Just Another Political Post.

[--Pete]

Hi,

My chances of being the victim of some criminal exists whether we execute murderers or not.  My chances of being wrongly executed by the state exist only if the state executes people.
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You are missing a fundamental point. Most true criminals (i.e., robber, muggers, etc.) have almost a 100% recidivism rate. However, the probability of being the victim of one of these criminals after he is executed drops, amazingly, to zero. Indeed, the probability of being a victim of crime is directly proportional to the number of criminals in the areas you frequent. Now, there are two ways to reduce the number of criminals. The first is to have fewer people become criminals. This is accomplished by a combination of giving people more opportunity to make a crime free life for themselves and making crime too 'expensive' to pursue as a career. The second is to remove more people who have embraced crime from society. This is done by either incarcerating them or executing them. Given what I've said above about recidivism, the only two rational punishments for *real* criminals (and just who are and aren't in that category is a separate discussion) is life without parole and death. That is independent of what their crimes actually were. The principle here is not retribution, not punishment, but simply protecting society.

Does everyone consider the current system good enough, as Occhi does?

I do not consider the present system 'good enough'. In 2003 there were 1,381,259 violent crimes and 59 executions! That, to me, is not 'good enough' by a factor of 23,400 to 1.

Personally, I am more interested in the question of live in prison vs. the death penalty - how much more of a deterrent is one vs. the other?  How cruel or humane is one vs. the other?  Should public taxes be used to keep dangerous offendors alive for 50+ years?

Well, lets see. With a population of 291 million people and a traffic mortality rate of 40,000, the odds of getting killed in a traffic accident are are about three times higher per year than are your odds of getting executed for committing a violent crime. Do traffic fatalities deter driving? Then what makes you think that a one third as great a capital punishment probability will deter crime?

The effect of the death penalty as a deterrent to crime can only be determined if there is near a 100% of suffering that penalty if you commit a crime, and if that probability becomes common knowledge among that lower segment of society most likely to commit the crime.

So, asking if the death penalty is a deterrent can only be answered, "No, not in the manner it is (not) being implemented at present." And the cost of the death penalty argument is again bull#$%&. That cost is driven up by the arbitrary requirements that are imposed on the death penalty as opposed to, say, life without parole. Indeed, for an innocent man, the former is preferable to the latter, since the likelihood of his innocence being uncovered is greater if he is due to be executed than if he is doomed to rot in jail forever.

--Pete