The prisons are full

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martaug: To what end is Justice there? That's the core of the matter. If justice is there to harm people, then you're spot on. If Justice is there to serve society, then it might be necessary to rethink what you are saying.

Anyway, I'm stepping out. This isn't getting anywhere (not that I ever expected it to). I've learnt a hell of a lot by researching things for this thread, so thanks Gnarf and everyone else. Hope you've come away with some new knowledge too, and a better understanding of the other side of the fence, even if you're still obviously wrong

 

PPFFFFTTTT!!!! bad rotku, no cookie for you

 

Yes. It is horrible. Extremely so. Worse yet, it's not even a punishment. A lame animal must be put out of it's miseries. Better off that way. Following that train of thought I can imagine what some people would have preferred to be done with those psychotic patients of Dr. Moniz and Dr. Hess.

Well no. It isn't. An autonomous self doesn't work like an on/off switch, I give you that, but it's not full on all the time either. I would argue that in most cases when considering the most horrible crimes the choice and the ability to see options and even the ability to see the consequences of one's actions has already been taken away. What to do with those people? Those who are simply not capable of feeling remorse? Those who are not capable to feel fear? There is no deterrent that would work on them. None. That's what makes a psychotic killer. Then there's people who believe so strongly that they're in the right that no matter how horrendous their crime is they feel that it is just. They're in the right so God help those who stand in their way! Or to Hell with their enemies. What to do with them? Start a war? Keep at it for years? Very good. That'll teach them.

Thank goodness I'm not one of those! Can't make a finn a bleeding heart liberal. Doesn't work that way.

I'll make it clear once again. No state should treat it's citizens as it's property. Now it's very good that war was brought into this discussion. Maybe it comes from the fact that we just had a civil war two generations ago. In 1918. Making brother take arms against brother. Literally in many cases. Oh, they were just doing their duty. Hunting and gunning down their neighbours and relatives. Putting them in concentration camps. Executing them. Just doing their duty, for the country, for freedom, for their ideologies. And it's still there. It still is. Whether your family was one of 'us' or one of 'them'. A lot of dirty laundry still left to be done, facing the past, admitting it. Killing didn't make it go away. Punishing the ones that lost, the side that was judged to have started it didn't make it go away. Oh, both sides did horrible things, there was a lot justice to be done, a lot of punishment to dish out. Didn't make it better though. Only time will.

Maybe it comes from living next door to Soviet Russia which systematically oppressed it's citizens for decades and all their bright-eyed ideologies justifying everything. It's the custom. It's the law. It's just and for the good of of the people. Plenty of criminals there, and no crime as horrendous as betraying the party, the people and the state. Away with them. Permanently if they're useless otherwise.

So no. I do not condone systematical neurosurgical operations for those whom the state deems as deviants. It is horrible. Not because the individual becomes a different person. That can and does happen by itself in the best of cases. Met a few killers who've redeemed themselves, but I wouldn't call them as my friends and perhaps never could. They made a choice to make something better out of the mess of a life they had before. This would not have been possible if they would've been executed. And with the leucotomy operation? Well, they would have a life and it would be better than the one that they had, perhaps even enjoyable in some fashion. Drastic measures though, so's death sentence. Irreversible. Make no mistake. Still, everyone, and I do mean every single monstrous horrible person deserves a second chance in life, or at least a half-a-chance. If you're mentally ill, you don't have that. If you're dead you don't have that. If you're incapasitated and you function better than you did before, well there's a small glimmer of hope.

 

For the record, I'd have prefered to execute Dr. Hess rather than what did happen to him, but I shed no tears for his fate.

It's not as property, but rather as members. A member breaks the rules, the state punishes them accordingly.

In North America, the Soviet Union was the poster chilf of evil. They seem to be a perfect example of such abuses. This is not what I am advocating. I'm advocating the death penalty, but only for the worst of offenses and after due process and consideration.

I would be inclined to believe that this is bloody rare. I don't consider this justification to spare the life of every criminal...

Why treat them better than their victims?

 

Pray tell what was the fate of the Swiss physiologist Walther Rudolph Hess of which Encyclopedia Britannica knows nothing about?

Yet you're advocating death penalty as a solution to overcrowded prison population, which might even be considered as a result of states own negligence towards it's own citizens!

No, actually it isn't rare. The majority of the prison population are still first-time offenders.

Because an eye for an eye until the whole world is blind is no way to go. They're not off the hook even if they would live for who knows how long if they function as normal people. If they do not function as normal people equipped with normal conscience, then why treat them normal? If there's something seriously wrong with the way that they function, then they should be studied as to prevent similar cases from performing similar acts. If you kill them, there's nothing left to study, nothing left to learn, no improvement to be made, no way to prevent it from happening again.

It is not the individuals who are irredeemable, but the situations, what has happened has happened and it is every individual's responsibility to prevent it from happening again. There are no evil monsters who need to be put down. Not as such. Every single normally functioning human being is capable of most monstrous acts. Every single one has the capacity for the most terrible of evils. Given the chance, you Gnarfflinger would go to war. To kill. The thing is that there is no good way of killing. If you set your mind to snuff out lives, you already have taken the path of destruction, one step, two steps and soon any of us would be the monster we've proudly gone to fight against. Torture. Disappearences. Terror. Mass murder. Just normal people.

This happens again and again, yet there are those who claim that they are above this, so high above that they would never sink to the level of their enemies. Yet it happens. Even to them. Again and again. Nature red in tooth and nail, your enemies are animals and you of the people, of the righteous. This gives you the right to kill them as you please, if only after you've proven beyond doubt that they are animals. This gives you the right to torture them, for all we know animals do not feel pain as we of the people know it. They know no fear. Kill or be killed. How humane.

 

There are some assumptions I'd like to address here. You seem to be saying that criminals are victims of circumstances who have no control over their actions. I don't buy this. I don't think most justice systems do either, though many take circumstances into account.

We are not talking about soldiers in a war or a man protecting his family. We are talking about people who for purely selfish reasons murder or rape their fellow citizens. Criminals of that sort are not victims. We treat them differently than we do decent citizens who have had the same opportunities and temptations to commit crimes and yet have chosen not to do so.

To equate a stone cold killer with an honorable soldier going to war is ridiculous in the extreme.

As for the brain surgery thing, that one has been the topic of science fiction writers for years. Certainly as portrayed in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" it was a horrible thing done to the main character, but the main thrust of that book was (arguably) that all crime is society's fault and no one bears any individual responsibility for anything. I don't know many people who buy that idea 100%.

If it saved someone from getting raped or killed, I would advocate brain surgery on someone who has demonstrated a willingness (that is, by actually doing it) to rape or kill. We're also not talking about minor crimes here.

 

Isnt a soldier in a war a stone cold killer? I thought that was a good thing and the entire point of wars, for soldiers to kill other soldiers so middle aged to elderly men could reap the benefits?

 

I must have the wrong Hess. I was thinking of the German that found himself locked in some prison at the end of WWII--the only prisoner there. Such Brain Surgery sounds as bad as something the Nazi's would have done.

Only part of the solution. This is just the part that gets the most attention.

First time offenders, okay, but how many actually turn their lives around?

We'd stop when the people who go around gouging the eyes out of others are blinded. Do you seriously think that enough of the population does that to lead to that result? If that's the case, then maybe that 12 year maximum sentence doesn't work that well...

Subjecting them to horrific experiments? Sounds interesting, but again, cruel and unusual punishment.

But the killers won't kill again. Punishment assumes that prevention has failed. By granting freedom, I doubt that you'd be able to prevent further problems anyway...

And those that choose such paths deserve death.

 

About 2/3 IIRC, but how much an improvement in one's life could be considered redeeming? What if they can't get a job after their prison sentence, because of their prison sentence? Would they be better off dead? What if they work the rest of their lives in a low-income, low status jobs? Would they be better off dead? What is the worth of an individual life and how much must one benefit the society to pay off his/her debt to society to have only the right to live? And the debt to the humankind? By only the fact that you and I are alive and live in affluent countries means that by consuming limited resources we are limiting and indirectly causing other people to live their lives in poverty. Negligence and ignorence kills more in this world than any serial killer ever could. It's the tragedy of commons you see. Every action has it's consequence.

No, just the usual psychiatric, psychological and neurological experimentation and evaluation. Now is neurology so horrible and frightening that it should be banned? Is psychiatry? Is psychology?

I seriously think that every single normally functioning human being is capable of monstrosities. There is too little of knowledge of what turns a sane human being into an insane one. Too many unkown variables. On the level of individual psychology and on the level of society, not to mention how complicated the issue becomes when you're trying to find out which affects which. If Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt are correct in Freakonomics by stating that Roe vs. Wade was one of the most significant factors, or the most significant in reducing crime rates, then one of the conclusions to be drawn from that would be that the state can be and is an active player in this matter. Surprise, surprise. Dare I even draw such conclusions that by educating it's citizens a state could reduce it's crime rate as well? Or that by giving each citizen more even-footed standing you could reduce alienation by the lowest social classes, reduce unhappiness and thus reduce crime rates?

Who's granting freedom? I really do mean to ask this who are the people granting freedom to killers and what is the reasoning that grants freedom to them? There is no one single cause on one single level that grants a freedom to a killer. There is no single one defence a skilled defence attorney has available. Remember Twinkie defence for instance? If the judicial machinery malfunctions, just like any machine, it doesn't make the problem to go away if you hammer the products the machine has made. "Damn, the cookie factory's making bad cookies again! To crumbles with the cookies! *smash*" No, first you find out what's wrong. Then you fix the problem. Then you make bloody sure that the cookie factory makes only prime cookies. By thinking that death sentence is a solution to the problem, or even a part of it, you're taking the easy way out.

There are no choices to be made! That's what makes a killer, or just your regular harmless crazyperson! That's the thing that most usually defines a psychiatric case, the lack of choices.They don't deserve anything, since for them there's nothing for them to be deserved. Nobody chooses to go crazy. It happens. They don't get a get-out-of-jail-free card for being cuckoo...Oh, wait they do But that's just the thing, isn't it? The whole problem, right? Can't be held responsible if they're mad? Who on earth in their right mind is suggesting such a thing? The defence attorneys? And the judges and the juries buy that. Now what's the major malfunction here? I'd say it's the lack of understanding on how the human mind works, especially if it's not working as it should.

 

Now you see the problem. Society is not always willing to forgive. When you have to compete for employment, who will have a better chance to get hired: the person who has been in society for 12 years, working and serving in volunteer positions, possibly getting mroe training, or the person that's been rotting in jail for twelve years? The consequences of their actions do not end when their time is up.

The value of a human life is such that the deliberate killing of an innocent human can only be repaid by the forfeit of the killer's life.

There would be much less poverty if resources would be distributed more sensibly, but that's beyond our abilities. If the government and corproations were more concerned with social welfare, then perhaps there would be less crime from those in a lower economic position.

No arguement here, but again, it's not deliberate. This is something that can be studied and corrected. There just seems to be a lack of desire by those that have the power/responsibility to do so.

But are that many doing these things? Until that significant a percentage of the populace is committing capital offences, then I'll worry that the death penalty is a bad thing...

Yes, these things would reduce crime, and thus allieviate prison crowding. But it only reduces, not prevent entirely. Punishment still is an important factor in the rule of law.

By setting a sentence maximum at 12 years, the killer is free after 12 years. I still disapprove, and think it mocks the dead.

I'm talking normal cases here. Where the normal person chooses to kill, rape or betray their country. They make the decision they must live with the consequences--and if that means death, they must live with that until the sentence is carried out.

 

Well the executions are back on. Supreme court just ruled that the lethal injection method is not an inherently cruel process. Kentucky, Virginia & Texas will all have executions scheduled by the end of may.

 

Thanks for the info, Martaug. While I am a proponent of the penalty in the most serious cases, I hope the states in question are very careful in their procedures -- in other words, I hope they kill the right (ie: GUILTY) people!

 

i have always thought that we should have a special unit that does nothing but review the entire trial & all of the evidence within 6 months of the trial. after that, if nothing is found to have been done wrong, straight to the chair, needle, or whatever method that is used i that state

 

It sounds like that is part of the process, but it takes to long because they leave it to lawyers...

 

Gnarff,
Do you think it should be done by people who are not lawyers? By people who have no training in legal matters?

 

The Lawyers go over the trial with a fine toothed comb. I think it might not be a bad thing to have trained investigators look over the evidence that is still available after the trial too.