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    21st Century Ideas: Death Penalty/Alcatrez VS Paying Tax Dollars Keeping Them Alive

    Convicted Criminals, Sex Offenders, Murders, Ect

    Started by: cruisekool Raves:6

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    I want to discuss what people think about the fact of people commiting such horrible and immoral crimes. Whether its rape, murder or domestic abuse. Noone should have to live and endure such a life. Its wrong and for each person who goes to prison to get the luxuries of the outside world, some more of what most of us can't even afford such as big screen tv's and a full library and education. And the part that really irritates me its all with OUR tax money. Why dont we put that towards funding our childrens schools or help with the struggling economy. It costs approximatley $27,000 per year. If someone goes in at age 30 for murder and lives until age 80 its costing approximately $1,350,000 to care for them. And if there are 3,000 murders locked up? Im sure you get the idea. Our forefathers are probably rolling in their grave over this. They believed in eye for a eye, tooth for a tooth and thats the way it should still be today and tomorrow. This way it means if someone knows they will die if they murder someone and wont get away with it. 9 out of 10 times the person will reconsider it. Its either that or reinstate Alcatrez Island as the Nations Prison for such convictions and with harsh conditions people will still be as reluctant to commit such a henious crime.

    \\\"if someone knows they will die if they murder someone and wont get away with it. 9 out of 10 times the person will reconsider it.\\\" First, this doesn\\\'t seem to be true. If it were, states without the death penalty would have 10 times the murder rate of those with it. Second, I\\\'d argue that one of the things that makes us a decent and civilized society is that we *do* honour the sanctity of human life. Even at a cost to ourselves.

    I suggest turning death row and life sentences into a year-round gardener\\\'s force. Inmates will undergo a rigorous reformation program funded by profits from crops sold from prison silos. This will hopefully offset the costs of taxes as well as provide food for both prisoners and innocents. People who were once a harm to society will learn to feed the hand they had bitten. Instead of an eye for an eye, it will be a pair of hard working hands for a dozen to a hundred hungry mouths. Furthermore, in the event of a mistrial, the accused may simply be taken out with minimal harm. The focus is on compensating for the grievances wrought on society, not revenge. And in a world full of threats, society needs all the compensation it can receive. Now, this may ring a few bells back to the Soviet Gulag, so we must make sure prisoners are well treated and working. I propose a variation on the \\\"Panopticon\\\" concept, with the observer broadcasting images publicly on the web, although there must be better alternatives for running a prison work force humanely.

    I agree with Nathan Sainted\\\'s idea. I think the whole \\\'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth\\\' mentality is incredibly flawed, and inevitably only leads to more violence. Nathan\\\'s idea of essentially turning convicts and prisoners into farmers would be massively productive and proactive. This way, those incarcerated would pick up valuable, necessary skills that could then be transferred to and in fact needed by the outside world.

    I have to aggree with Nathan Sainted here. I think that thr right to life is the most basic right a sentient being can have. As such it is a right that nobody should be able to touch, that is why im opposed to the death penality. Also think about the message that the death penallity brings: It\\\'s wrong to kill, but if we think your guilty of killing somebody it\\\'s ok for us to kill you.\\\". The Deathpenality leaves no room for error if you find somebody guilty and you kill him there is nothing that could possibly be done in order to reverse the punishment. No inmates in prisons need to learn the necesarry skills to function with our society while paying the damage they did to society. The suggestion of gardening is a very good one for this since food supplies seem to run low these days production of food is a good thing for society and if they get teached how to grow different food and such, the inmates learn valuable skills for life out of prison.

    Not to put too fine a point on it, Nathan Sainted\\\'s idea is slavery! The costs involved in maintaining discipline, supervision and security while forcing an antisocial population to work on farms would, I suspect, be really high. With basic farming equipment you can make a spear or a bomb, you can culture anthrax... all kinds of nasty stuff. What about political prisoners? Should they be forced to contribute to a system they\\\'re bent on changing? How will you keep their ideologies from disrupting the slave farms?

    Perhaps a compromise of these concepts. We can cut costs in our prison systems by cutting entertainment and reducing money and other resources commited to them, and replace these things with options for productive behavior such as gardening, etc. I agree that the death penalty is not the answer, but I also agree that forced labor is not the answer either. Instead, redefine prisons as secure communities where those we deem not safe can be held and those who have a debt to society can repay that debt, if they so choose.

    Nathan Sainted pretty much hit the nail on the head. But it must also be noted that all prisoners are not their justly. In fact the prison population is as large as it is not because of the increased crime, but the increased profitability of prisons. If this type of move were to go into affect it would have to be profitable for those private prisons (and the federal/state ones too). But it should not be an incentive for the prisons to create more crime. The whole objective of the prison industry has to shift from being an industry to being a social service. Training prisoners to work the land turns them into some of the most valuable members of society. But let us not measure that value based on profits.

    Should we also be considering \\\'secure communities\\\' from the point of view of protecting the accused or convicted from vigilante violence? How do we break the cycle of revenge in a world where photos and personal information can be circulated (and edited) instantly?

    Commision of heinous crimes is a voluntary resignation of ones membership in the family of man. Convictions as a result of raping a child, murder outside of self defense any violent acts within the confines of very clearly defined boundaries should immediately result in capital punishment. No exceptions. There is no rehab for a child rapist. Rehab to what? There is no room for that person in our society. YOU SHOULD BE AFRAID to commit that crime. THEY should be AFRAID of US. Why should we live in fear of them?

    Violence is inherent in our species. To think it can be eliminated by social engineering is foolish and a certain failure. Either we embrace the violence in acceptable means (rough sports and corporal/capital punishment for criminals) or we embrace it as victims of the criminals. There is no third alternative.

    You can debate whether people should be killed for committing these crimes. However, given current legal systems, it turns out that not all those who are convicted of them actually commited them, and vice versa. This is a sticking point for many, and mass support for a death penalty will never materialize while this is the case. Personally, I\\\'d argue that even in a transparent society where you know without a doubt whether or not someone commited the crime capital punishment should still be off the table. But that is still up for debate. In any case, without such a system at this time, any calls for capital punishment will be taken lightly by the majority of reasonable people.

    I add my voice to the chorus of those calling for the reinstatement of capital punishment. bastiat88 is spot on. The particularly heinous crimes that we are considering (in my mind mostly sex crimes) lend themselves to the application of genetic evidence, and therefore a statistically insignificant number of false convictions. What is more, however, is that capital punishment is necessary in order to demonstrate that we do NOT hold life that sacrosanct. We must, as a society, prove that honour, decency, and respect are to be valued more highly than mere life.

    A few things to consider...Neither deterrence nor reformation has been proven to be 100% true wrt to the death penalty. Those arguments must be immediately taken off the table. Economic arguments (cost of life sentences vs. cost of death penalty) are relevant, but they lead to other lines of thought. For instance, what if capital/habitual offenders were made into "slaves" of the state? They would live out their lives working at building infrastructure, providing low profit goods and services, etc. Thus, we get some economic "return" from them without going down the morally perilous road of executing them. Peace, SR

    Death penalty or life sentence is a moot point by 2019 because these characters who were born into less then optimum circumstances are transformed by cathartic rehabilitation processes. A fucked-over 1/2/3/4/5 year old take some rehabilitation but really, not much knowing what we know. They are very easily re-integrated into society and now of course children are not being born into such horrific circumstances, so the soceital problem is rapidly dissolving.

    The concept of citizenship and what it means to be a good citizen does not seem to be common knowledge anymore. I think the idea of helping the local community no matter who you are is not slavery but a wonderful idea. We should all have the idea that helping people is what we should do in our minds at all times. Giving back to locals, helping people, making the right choices for the good of the community as well as yourself is an important value. People with a lot of time on their hands, and the physical ability to help should help. Which is why a prison inmate give back program is such a great idea; they have the time and the ability, they should give back based on that criteria alone.

    I have two choices the way I see it. I can go to work every day or I can be homeless. Well I don’t like the thought of being cold, eating out of dumpsters and being looked down as a dredge on society. So I guess I am being (forced to work) if I want to have a roof over my head, have a warm bed to sleep in, eat healthy food, watch some TV. Oh, and so I can pay my taxes, taxes on food, gas, sales, road use etc. etc. etc. And lets not forget the politician, that I probably didn’t vote for in the first place so they can make his/her six figure income, so they can debate with each other, (whenever they decide to show up for their jobs), if it’s ethical to execute prisoners. No I don’t think it is ethical to take another persons life. But I also don’t think it is ethical that I should have to pay for their big screen TV’s, their computers and internet access, their college education that I can’t afford to give to my children. Hell yes they should be made to work and support themselves. Call it what you want, force labor, slavery whatever. I have to do it to survive why shouldn’t they? Take away the TV’s and give they garden hoes. Take away the computers and give them spades and hammers and saws. Take away the college educations and give them trade manuals. You don’t work, you don’t eat! They are after all criminals, treat them so!




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