PUBLIC OPINION > The Death Penalty Is Necessary
SodaHead News
2012/04/25 17:00:00
The death penalty is a complicated and controversial topic, evidenced by the fact that 16 states refuse to practice it, and more are struggling to decide. California is the latest state to challenge the death penalty, and they're taking an unusual route -- the ballot. California voters will actually get to decide whether or not to repeal the death penalty this year, and commute the sentences of more than 700 death row inmates. We took it to a broader audience first.
The death penalty is controversial, but the overall vote was still firmly in favor. Supporters just couldn't entertain the thought of letting a criminal guilty of horrible crimes have the luxury of hope, particularly in the case of heinous murders, aggravated rape, and the like. Some also argued that the death penalty is a deterrent. On the other side of the argument, there is the possibility of executing an innocent. The Top Opinion wrote, "Better that we should jail the scum for life than inadvertently put to death one innocent person."
Liberals Let Them Live
Politics play an obvious role, but the reason behind the distinction is less obvious. The fiscal elements seem incidental, and it's not your typical "family values" case, either. It does resemble anti-war sentiment in the sense that there is a strong opposition to the risk of innocent life. But liberals weren't as against it as conservatives were for it, hence the overall.
California for Capital Punishment
Though California has recently been a Democratic majority, it's still strongly in support of the death penalty. It could be that the volume of death row inmates worries residents enough to keep the practice in place. In New York, where the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional in 2004, support was much lower.
Against It Overseas
It's a hot issue in California right now, but the death penalty is a global issue. It's still practiced in China, India, Indonesia, and the U.S. -- the four most populous countries in the world -- but the UN General Assembly issued a moratorium, and it's been abolished in most of the world, including all of South America and Europe (except Belarus).
If you'd like to vote on this question, dig deeper into the demographics, or engage in existing discussion about the topic, visit our poll about the death penalty. We'd love to hear from you!
Top Opinion
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holieberie 2012/04/25 18:51:56
+4Do you realize how much money it costs to keep these "murderer's" in prison? How much tax dollars it costs? These people who are put on death row are well aware of their actions. They chose to make those choices...taking another life, They deserve to feel that pain as well. And eye for an eye. If I could, I would have each one killed the same way they killed their victims. It would make people think a lot harder for their actions
Killing the people who commit those atrocities is justice.
If they steal, they go to jail. If they kill someone, they still go to jail.
Kill all the rabid animals that have committed heinous crimes. End of problem.
What we have now is a convoluted system where victims get nothing except supposed justice and that justice is them subsidizing the existence of the people who committed the crime.
How about if the death penalty had to be enacted, physically and personally, not remotely or "humanely," by the individual wronged (immediate family of murder victims, fi)? If they can't or won't do it, it doesn't happen. And if they do it, then they in turn go before a court of their peers to be judged for the act.
I'd be copacetic with that.
I don't see the death penalty as actually being a "punishment" anyways. It's merely a way of permanently removing people from society when they have demonstrated that they are have no respect for other people's life and committed horrendous crimes.
There are many who will never be rehabilitated and have no desire to be, yet people who cry about starving children want to keep the vermin fed, healthy and comfortable for the rest of their natural life.
I would be less for the death penalty if we could bring back labor chain-gangs. I think that giving those convicted of heinous crimes more comfortable living than those senior citizens living in nursing homes is a crime in and of itself. That Arizona sheriff has the right idea - tents to live in, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, military-style cots, no tv - much less satellite service, no computers or video games. Let them have educational and spiritual (not any that has a religion that teaches them to hate the US) books to read. And rocks and dirt to move for exercise.
We spoil our prisoners any more. No, really, we spoil the hell out of them!
Does it serve a purpose? Absolutely
Does it cost the taxpayer more? I wouldn't go that far.
Realistically, I don't see a problem with it. If a crime is heinous enough (murder would be about the only one I'd see fit for it), then yes, I'd say do it.
will they EVER learn?
How few 100% indefensible cases are there like, say, Jeffrey Dahmer, where he's caught while stewing some guy's genitals in a pot on the stove?
Virtually every country without the death penalty has a lower rate of violent crime than we do, and it's far more expensive to administer than the alternative.
It can be statistically shown to be less effective and more expensive, isn't that the same argument conservatives had to face with health care reform? Why do they like things that cost more and don't work?
Oh wait, that also describes corporate executives doesn't it? Answered my own question, LOL!
There's no "severely restricted gun policy" in Mexico, you can legally buy lethal guns without any hindrance whatsoever. A "severely restricted gun policy" would mean that you can't buy any lethal guns of kind (as it is the case in the UK for example)