You misunderstand me, Catz. I'm not referring to white-collar crime, I'm talking about violent crime, capital crimes committed by people who have money, connections and representation - the things that many or most of those who end up on death row do not have - to ensure they avoid the ultimate penalty. What I'm saying is that justice is not blind and not equitable. The poor, the marginalised and the uneducated will always face the fullest consequences of their actions, whereas the moneyed and influential will not.
I disagree. There are plenty of convicted death row inmates who came from upper income brackets and aren't black. Furthermore, the fact that this is not as often applied towards someone with means does not mean that the crimes don't warrant this application. Apparently, until it is applied across the board in every instance, you don't ever believe it should be applied.
However, even if it were being applied equitably across the board, I suspect you'd still be squeamish about it, which means that the disproportionate application is not the real issue for you. It's just a dodge.
I think this is a poor argument unless you can show that it is the prisoners who, according perhaps to people of your mindset, should be executed who form the most serious risk to prison officers. I suspect it is gang-bangers, people of violence and career criminals who, whilst not having committed capital crimes, constitute the greatest numbers and pose the greatest risk to prison staff.
Charles Manson is who I think of when I think of a poster child for execution. Timothy McVeigh is another. Bob Berdella is a third. Any of the individuals on this list, for instance:
List of serial killers by country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What I'm thinking of are psychotics (now referred to as anti-social personality disorder) who kill for their own gratification and lack empathy in general. Those individuals are difficult to guard and dangerous to other inmates.
What I'm not thinking about are gang members, or any of the false (and frankly, rather offensive) position you've imagined that I hold. Of the eight gang members that I worked with that committed homicide, none are serving death row sentences, and none should be, in my opinion. Simple homicide is not enough to warrant a death sentence in the U.S., which you'd realize, if you'd actually researched this subject. It has to be an egregious or multiple homicides with multiple predicates in order for a judge or jury to grant a sentence of death in most parts of the U.S.
I do not believe that the death penalty should EVER be applied in less than capital cases, with the exception of individuals convicted of serial child rape and/or child killing.
Please stop creating false (and offensively racist) positions for me.
Your argument is a strawman. And yet, is it this group that constitutes the major social group represented on death row? No, that would be the poor, mentally ill and poorly-educated.
As stated above, you don't even understand my argument.
Nor do you seem to understand the statistics of death row prisoners.
Here's something that might surprise you:
Race and sentencing is another subject that the study shed light on. Conventional wisdom holds that African Americans constitute a disproportionately large share of those on death row, noted the authors. The study did show that the higher the proportion of murders by African Americans, the higher the proportion of African Americans on death row. However, it also showed that African-American murder defendants represent 50 percent of all murder defendants in the United States but only 40 percent of those on death row, and the gap is even greater where least expected -- in the South.
Cornell News: Death row demographics
Yes, there are more poor, poorly educated and minority people on death row than is represented in the general population. However, those factors play a major role in offending patterns.
Black people, on average, KILL MORE PEOPLE, per capita, than white people do (as a percentage of the population). Lower income people kill more people than higher income people do. Those are the dirty secrets that your noble argument doesn't encompass.
And, black murderers, per capita,
are less likely to be sentenced to death row, in spite of the fact that they commit 50% of the murders in the U.S.
When we've figured out how to keep people from killing each other (and in particular, how to keep black people from killing black people, since the largest group of murder victims in the U.S. are black), I'm sure the death row will sort itself out. At present, however, it is a reflection of actual crime numbers in the U.S. Blacks disproportionately murder people, and thus, are disproportionately represented in prison. I don't like it, I've spent my career trying to address it and stop gang-related violence, but it's a matter of fact.
Well, as you might guess, I believe that societies that jail fewer and work hardest to keep criminals out of institutions and still contributing to that society are the healthier for it.
That's a bias on your part, and is not necessarily supported by evidence.
To me, incarceration should be almost exclusively used for criminals that have committed violent crime.
More bias on your part.
White-collar and non-violent crime should be dealt with differently using supervision, financial penalties, part-time lock-ups, curfews and such like. I think over your side of the pond you use incarceration as much for political purposes, to show the wider society that the political class "is really tough on crime", as using it in the knowledge that it is working to protect society from future criminality.
Actually, I believe that financial crimes can be just as personally detrimental and damaging as a crime of violence. Do you think that a person whose life savings are stolen by Enron is better or worse off than a man who is stabbed and recovers from the injury? I've seen that financial crimes actually have a longer lasting detrimental effect on individuals than stabbings and other violent crimes do (victims, if they don't die immediately, usually recover without serious adverse effects). Further, someone who undermines the fundamentals of democracy isn't just injuring a single person, he's injuring millions of them. The sentence should fit the effects of the crime.
No, I haven't. I would be a hypocrite to claim that, had I had the same life experiences that you have had, I would feel exactly the same as I do now. I can't and won't say that. What I will say is that I do know of people (family, actually) who work in law enforcement who believe passionately that the DP is wrong and would not help in preventing crime. Your position maybe (how would I know?) a majority opinion amongst people in law enforcement and corrections sectors, but I don't believe that it is universally held. Even if it were, society is the body that should decide these issues, not just the sector of society tasked with administrating justice.
It's a flawed argument that the goal of the death penalty is crime prevention. It isn't. That's a false position created by people who are squeamish about culling the herd. The goal of the death penalty is to remove the ability to do harm from dangerous offenders. That's the only goal. And, when administered properly, the death penalty accomplishes that goal.
