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Report: US Ranks 5th in Global Executions

jamesrage said:
If it didn't take 10-20 years to execute many of those criminals we could be number one or two. I am sure scumbag sympathizers will see being one of the top 5 as a bad thing.
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You know what I love most about any debate on any aspect of criminal justice?

It so often boils down to those of us who object to something the government is doing in the name of fighting crime being called "scumbag sympathizers" or something equally asinine.

Because yes, of course, if we disagree with you it means we're BFFs with the robbers, rapists and murders. :roll:
 
TacticalEvilDan said:
Because yes, of course, if we disagree with you it means we're BFFs with the robbers, rapists and murders. :roll:
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It's fine if you wish to put more interest in the process of Legality than in the idea of Justice. Just please don't ever suggest that we have a Justice system in this country. What we have is a Legal system. Nothing more. The system is more interested in the fact that some $10 an hour clerk mistyped the address on a search warrant or if he (a lifelong resident of the US) was read his Miranda rights in the proper dialect of Spanish, because he doesn't actually speak ENGLISH; than on whether or not that the individual is actually guilty of the crime they are charged with. I think THAT is what most of us are furious about. Until we return to the idea of a JUSTICE system, that's not going to change.
 
America's 43 executions in 2011 ranked it fifth in the world in capital punishment,
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Huh, I wonder why they chose to rank without consideration of population size. Could it be because the US has the third largest population, and by making the conversion we'd fall from #5 to who knows where - #18? #30? We're "in the company of" Saudi Arabia and Iraq, who had more executions but have populations about a 10th of our own? Same goes for Iran with a quarter of our population. Now China has about 4x our population, but they're thought to have executed "thousands" according to Amnesty International, whereas we executed 43. How exactly does that put us in the same company?
 
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Tigger said:
Please show me the executed criminal who has EVER committed another crime after their execution? Gotten a parking ticket? Talked back to a cop?
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Show me study that shows the death penalty is an actual deterant against further crime.
 
jamesrage said:
The fact is the main purpose of the justice system is to punish offenders,so the death penalty serving as the ultimate punishment is practical. It is the scumbag sympathizer argument that criminals are somehow sick and that prisons should serve as something like a hospital for criminals.
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I'm always entertained by small-government conservatives complaining about the nanny government on the one hand and citing "punishment" as one of the roles of government on the other -- Like it's our mommy and daddy or something.
 
Tigger said:
Show me an executed prisoner who is/was truly innocent. Not just of the crime he/she was charged with, but truly innocent. I doubt you could actually find one.
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Of course we can't -- because it is in the best interests of the authorities to let sleeping dogs lie once someone has been executed. There's no way anyone could convince them to go digging around in a capital murder case after the fact. Not only would it be humiliating for them, it would be the end of capital punishment.
 
DVSentinel said:
Only if you commit a capatil murder.
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Right and if your proven guilty, and if it was a faulty trial and there is proof that you didnt do it, we still kill ya anyways!
 
Tigger said:
It's fine if you wish to put more interest in the process of Legality than in the idea of Justice. Just please don't ever suggest that we have a Justice system in this country. What we have is a Legal system. Nothing more.
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I don't think I've ever asserted that we actually have an honest-to-Bob justice system. Many of my objections to how the system crushes lives without regard to a sense of proportion fit quite nicely into the above characterization.

Tigger said:
The system is more interested in the fact that some $10 an hour clerk mistyped the address on a search warrant
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I think you might have missed this Supreme Court ruling:

United States v. Leon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tigger said:
or if he (a lifelong resident of the US) was read his Miranda rights in the proper dialect of Spanish, because he doesn't actually speak ENGLISH
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You don't think it's reasonable to expect a police officer to verify that someone does in fact comprehend the Miranda warning as read to them?
 
DVSentinel said:
So no prisoner has ever escaped and committed more crimes? Lets narrow that down, since murder is the only current capital offence, no murderer has ever escaped and committed more acts of murder?
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Not on any large aggregated scale, no. Particularly from modern day maximum security prisons. Escape is very rare. And the isolated cases which do occur do not occur with enough frequency to cause an aggregated decline in "safety".
 
Tigger said:
Please show me the executed criminal who has EVER committed another crime after their execution? Gotten a parking ticket? Talked back to a cop?

THAT is where the level of safety in society improves..... by taking the mad dog out of it before he/she bites someone AGAIN.
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This is a fairly stupid and intellectually dishonest argument. At the point at which you drop these forms of hysterics is the point at which we can have a real dialog. Until then, have fun with your crazy; but I ain't interested.
 
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Wait 'till the government decides to dub people "terrorists" and start executing them without trial.
 
Jredbaron96 said:
Show me study that shows the death penalty is an actual deterant against further crime.
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I'm not sure there's ever been a study done about how many dead people commit crimes after they're already dead. Personally, I don't believe that execution is CURRENTLY a deterent to future crimes by other people. There are two reasons for that....

1. There is no required public viewing of these executions
2. These executions are carried out in way too "humane" of a manner.

Some 15 year old thinking about putting a bullet into someone isn't going to be detered by the very slim chance that he heard about a fellow gang member being executed by lethal injection two weeks earlier. HOWEVER, the memory of being forced to watch that fellow gang member do the "rope dance" might just be enough to make him think twice.


TacticalEvilDan said:
I'm always entertained by small-government conservatives complaining about the nanny government on the one hand and citing "punishment" as one of the roles of government on the other -- Like it's our mommy and daddy or something.
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I think you miss a very important point about most Conservatives, TED.... We're not necessarily Small-Government as much as we are Properly Focused Government. Now that Properly Focused Government does tend to be somewhat smaller than what we currently have, but that's a byproduct, not the real focus.
 
Tigger said:
I'm not sure there's ever been a study done about how many dead people commit crimes after they're already dead. Personally, I don't believe that execution is CURRENTLY a deterent to future crimes by other people. There are two reasons for that....

1. There is no required public viewing of these executions
2. These executions are carried out in way too "humane" of a manner.

Some 15 year old thinking about putting a bullet into someone isn't going to be detered by the very slim chance that he heard about a fellow gang member being executed by lethal injection two weeks earlier. HOWEVER, the memory of being forced to watch that fellow gang member do the "rope dance" might just be enough to make him think twice.




I think you miss a very important point about most Conservatives, TED.... We're not necessarily Small-Government as much as we are Properly Focused Government. Now that Properly Focused Government does tend to be somewhat smaller than what we currently have, but that's a byproduct, not the real focus.
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So, that explains the unabated growth of government regardless of who is in power.
 
Dittohead not! said:
So, that explains the unabated growth of government regardless of who is in power.
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Pretty much. The problem is that under the current system there is really no way to do away with things once they're in the budget. So each group simply tries to focus the NEW spending on what they feel is important without any ability to carve out the great swath of things that they do not want to be spending money on because of the system we have in place.
 
Tigger said:
Pretty much. The problem is that under the current system there is really no way to do away with things once they're in the budget. So each group simply tries to focus the NEW spending on what they feel is important without any ability to carve out the great swath of things that they do not want to be spending money on because of the system we have in place.
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I've suspected as much for some time now. There isn't anyone willing to do more than pay lip service to cutting back the size of the government. One side wants to spend on their favorite programs, the other side on something else, but no one wants to actually cut back. Conservatives, real fiscal conservatives that is, not the kind that simply want to run your life for you and start foreign wars, are extinct in Washington.
 
Dittohead not! said:
I've suspected as much for some time now. There isn't anyone willing to do more than pay lip service to cutting back the size of the government. One side wants to spend on their favorite programs, the other side on something else, but no one wants to actually cut back. Conservatives, real fiscal conservatives that is, not the kind that simply want to run your life for you and start foreign wars, are extinct in Washington.
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The problem, in great part, is the system and the language in Washington DC. A "cut" is not really a "cut". It's simply a reduction in the rate of increase in almost all cases. Every time that a group stands up to suggest REAL cuts, they get beaten like a piniata in the media and the court of public opinion. I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who once said.... "The Republic will stand until people realize they can vote themselves monies from the public treasury." He was absolutely correct in that estimation. The moment we started giving people money, the government ceased to have any limits and we were screwed.
 
Tigger said:
The problem, in great part, is the system and the language in Washington DC. A "cut" is not really a "cut". It's simply a reduction in the rate of increase in almost all cases. Every time that a group stands up to suggest REAL cuts, they get beaten like a piniata in the media and the court of public opinion. I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who once said.... "The Republic will stand until people realize they can vote themselves monies from the public treasury." He was absolutely correct in that estimation. The moment we started giving people money, the government ceased to have any limits and we were screwed.
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That may be partly correct. Not all of the expansion of government involves giving people money.

But, you've put your finger on the problem: Nobody wants to cut back the size and power of the federal bureaucracy, they just want to "focus" it to better achieve their particular agenda. Of course, one person's proper focus is another's wasteful spending.
 
Can people please stop feeding the man-eating tiger?
 
Ikari said:
Not on any large aggregated scale, no. Particularly from modern day maximum security prisons. Escape is very rare. And the isolated cases which do occur do not occur with enough frequency to cause an aggregated decline in "safety".
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You seem to believe that scale should be a factor. If it happens even once, that is one time too many. If it is prevented from happening by the execution of a murderer, even once, then it has contributed to the safety of society.
 
DVSentinel said:
You seem to believe that scale should be a factor. If it happens even once, that is one time too many. If it is prevented from happening by the execution of a murderer, even once, then it has contributed to the safety of society.
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What about when an innocent person is executed? Does that contribute to the safety of society? The number of lives saved by cutting short the life of condemned criminals is exceedingly small if it is even a factor with today's security measures. Your logic is silly, because you are trying to save the lives of a few people who are probably not in any real danger by condemning to death a small number of innocent people who are on death row.
 
The left is extremely dumb trying to talk about this issue. Voters then get scared that Democrats will try to ban the death penalty, and will vote for Republicans.

I think this is just a moral issue. It is not there to prevent recidivism. It is there to be the ultimate punishment for cruel people. It is there to scare people from doing crime. I will say it is completly up to the state if they want to ban death penalty or not.

BTW: America was not the only western country who used the death penalty last year. Singapore, and Taiwan also did.
 
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