Eventually death penality abolished

[TheFaithfulStone]

you are welcome to maintain your killers at state expense as long as you wish

 

Unfortunately, cheaper to let them live than to kill them.

 

see?

 

Personally, I'd rather execute child molesters than murderers. I can think of good reasons to kill people - but I have a little trouble thinking of a good reason to rape a seven year old.

 

(Not that robbery is a good reason, mind you.)

 

TFS

[CraigD]

… people who are sent there would not have the privilege to leave and would have to work for their sustenance rather than robbing other people of their earnings. …

I think this statement highlight the failure to consider a possibility common to most of the “Escape from New York” / Colonial Australia penal colony proposals in this thread.

 

Why assume that people who have a history of choosing to rob other people rather than working for their sustenance would suddenly change their behavior when placed in a setting where there are no cops or courts, and their potential victims are other inmates?

 

Proponents of unsupervised penal colonies could arguably be assumed to not really care if inmates victimize other inmates (though, fortunately, the laws of most nations do). Another possible problem with such colonies exists: What if the inmates decide to leave the colony, and resume a life or crime in their old or new locales?

 

Although prisons may seem excessively expensive, patrolling a large island to assure against escapes is likely even more so. One might ask how the inmates would make such an escape, with nothing but what nature provides. Answer: any ecosystem that provides food also provides materials with which one can build an oceangoing vessel; Outsiders might help. What outsiders? First, friends (convicts do have some who are not also convicts). Second, people interested in making money. One might ask “what money?” Here, the answer turns dark. Absent the ability or inclination to produce tradable wealth from natural resources, but provided with a perpetual stream of (often young) human beings, the convicts would likely trade in human beings.

 

So, unsupervised penal colonies would likely:

• be expensive;
• result in increased crime against their inmates;
• create lawless, potentially feudal societies;
• not reliably remove the most resourceful (and likely most dangerous) inmates from society; and
• create a high-volume slave trade.

Based on these possibilities, I’m against the proposal. :cup:

[questor]

Craig, after we set up the penal colony they are on their own. no guns. no guards, no authority except their own. why should we care what happens to people who refuse to obey the rules necessary to live with others? they can create their own society and make of it what they will. they cannot escape because of the aircraft carrier that cruises the area with orders to eliminate any floating object. as far as expense, you have eliminated the 10 BILLION dollars we now spend on the penal system, and converted penitentiarys into learning centers. what better way to satisfy the liberals (no death penalty ), and rid society of the ones who want to destroy us ?

[CraigD]

Craig, after we set up the penal colony they are on their own. no guns. no guards, no authority except their own. why should we care what happens to people who refuse to obey the rules necessary to live with others? they can create their own society and make of it what they will. they cannot escape because of the aircraft carrier that cruises the area with orders to eliminate any floating object. as far as expense, you have eliminated the 10 BILLION dollars we now spend on the penal system, and converted penitentiarys into learning centers.

I think you underestimate the cost of operating a naval blockade, and overestimate their effectiveness, particularly against small craft.

 

Including capitol cost, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, without support vessels or aircraft, costs about $0.5 billion/year to operate. Operating the minimal air patrols necessary to patrol about 1,200 km of coast costs about $.25 billion a year, of which about half is the cost of replacing the about 3 /year expected lost aircraft and crews. Assuming substance farming, and islands remote enough to be blockadable, a single aircraft carrier would be able to secure anywhere from 5,000 to 50,000 inmates. The current US prison population is about 500,000, so between 10 and 100 aircraft carrier would be required to blockade the entire US prison population on remote islands, for a cost of $7.5 to 75 billion/year. For comparisom, the entire US federal budget for all law enforcement is about $20 billion/year. For the military, excluding expenses such as the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, it is about $400 billion/year.

 

The idea of a 100% effective blockade was a good plot device in the movie “Escape from New York”, but is really fictional. The major reason: weather. On a windy, rainy night, or even day, an aircraft carrier can actually collide with a small craft and remain unaware of its presence.

 

Another reason to resist exile-style penal colonies is that, historically, societies that had them tended to find them a convenient place not only for socially undesirable criminals, but for political dissidents, officials of deposed political factions, executives and senior staff of out-of-favor private companies – the list goes on. The absence of an ongoing appeal process is a recipe for judicial abuse.

 

It’s not unreasonable to assume that unsupervised penal colonies might form their own laws and governments, and, in cooperation with their colonial parent nations, blockade themselves, but the chance of this occurring is far from assured, and the effect of even a successful government formed from such a colony on the world is difficult to predict.

 

Another factor should be considered – even if these penal colonies are segregated by gender, its unlikely that, without internal supervision, the importation of people of the opposite sex could be prevented. Almost immediately, this would mean children, who would be subject to the same conditions that the inmates are, a difficult eventuality to reconcile with the idea that children are “born innocent”.

what better way to satisfy the liberals (no death penalty ), and rid society of the ones who want to destroy us ?

While at least a few people have commited serious crimes out of a desire to destroy society, most only want what people who do not commit serious crimes want – personal gain. Although, as a group, criminals are not particularly mindful of such things, few, I think, fail to understand that the destruction of society would be as harmful to their lives as to the lives of non-criminals. The relationship of criminals to society in general is not as simple as all out war.

[Rincewind]

Rincewind, i have no problem with word definition, i have a problem with deciphering the meaning of paradoxes.

you seem undecided as to what type animal will ensue from the fertilized egg

of a human being. what other animals usually ensue from this union?

you are against war but you are ok with killing if someone threatens your family. this would seem to indicate you would kill to protect yourself and some family members, but not to protect others or your country and countrymen.

i guess this also means you would prefer that in time of war, you would want your countrymen to risk their lives to protect you. am i correct in my

appraisal ?

Of course, this is all beside the point in a discussion of State sanctioned pre-meditated murder, but I'll attempt to answer your points.

 

I am not undecided as to what a human embryo will grow into any more than I am undecided as to what a human egg or sperm will grow into if they meet in the fertilisation process. You obviously think that a fully sapient human being is created at conception; I don't. I cannot see how this can be prior to the formation of the brain stem. Your "what other animals usually ensue from this union?" is stupid and not worthy of an intelligent discussion.

 

You have misrepresented me when you say I am "ok with killing if someone threatens your family." I'm not ok with killing under any circumstances. I said that I do not judge one who has killed in self defence or defence of loved ones where restraint was not a viable option, and neither should society or the law. There is a big difference between the two. Please try to see it.

 

In time of war, I would not want my countrymen to do anything I was not prepared to do myself. Happily, I have never lived through a military invasion. If I was called on to take up arms to defend my country from an armed invading army, I would probably do so. I am against war and invasion of another sovereign nation, no matter the pretext.

 

So, no, you are not correct in your appraisal.

[questor]

Craig, since you took the time to discuss the negatives of my idea, i will answer with the positives. your replies are in quotation marks.

'' i think you underestimate the cost of operating a naval blockade, and overestimate their effectiveness, particularly against small craft.''

this is not a blockade. no one is trying to visit this island. there are no small boats nearby--why would there be ? one carrier with about 20 planes would be sufficient. it could be a retired carrier, not the newest. there would also be aerial reconnaisance ,close up and whenever you choose.

''Another reason to resist exile-style penal colonies is that, historically, societies that had them tended to find them a convenient place not only for socially undesirable criminals, but for political dissidents, officials of deposed political factions, executives and senior staff of out-of-favor private companies – the list goes on. The absence of an ongoing appeal process is a recipe for judicial abuse''

the judicial system would remain the same as now. i stated judicial appeal would be maintained. for the problems you describe the whole judicial system

would have to break down.

''Another factor should be considered – even if these penal colonies are segregated by gender, its unlikely that, without internal supervision, the importation of people of the opposite sex could be prevented. Almost immediately, this would mean children, who would be subject to the same conditions that the inmates are, a difficult eventuality to reconcile with the idea that children are “born innocent”.''

there would be no gender separation. they would form their own society, make their own laws, abort children, kill each other , do whatever they wish.

they just wouldn't be doing it in the States.

if your 20 billion dollar figure is correct, my proposal would at least halve it, plus enable us to convert the prisons to educational facilities.

if you looked on the positive side of this scenario, you could see the advantages, notwithstanding the fact that it will probably never be accomplished.

[Boerseun]

You've got two choices:

 

Capital punishment, where you turn the State into a murderer,

 

or...

 

Incarceration, where you turn the State into a gay dungeon master.

 

Choices, choices...

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

I know this is off topic... but... Boerseun new pic?

[HydrogenBond]

The death penalty is actually merciful. The correct way would be to the execute the murderer with the same technique they used on their victim plus a little extra for all the family victims that are created due to the loss of a loved one. If they were given the choice between lethal injection or being chopped up with an ax, lethal injection would appear very humane.

[Michaelangelica]

SOME EXTRACTS FROM:

http://www.amnesty.org.au/home/spotlights/death_penalty_20,000_on_death_row_across_the_world

 

Amnesty International has revealed that over 20,000 people on death row across the world are waiting to be killed by their own governments.

 

In its latest annual analysis on the use of the death penalty worldwide, Amnesty International also disclosed that at least 2,148 people were executed during 2005 in 22 countries - 94 percent in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the USA alone. 5,186 people were sentenced to death in 53 countries during 2005.

 

The organisation cautioned that these figures are approximate because of the secrecy surrounding the death penalty. Many governments, like China, refuse to publish full official statistics on executions while Viet Nam has even classified statistics and reporting on the death penalty as a 'state secret'.

 

 

As the world continues to turn away from the use of the death penalty, it is a glaring anomaly that China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the USA stand out for their extreme use of this form of punishment as the 'top' executors in the world," said Ms Khan.

 

In China - the country that accounts for almost 80% of all executions - a person can be sentenced and executed for as many as 68 crimes, including non-violent crimes such as tax fraud, embezzlement and drug offences.

 

In Saudi Arabia, people have been taken from their prison cells and executed without knowing that a death sentence has been passed against them. Others have been tried and sentenced to death in a language they didn't speak or read.

 

In the US, two men were released from death row in 2005 after evidence of their innocence emerged.

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

I've heard that in some countries drinking and driving gets yuo the death penalty.....I can't remember which ones (turkey is one of them I think?)...anyone else heard of this?