BF2S Forums Is a life relegated to end in prison worth maintaining?

jamesjosephkilroy wrote:

The punishment should fit the crime and be a deterrence to committing the crime.

If someone is thinking of committing a murder, then the punishment should be enough for them to think "this ain't worth dieing for." But if they know they have a good chance to beat the system and they are only going to jail and can get out, it is not a deterrence. We are primal beings. We like to think of ourselves as civilized. But when it comes down to it, our actions are primitive and civilization is just a thin layer. Criminals prey upon those they can take advantage of and see as weaker. They don't use reason, have compassion, or think of their or the victims dignity. These criminals are not civilized and have forfeited their right to remain in civilization.

I disagree.  Firstly the vast majority of murders are carried out either in the heat of the moment, where people don't have time to mull over their punishment, or by people whose psychology doesn't allow them to think of "consequences".   Do you think Timothy McVay (spelling?) gave a crap about being put to death when he planted that bomb? America has bred some real sick serial killers in its time....

This is proven by looking at murder rates.  The US's is much higher than in Europe (it is actually a legal requirement not to have a death penalty to join the EU) and in the US they have the death penalty so how do you figure that one out.  In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find a country where murders per capita have gone up since the abolition of the death penalty.  I'm sorry but the real world stats just don't back up any claim the the DP is a deterrant

=OBS= EstebanRey wrote:

This is proven by looking at murder rates.  The US's is much higher than in Europe (it is actually a legal requirement not to have a death penalty to join the EU) and in the US they have the death penalty so how do you figure that one out.  In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find a country where murders per capita have gone up since the abolition of the death penalty.  I'm sorry but the real world stats just don't back up any claim the the DP is a deterrant

by looking at the states that have the dp, you also see a drop in violent crimes, you have to be careful when looking at an international scale not to include countries that wantonly use execution as a means to maintain political strangleholds on the population, like Saddam era iraq for instance, and the US's murder rates are unique among western civilzations in that some of the highest rated areas are also some of the heaviest affected by gangs, the most notorious and violent being MS-13, consisting almost solely of illegal aliens and their immediate family, something the eurabian union is only just beginning to experience with the onset of illegal immigration (a recent phenomena for europe and directly relating to the muslim population), who had the heaviest hand in the more violent french protests of the past few years?

puckmercury wrote:

kr@cker wrote:

where's the "hang the murdering sonuvabitch, who fucking cares", I'm not one to waste tax money supporting the reading habits of serial murderers and rapists who like to visit the prison library

agreed.  I don't particularly care about the quality of life of someone deemed so reprehensible that they are in no way fit to enter society.  If a life is condemned to life in prison, I see no reason why society should maintain it.  I don't care it if is an easy way out, I'm not thinking of the criminal, I'm thinking of society.

If you were thinking of society, surely it would be more useful to force the prisoner into hard labour, whereby they can build houses, shopping centres etc for society.

I don't think the punishement should suit society, but the family/loved ones of the murdered.  For it is them that are the victims and are feeling the pain of the loss.  If it happned to someone I knew I would probably want to kill that person but I know two wrongs don't make a right and it wouldn't be me ending their life but the Government.  No, I would want them to rot in hell but being an athiest, the closest they'll come to that is life is in prison.  Also, this is a death sentence, an extremely slow one!

puckmercury wrote:

at which point their existence is still being maintained by the state.  If the families of the dead/victims choose the crime, then it becomes about revenge and retribution, which is not at all what I'm speaking of.  What I'm getting at is through our existing system of assessing guilt/innocence if a life is judged to be so void of worth that it should be confined to a cage, why maintain the life at all?  Not due to a punishment for the criminal, but to simply unburden society of that cancerous individual.

By putting them in gaol (jail?) you are removing them from society, that's the whole point.  We're not "maintaining" their lives (unless they're on a life support machine), we are punishing them for what they did by taking away their lives and replacing it with eternal solitude.  Also, as someone earlier pointed out, it is actually cheaper than the DP overall.......

With all the suicide bombers in the World I thought it would have been obvious that some have no fear of death in the pursuit of other peoples lives.  If/when you do put a Muslim terrorist to death he will only become a "martyr".  You've had a case recently involving one of the planners of 11/9 whereby the court imposed a life sentence rather than the DP.  I'm in no doubt, martyrdom came into the Judge's mind at some point.....

imortal wrote:

BN wrote:

state sanctioned murder is wrong. How can the state say "dont kill" but they kill themselves?

Check your dictionary.  If it is sanctioned by the state, then BY DEFINITION, it is not murder.  Murder is the illegal taking of a life by another.  All murder is killing, but not all killing is murder.  And they do it by passing laws, which the public at large accept. The state, as the enforcer of laws, has its own set of rules to follow.  Also, the state is not a person.  Try not to make that common liberal mistake.

Re-Phrased for the wanker

State sanctioned killing is wrong. How can the state say "don’t kill" but they kill themselves?


PS. The death penalty is not a deterrent.

Sheen1101 wrote:

I did a reasearch paper on death penalties and i found out that a lot of innocent people are sent to death row for a crime in which they did not committ. Plus there's a lot of people in jail that are innocent and has done nothing wrong. In my opinion i think the death penalty is wrong

I agree.

dhoar4 wrote:

How does this sound?

A 25 year old man rapes, and kills your 15 year old daughter.  He is arrested, but only after fighting off police.  In the process of fighting off the police, he kills a 45 year old single mother of 3.  He is given a life sentence.

Would you honestly want that pathetic piece of shit to have the easy way out, and get the death sentence.  Or would you want him to spend the next 60 years or so behind bars, without seeing a ray of sunshine.

I know what I'd want

I would want that turd to suffer the pain the victims had to. They should cut off his limbs and then hang him from a 30 story building with piano wire.

The Death Penalty = " DONT KILL PEOPLE ITS WRONG, IF YOU DO....UM, WE WILL KILL YOU"

Lock them up, and let them rot in prison all their life instead

dhoar4 wrote:

AAFCptKabbom wrote:

I'd rather have the needle stuck in my ass rather than my new husband sticking me in the ass for the rest of my life.

Ok, just so you guys understand, not every guy in jail fucks other guys up the arse in there.  It happened a few times and then rumours were made that in every jail, the same shit happened.  It still happens, but certainly not as much as you guys think...

jail no, prison yes, two very different things.

=OBS= EstebanRey wrote:

By putting them in gaol (jail?) you are removing them from society, that's the whole point.  We're not "maintaining" their lives (unless they're on a life support machine), we are punishing them for what they did by taking away their lives and replacing it with eternal solitude.  Also, as someone earlier pointed out, it is actually cheaper than the DP overall.......

But we are maintaining their lives.  They are still alive, albeit in prison, and they are alive.  If you look at some of the most despised criminals in the British prison system, e.g. the Moors Murderers - Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, they are prevented from suicide and they are being kept alive without possibility of parole.  A Home Office study showed that it costs over £36,000 to keep each and every prisoner in prison, each year, in the UK.  That's more than I earn and yet these criminals are costing the state that much for having done crime.

We don't have the death penalty here but I think we should.  Our prison population is growing all the time and something needs to be done about it.  Obviously life in prison is not a sufficient deterrent.  Perhaps we should take the next step and remove these people from our society, permanently.

However, if we want to be really tough, bring in execution for lesser crimes.  If we really want to remove the criminal element from society, make the death penalty visible, for any crime which would have ordinarily resulted in a prison sentence and no more death by lethal injection in the prison, seen only by a handful of chosen individuals.  Bring back public hangings, in a city's central square.

I know this will sound harsh but do we really want to spend upwards of £36,000 ($60,000 US) to keep a person in prison for a year?  I certainly don't.

-=CB=-krazykarl wrote:

dhoar4 wrote:

AAFCptKabbom wrote:

I'd rather have the needle stuck in my ass rather than my new husband sticking me in the ass for the rest of my life.

Ok, just so you guys understand, not every guy in jail fucks other guys up the arse in there.  It happened a few times and then rumours were made that in every jail, the same shit happened.  It still happens, but certainly not as much as you guys think...

jail no, prison yes, two very different things.

You know what he meant.  People use the word jail unofficially instead of saying prison

I think all life sentences should be carried out in...

AZKABAN!

Lazzars wrote:

getting ass raped in prison every day for 10 years is enough to rehabilitate anyone

i don't think any intelligent person would want to go back to it

Then why are there so many repeat-offenders?

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-07-24 14:05:03)

Well it seems that everyone is caught up on retribution and getting their pound of meat out of the convict as opposed to simply carrying their removal from society to the logical conclusion.

I maintain that if they're convicted to life in prison, there is no point in them continuing to exist.  Their continued survival continues as a mockery and continued nuisance to a society, to say nothing of the possibility of escape or furthering criminal acts from within prison walls.  Oh well.