Discussion Poll: Opinions on death penalty

[SilentSadness]

Do you think the death penalty should be used as a punishment for serious crimes? Please write your opinion, since I think there may be a variety of responses here on Sanctioned Suicide.

Spoiler: My opinion

I think the death penalty should never be used, since I think it's barbaric to force someone to die if they don't want to. I think people should only have to die if they want to.

 

[DarkRange55]

I've discussed this before and this is something I haven't totally made my mind up about. In most circumstances no, I don't. There are very rare circumstances where I do. Probably. Not because as of revenge or punishment but there's just some people that are too dangerous to be left alive. A lot of people want to use capital punishment to use the state as a tool for revenge and that's not the right way to go about it. Some people are just too dangerous to be left alive. Like Osama Bin Laden. If the US had ever captured Osama Bin Laden, then they should have executed him. (Possibly after standing trial at the world court or something). He is too much of a threat. Or Ted Bundy, he's just going to murder to go on murder sprees, he cannot be trusted anywhere. He should probably be executed. But somebody who kills their wife or in a gang shooting, they probably don't deserve the death penalty because there are extenuating circumstances and there's no guarantee that this individual is gonna do this again.

I see no logically justifiable reason to kill another human being for any reason. Unless of course to save an innocent life from immediate and mortal harm. Considering how flawed our judicial system is and the possibility of a wrongful conviction.

But I'm not the resident political commentator: @noname223

 

[Forever Sleep]

With our flawed justice and court systems, I don't think the death penalty is safe to use. People have been wrongly convicted in the past. It's bad enough when they serve time in prison. You can't exactly bring them back to life if they've been executed.

On principle though- if we could be 100% sure a person did that crime then- I might feel slightly differently. Some crimes are utterly heinous. I also agree with DarkRange- that it would be for the most serious of crimes, serial offenders etc.

I think serial sex offenders should be castrated. I imagine that would also serve as a deterrent for others tempted to do similar crimes.

It's a very tricky subject though. I can't say I know enough about rehabilitation to know how successful it is overall. I'm pretty sure some people are massively high risk though. Some are released- only to reoffend. Sometimes murder.

So- it's extremely difficult- balancing everyone's rights. The con/ ex. con has to have rights in order to try to prevent abuse towards them. I suppose the economists hope they can also be integrated into society again to work a job and contribute taxes. But then- the public has the right to feel safe and protected from people who will very possibly harm them.

It kind of is to do with money too. Some people literally cannot be released. Multiple child murderers and multiple child sex offenders. Do tax payers actually want to keep them alive? They've committed some of the most appalling crimes there are. It's kind of insulting really- when you imagine a fraction of the murdered/ raped child's parent's taxes will go towards keeping that person alive and maybe even relatively comfortable- compared to how the poorest in our society live.