In the other forum... "some people just can't be reasoned with."
It's a safe bet that most murderers are irrational. How do you think there are so many of them in spite of the death penalty? Therefore, the potential deterrence of a death penalty for murder is effectively voided, since the murderers would murder anyway.
So we come to the next argument: is it an effective way to eliminate the risk of convicts killing others in prison? Of course, putting a murderer in prison (or anywhere else) is going to run the risk of him kiling someone. There are effective ways to counter this, one least of them being solitary confinement.
Then, advocates of the death penalty would argue that killing off a convict is more financially sound, citing the rising costs of imprisonment and overcrowding. But we should definitely take a step back and examine more plausible causes of high costs and overcrowding: Namely, the fact that many are put in prison for comparatively minor crimes, such as drug possession. We should look at THESE causes before we tout the death penalty as a fiscal solution.
So it all boils down to moral arguments. First of all, I could care less about what happens to guilty convicts. They committed a crime, therefore they deserved punishment. What concerns me is how the death penalty makes US as a society look.
First of all, the death penalty has been all but abandoned in progressive, industrial societies. The leading users of the death penalty are the likes of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and red China - societies that I would most certainly consider to be backwards - in addition to certain states here in the U.S. Of course, while American society is nothing like the above examples, doesn't the use of the death penalty run the risk of making us look more like THEM, and less like our actual contemporaries in the industrialized world?
On a lesser scale, there's the concern of the friends and family of victims. I've noticed that most of the people calling for the death of a convict are outside of the victim's friends and family. Rarely is the issue of what THEY actually feel is touched on; people simply assume that they DO want the death penalty for revenge or justice. But there are often many thoughts that come into play in their minds: the victim is NEVER going to come back, and no amount of punishment can change that; should they stop at a suitable punishment, e.g. life in prison, or do they push harder; if they push for the killing of the convict, no matter how fitting or comforting it might seem, would they become no better than him; and so forth. These many thoughts may lead to different outcomes, but it remans ludicrous to assume that the death penalty is doing a service to the friends and families of the victims.
So how would the death penalty influence impartial justice? Of course, under this concept, small crimes get small punishments, and severe crimes get severe punishments. Surely, a severe crime such as murder deserves a severe punishment. But how CAN we define "severe"? Surely, the punishment of death has a stronger ring than life in prison, but is it really more "severe"? After all, death could be seen as an escape from the hardship in prison. Then again, life in prison can be seen as a preferable escape from death. But both accomplish the same goal: they ensure that the convict is "kept off the streets" - one of the most important tenets of the justice system today.
The justice system is, indeed a complex thing. But I have looked at many things surrounding it, and concluded as thus: The death penalty has no real advantages above other severe punishments, and doesn't offer any real purpose other than plain old revenge, which makes the society look, in my view, barbaric. And it is truly sad to see the United States, which is supposed to be an example of virtue, sanction this type of punishment.
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