the death penalty. Extended periods of solitary confinement is a possibility. We can keep them in their cell for 23 hours a day (when we grant them one hour of “exercise” we can make sure that the inmate does not have any contact with others). Restrictions such as these will both prevent the inmate from harming others and it will simultaneously punish them for prison murders. Thus, we do not have to resort to the death penalty in these types of cases.
I think that it should be noted that solitary confinement is highly regarded as a punishment equivocal to torture, though mostly mental. It dehumanizes the person by depriving her all human contact, and most sense perception. In this way I would consider it at the same level, if not worse than the death penalty.
ReplyDeleteThus, though I think you are correct that there are other options (I like rehabilitation), I do not think that solitary is a good alternative.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande
ReplyDeleteI think the death penalty is a much easier thing to support if you know nothing about it. In theory, perhaps it seems fair (or even just) to people that the punishment for a murderer is they get put to death. And I think it is more comforting for people to know that when we execute a murderer, he is no longer on the streets, killing other people. But the fact that the U.S. has executed innocent people, people on death row have been exonerated, and statistics have proven that the enforcement of the death penalty is not an effective deterrent, seem to point to the idea that the death penalty is not an effective or moral form of punishment in our justice system.
ReplyDeleteInteresting article on solitary confinement...
It's pretty reasonable to think that harsher penalties are better deterents. I think that may only be true in the instance of someone who has not committed a crime before deciding whether or not to commit one; however, once you commit a crime if they all have a harsh punishment then there is really less difference in the crimes themselves.
ReplyDeleteWe talked about that at some point the state cannot implement equal punishment for a crime because in a sense they are condoning such actions.
The death penalty is an interesting one because it is really one of the true eye-for-eye penalties we still have. But as for the person who literally cannot stop killing people, rehabilitation would not be an option. In a society that condones the death penalty, that would be an acceptable punishment. In one that does not, you would probably just have to lock them up under intense scrutiny