Ah Death penalty, thou art never wrong...

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Jan 19 2007, 02:29 PM) [snapback]377992[/snapback]</div>

Nah.

The measure of a civilization is how it treats its prisoners, and the U.S. keeps company with some of history's finest examples of Advanced Civilization

One can argue for or against a death penalty without departing from the paths of reason - what appalls me is taking PRIDE in administering a death penalty; being HAPPY to do it; CELEBRATING it. So long as we are capable of CHEERING the calculated destruction of a human being, our claim to be above savages is a lie.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

I'm for the death penalty. It has nothing to do with glee or revenge or punishment or torture or thrills or divine justice or anything else.

It has to do with economics.

In fact...I'm for three strikes and you're dead.

NO PRISONER LEET BEHIND!

Last figure I heard was that it takes over $100,000 to feed, clothe, house, guard, etc. each prisoner. I have no idea where the figure comes from. ( I also heard that for every $1 spent on education $3 is saved down the line on prisons. We've obviously not been putting enough into education.) I don't care how inaccurate it is. An obscene amount of money is spent on the correctional system. And it's horrendously overcrowded in California. Prison reform consists of letting them out early to prey on us again.

It's not working.

The penal system has no idea what it's purpose is. Is it to punish? Well, not much punishment going on with color/cable TV, state of the art gym equipment and prison libraries better than some law offices. Is it to rehabilitate? Programs are haphazard and spotty with questionable success. Is it to simply protect society from the criminal element by isolating them from society? Well, if they're going to let them out early because of overcrowding, that isn't working either.

Well, I can't see my hard earned tax dollars being wasted on losers. Three strikes? You screwed up once. You did it again. And you didn't learn anything the first or second time and you did it again? And you're going to keep doing it so we're going to lock you up forever. Excuse me? Why should *I* pay for this? This carbon based waste of oxygen is going to be fed and clothed better than some of the working poor on my dime? With FREE HEALTH CARE. Better health care then the working poor. I don't think so. He or she has nothing to contribute to society and has proven repeatedly to be a detriment or downright danger to society. So...eliminate the waste of resources.

That will take care of a lot of overcrowding right off the bat. You can be innocent once. But three times? I don't think so.

I'm not talking traffic tickets here. I'm not talking three bounced checks. I'm talking violence. I'm talking drugs. I'm talking major crimes.

So the best protection, the surest way to protect society from this anti-social whackjob it so whack them. Problem solved. That will take care of the overcrowding.

Then you've got those that can be rehabilitated left. Those that can't be rehabilitated will eventually be three strikes and that will take them. So...rehabilitate everyone you can. Seriously. Standardize it. ACCOUNTABILITY! Prison funding should be standards based with results or they don't get any money. Why should they be different than schools? Why should they have carte blanche to screw up and then get more money? Every prisoner gets a GED who doesn't have a high school diploma. If your sentence is long enough you get a Bachelors. Masters degree even. And you work. Not the laundry. Not the kitchen. And no phone soliciting.

Train service dogs.

There is a program that trains inmates to do scientific experiments and take notes that can be analyzed by graduate students later.

Train them in a saleable skill.

Take away the overcrowding and what's left? Well, you can forget the library. As far as I'm concerned when you lose your right to vote you also lose your right to litigate. Aside from an appeal directly related to the case that landed you in prison, once that's over you do your time. No sueing the prison because you got chunky peanut butter or your eggs were cold. And you can forget the cable TV. You get one movie a week. The rest of the week you're going to be busy studying to pass those classes you're attending when you're not working. Take all of the free weights and weight machines out. The last thing I want is prisoners getting bulked up so when they're released they can beat me up without breaking a sweat. If they want exercise, there's jogging or yoga. Basketball is OK. No baseball for obvious reasons.

*MY* three strikes program should be incentive to get that degree, learn that skill, get on track and never return again. It may be your last.

Call it No Prisoner Left Behind.

They'll love it in Texas.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Jan 19 2007, 02:29 PM) [snapback]377992[/snapback]</div>

Old tired news, regrettably sad but true. Sometime after DNA testing first became accepted, late 80's I believe, the state of Illinois ran 13 (all it had at the time) of its death row prisoners through testing. Low and behold 10 or 11 of them were not a match. Other states at the time had done the same but did not have the ratio that Illinois did. Testing was halted, completely and I do believe that after this some states even passed laws that forbade DNA testing on prisoners or blocked DNA evidence after a guilty plea was entered. For this and other reasons I do not believe in the death sentence no matter how deserving.

Wildkow

 

Dammit, that's the second time in a row you posted something I agree with (the first time is here). Who are you and what have you done with Kow?!?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jan 19 2007, 06:46 PM) [snapback]378098[/snapback]</div>

It costs far more money to sentence someone to death than just to have him/her hang out for decades in the slammer. Regardless, the rate of error is unacceptable, not to mention the bias.

Wildkow

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Jan 19 2007, 06:57 PM) [snapback]378103[/snapback]</div>

OMG! Both on the same day! LOL! I think some nookielar radiation has impacted my critical thinking skills not to mention sapping my precious bodily fluids. I knew I should have worn my tinfoil cap and jock strap today. [attachmentid=6270]

Wildkow

p.s. I'm going back to bed maybe I can sleep it off.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jan 19 2007, 05:37 PM) [snapback]378071[/snapback]</div>

IF and I really do mean IF, you had to spend time in prison which country would you choose to spend the time in? Can you name another country that treats its prisoners with as much care as the USA? Did you know that transplant needy prisoners are put on the list, right along with the general population?

Also, forgive me for once again pointing out that you have painted all Americans with a rather broad hate saturated stroke. True there are some nut cases that stand outside and cheer the death penalty but in almost every instance I can think of there are far more out there opposing it. Your hatred of America is palpable, why do you remain in a country you hate so much. <_< Inquiring minds would like to know!

Wildkow

 

Just saw this and had to throw in my 2 cents. First things first, I am for the Death Penalty and not just because I live in Texas. I have worked for the prison system here for over 12 years and have worked as a correctional officer and as a parole officer. I have had contact with every offender in the system from trusties to death row offenders. I have seen Death Row offenders that maybe got the wrong end of the stick, but not because they were wrongly convicted but because it was a simple murder. I have also seen offenders who did not receive the death penalty who had committed truly horrible crimes. It is at this time that I must remember that these offenders are in the last link of Criminal Justice system. We are there to make sure that the punishment handed down from the Judiciary is upheld and completed. The offender was convicted by a jury of his/her peers.

I have read offense reports on death penalty cases and most of the time there was a confession to the crime. DNA results are an important piece of the evidence trail, but by all means it is not the only way to get a conviction. Yes people make mistakes, we are human after all.

I guess my biggest problem is that when people say how horrible the death penalty is is where do the victims and their families come in?? They had no choice how they died. The lucky ones died instantly from a gunshot...the unlucky ones.....well I just won't say what I have read and seen. The offender who received the death penalty basically gets a shot in the arm. I am truly a victim's advocate. I am tired of poor death row offenders and how they are being treated. Yes, they got their tv taken away from them, yes they have limited recreation, but they have a radio, access to magazines, books, newspapers, legal materials. They have 3 balanced meals, health care, dental care, clothing, etc. But what does the victim have access to??? Nothing, nothing at all.

Ok...that is my rant for the day regarding that aspect. I agree that something needs to be done regarding the prison overcrowding. Sending someone to prison for a small amount of drugs...not worth it. A 18 yr old who had consensual sex with his 16 year old girlfriend and the parents knew about it, but then got mad at boyfriend and now he is in prison...come on, please. He is not a sex offender!!! We have many different vocational programs available to offenders in Texas along with the opportunity to get their GED. It is up to the offender to make the effort to complete the programs. We can make them go to class, but we can't make them use the information learned when they are released back to society. I have had many tell me that they are going right back to what they were doing before they got locked up and have no qualms about doing it. We can give them all the tools, but unless they want to use them....

Maybe I got off topic a bit, but sorry I had an urge to grab a soapbox!!

 

I live in the state that I started the "Three Strikes Law."

I am going on record in seconding s.e.tx_parrothead and Godiva's comments.

Before I came to this state, I lived across the street from "The Concrete Mama" (Washington State Prison). Let me tell you, they had a pretty good life in there. My nephew worked there as a "Screw" (nickname for a prison guard). He told me quite a few stories about how the residents really got many chances to reform, but few did.

It just burns me up, that some people with twisted minds think that it's OK to take advantage of others. And then the 'Bleeding hearts' come along & feel so much compassion for them. Lord, please let them walk in the shoes of some of those victims or victim's families!

 

BTW this bleeding heart is a LIBERAL.

But I'm not liberal in all things.

While I believe in a woman's right to choose, I also agree in the death penalty and *my* version of three strikes.

I'm also quite authoritarian toward certain aspects of education. I'm a teacher and have my own views on education reform. They don't include standardized testing or merit pay. (Or school boards, consisting of political hopefuls who know nothing about schools aside from the fact they went to one, elected by the public.) But I certainly think a lot more kids should be expelled. If Johnny doesn't want to learn and repeatedly prevents others from learning, Johnny no longer has the right to a free, public education. He can just leave and his parents can either home school him or pay for a private school. A private school that will keep his parents money when Johnny once again gets expelled for extortion, assault or sexual harassment. This sorta trains Johnny for his future incarceration or avoidance of same. You get three chances, then you're out. But at least you get out alive.

I've got some authoritative ideas about other reforms.

Like the government pays back every cent it embezzled from Social Security.

And getting rid of the electoral college. And maybe primary elections. And maybe even political party nominations.

 

Well I'm no bleeding heart liberal, I'm an independent with a rightward lean. I also live in the 3 Strikes state. Furthermore, I voted for it and applaud it's enactment but I don't think that the three strikes has a death penalty component but I could be wrong. That aside, I will be against the death penalty until you can 100% assure me that not one person innocent or wrongly convicted will be killed. Until then I can not with a good conscious support the death penalty irregardless of how much some of these scumbags deserve to die. I suspect you will hold your views until the day that someone close to you loses their life or someone close to them loses their life in a death penalty case and you know that person was/is innocent. Then your position will probably change or perhaps someday if you are on a jury which sends someone to his/her death mistakenly then your position may change. With that in mind how do you that are for the death penalty responded to the article posted in this topic or to the case of Illinois?

Wildkow

p.s. I'm not even addressing the other problems within the system such as the prejudice towards minorities or the arbitrary and capricious manner in which it is enacted.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jan 19 2007, 11:35 PM) [snapback]378183[/snapback]</div>

I don't see these as authoritative, just mistaken, naively misunderstood or perhaps just self-serving. First, as far as I knoe the government is legally given the right to "borrow" from the SS fund. If you don’t like it change it through the electoral process. One of the reasons the Electoral College is/was setup is so that certain regions in the country can not dictate the course of the nation to the rest of the country. Doing away with the Electoral College would be a fine way for America to devolve into majority rule which this very form of government was set up to avoid. For instance once the Electoral College is abolished the influence of rural America would diminish greatly as the major populations centers (read cities) would dominate the political scene in almost all aspects. Since the cities are mainly liberal I can see why you and pols like Hillary support it. The support behind the abolishing of the Electoral College comes from a knee-jerk reaction to the election of 2000. This is a shortsighted and self-serving grab at power for the people that support it.

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jan 19 2007, 06:46 PM) [snapback]378098[/snapback]</div>

Amen

 

The death penalty debate boils down to this: Some people would rather see 1,000 innocent people get executed rather than see one guilty person get locked up for life. Some people would rather see 1,000 guilty people get locked up for life rather than see one innocent person get executed. I happen to belong in the latter camp.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fphinney @ Jan 19 2007, 09:56 PM) [snapback]378160[/snapback]</div>

I don't know about Washington State, but in CA, prison life is not so wonderful:

NPR - At Pelican Bay Prison, a Life in Solitary

From the Inside: Mule Creek State Prison

 

To all those who favor the death penalty, I have a question: How many innocent people are you willing to kill in order to have the satisfaction of killing some guilty ones? Are you willing to kill one completely innocent person in order to kill a hundred guilty ones with him? Are you willing to kill ten innocent people in order to kill a hundred guilty ones? Are you willing to kill a hundred innocent people in order to kill a hundred innocent ones? Are you willing to kill a hundred innocent ones in order to get one guilty one? Are you willing for the state to kill your mother, if it would mean that ten actual murderers got executed?

United States federal prisons are among the most humane in the world. A few enlightened countries are better, but not many. U.S. state prisons run the gamut from very humane, to pathologically cruel. But even in the best of prisons, the prisoners are not having a good time. Prison guards have a spectacularly distorted view of things, due to their intense animosity towards the inmates, sometimes crossing into downright hatred.

Question: Why do grown men in prison sleep with the blanket over their head in stiflingly-hot weather?

Answer: So the other inmates will not see them crying. It is a very hard thing to be separated from your loved ones for an extended period of time. The U.S. federal prison system has given up any pretense of rehabilitation. It regards its purpose as the warehousing of inmates. But imprisonment is punishment. The stress of overcrowding, and being separated from your friends and family, is very punishing. And anybody who says it's not obviously has never been imprisoned. And I repeat, that prison guards, for their obvious biases, are the least reliable of sources on the matter.

If you really want someone to suffer, as payment for a brutal crime, don't kill him: put him in prison for life. And if you want that punishment to be really cruel, keep him in solitary confinement. And let him have that TV, so that his descent into complete insanity is slowed a bit, so as to increase his suffering.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Jan 20 2007, 04:24 AM) [snapback]378186[/snapback]</div>

I also find myself in agreement with Wildkow today. I oppose the death penalty not on moral grounds (i.e., someone like Gacy being
excuted is fine with me) but as a matter of practicality. You just can't do it without occasionally killing the innocent. And the necessary process of appeal, often taking 10 years, that you need to try to be certain, not only can still fail, but can also run up costs approaching what it would have cost to keep the inmate in prison.

And as Wildkow noted, the disproportion with which it is applied to minority defendants also really turns my stomach.

We were lucky in Illinois that the Governor was caught in the midst of a scandal and halted executions by way of restoring his legacy.

 

I notice no one is addressing the fiscal cost. Are we to let the penal system be an economic black hole like Iraq? Are maybe we should privatize it and to make a profit?

No one has addressed the purpose. Punishment, Warehouseing, Rehabilitation. That comes back to standards and accountability.

Is prison cruel? Well, if it's so bad, why do those released continue to commit crimes and become repeat offenders? Are they just plain STUPID?

All I hear is about the one innocent person. I'm not reading the statistics on the number of wrongly convicted in prison. I'll bet it's a pretty small number. Maybe we shouldn't lock anyone up? Because there is always that little smidgen of doubt that they *might* be innocent...right? I'm mean...O.J. is innocent...right? He was found "not guilty". I'll bet the prisons are full of innocent people that were framed and then tortured into confessing when they were really innocent. I'd like to see the margin of error of innocent people in prison compared to, say, the number of people accidentally dying in hospitals due to malpractice.

Our judicial system is probably akin to our system of government, I.E. Democracy is the worst form of government, except for everything else.

Is it perfect? No. But it's becoming less and less so by the minute. And more and more expensive. I'm saying we can't afford it now and certainly can continue the way we are. I don't hear any good or workable ideas for "fixing" it. Letting criminals go early is hardly a solution. They're just going to steal from me and beat me up because they've learning that the threats of punishment are bogus. Their sentences will be cut short for expediency and to save a buck.

So far I've head nothing about prison reform.

Maybe we should put uniforms on all of them and send them to Iraq.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jan 20 2007, 09:39 PM) [snapback]378443[/snapback]</div>

Well, per cost the death penalty is more expensive than life imprisonment. You don't save money by executing people:

The California death penalty system costs taxpayers more than $114 million a year beyond the cost of simply keeping the convicts locked up for life. (This figure does not take into account additional court costs for post-conviction hearings in state and federal courts, estimated to exceed several million dollars.)

With 11 executions spread over 27 years, on a per execution basis, California and federal taxpayers have paid more than $250 million for each execution.

It costs approximately $90,000 more a year to house an inmate on death row, than in the general prison population or $57.5 million annually.

The Attorney General devotes about 15% of his budget, or $11 million annually to death penalty cases.
Source:
Tempest, Rone, "Death Row Often Means a Long Life", Los Angeles Times, March 6, 2005

I believe that the explosion in the prison population and subsequent early release of violent offenders due to overcrowding stems more from mandatory minimum drug sentencing laws than any other cause. That's a societal/health/addiction/criminal/economic problem that certainly isn't working out too well under the current war on drugs aimed mainly at interdiction rather than attacking demand/treatment/addiction issues.

EDIT, Added:
And given the recruiting shortfalls, some prisoner recruitment is going on through the 'moral waiver" program:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...ING42LCIGK1.DTL

And no, I have no suggestions as to a solution regarding prison populations, other than finding some mystical way to curb demand for drugs. Until demand shrinks there's really no way to win this war when considering the fiscal resources allowed law enforcement compared to the enormous income generated by illegal drugs.

And I quite agree with the "Our judicial system is probably akin to our system of government, I.E. Democracy is the worst form of government, except for everything else." I think you've hit it on the head there.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jan 20 2007, 05:39 PM) [snapback]378443[/snapback]</div>

Several posters above have addressed the cost: With even the present insufficient legal safeguards, it costs morte to execute a prisoner than to incarcerate him for life.

Some states are privatizing prisons. This means paying private companies to warehouse inmates. It also creates an industry with a strong interest in increasing the number of prisoners, and this prison industry puts big bucks into lobbying for ever-harsher laws, to put more people in prison for more time, thus further raising the cost of the prison system. And the more people are put into private prisons, the more powerful will be the lobby to get even more people into prison.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jan 20 2007, 05:39 PM) [snapback]378443[/snapback]</div>

As a nation, we don't seem to have any idea what prison is supposed to be for. Punishment? Rehabilitation? Prevention by isolation? Or merely vengeance?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jan 20 2007, 05:39 PM) [snapback]378443[/snapback]</div>

Everybody commits crimes. Drug use is as common in Beverly Hills as it is in Watts. But the police never bust down doors in Beverly Hills looking for a joint. Laws are selectively enforced; juries are biased; and people with money hire good lawyers and get off. We don't incarcerate people for breaking laws: We incarcerate them for being poor. And most of our prisoners are there for simple drug use.

Uneducated people often do not understand how to make a good impression on a judge, so they wind up in prison for exactly the same offence that gets an educated person a slap on the wrist.

A lot of crimes are committed by people who have been excluded from the mainstream economy, so they turn to the underground economy to make a living; and once a person has a criminal record it is much more difficult to get a "legitimate" job, and many find their choice is to go hungry and homeless, or go back to crime.

If we only imprisoned violent offenders, we'd have a small fraction of our present prison population, and a small fraction of the cost. It's a very big mistake to lump all "criminals" in one basket. As an ex-con myself, I can assure you that the stereotype of the prison inmate as a violent and anti-social person is pure fiction. There are people like that. But most of them are not in prison. They're in government.