You were downvoted but you're right, live by the sword and take the risk to die by it. If you don't like the odds - and let's all hope the judicial system is efficient enough to make those odds really unfavourable - it is easy to avoid them by not committing capital crimes.
He/she isn't right, though. Capital punishment, at its core, is an emotional rather than logical response to a criminal offense.
It serves no purpose in preventing future crimes. First, because you've already caught the criminal, the proposed alternate sentence of life imprisonment without chance for parole already handles preventing that individual from committing further offenses. And second, it's been proven repeatedly that ratcheting up punishment as some sort of deterrent doesn't work because most people committing crimes either believe they're going to get away with it or aren't in a frame of mind to care about any penalties (e.g., crimes of passion).
It also fails to be an efficient way of dealing with a caught criminal. The combination of incarceration time, resources spent on appeals, and the cost of the actual execution methods makes death row inmates more expensive than lifers. We actually pay more to put people to death than we would jailing them for the rest of their lives.
Instead, people fight so hard to keep capital punishment around because it scratches the itch for vengeance.
> And second, it's been proven repeatedly that ratcheting up punishment as some sort of deterrent doesn't work
Who proved that? Have you lived in a high trust society that punishes crimes, or do you not think they exist?
Your point seems to be that people don't believe they will be punished. Everywhere I've been people did know they would be punished, severely. Organized theft in Singapore if you're a male younger than 50 could get you caned. Perhaps you're arguing that public punishment would help raise their awareness?
The point isn't that people don't believe the punishment applies. It's that they don't significantly factor the consequence into their actions. They may be overwhelmed by emotion, they may think they can get away with it, or they may be under the influence. Moreover, is capital punishment that much more of a deterrent than life imprisonment?
This is just a bizarre non-sequitor. Do you think that people are opposed to the death penalty because they’re worried that they personally will get executed?
Thanks. Commenting the same logic but on the individual is definitely a downvote risk! Why have normal expectations of people when you can have extraordinary expectations of the state, and want other people to pay for it?
There are many people in these threads that state that they don't like capital punishment (OK?), add zero supporting arguments, and aggressively downvote anyone who supports the death penalty.
