You can do that by keeping them in jail for the rest of their lives, you don't have to chop their heads off
Well; Eowyn would argue that death is more humane than a cage. But don't quote me on that until I need to make the choice for myself. Besides, you can keep
some violent criminals in jail for the rest of their lives, but if you've got a whole bunch of them plus a budgetary crisis plus a prison overcrowding problem, something has to give. And there's something almost obscene about giving the worst criminals a lifetime of food, shelter, and health care at no cost while honest people are dying for want of the same things.
I think there is a sort of contradiction in this paragraph: first you say that death is more human than a lifetime in prison, and then you say that criminals get a lifetime of greatly coveted things.
Personally, I don’t think giving people in prison food and healthcare can weigh up for the loss of freedom.
And then we should rather focus on getting everyone else these goods, rather than complaining about inmates having them.
I don’t think an organizational problem can justify killing people. From what I’ve read, the USA puts an unusually high percentage of their population in prison. I’d say you look into that and do something about it, rather than saying the system requires you to kill people to make it work. Countries without capital punishment manage this.
Also, with so many years on death row, I can’t see that capital punishment reduces overcrowding much.
I live in a country where the maximum penalty is 21 years in prison. You can be sentenced to preventive detention and be kept in prison longer than that if you are deemed to be a danger to society, and so in theory, it’s possible to sit a lifetime in prison, but in practice, everyone gets out at some point. Everyone gets a seond chance. I like this system, I think it’s more humane and makes society more humane, and appeals to better values than emotional cries for the worst possible penalties.
And then you don’t have that much of an overcrowding problem. ^^
95 countries has abolished capital punishment. That makes the world more civilized than it was.
Rather, I would argue that
because the world is more civilized than it was, 95 countries have been able to get away with abolishing capital punishment. Horse before cart.
Fair enough.
So because things aren't perfect, we shouldn't even try to do what's right?
Oddly, that's my response to many of the arguments against capital punishment.
Elaborate?