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Why do you think Charles Manson should remain alive? That's an individual who has gone out of their way to take the lives of multiple innocent people. Why does
by aaron-lebo 10y ago
Why do you think Charles Manson should remain alive?
That's an individual who has gone out of their way to take the lives of multiple innocent people. Why does he get to keep what he took from others? Why do the families of the victims have to suffer him? It's not even a question of innocence.
If Manson was in any way sane, he'd realize that his actions were that of a monster. What is there to rehabilitate? If he's sane, how is living in a cell for decades not horrific punishment? A quick death would be a lot easier for everyone involved.
The death penalty is a harsh, horrible penalty. But everyone dies. I don't see how removing literal mass murderers is a detriment to society, unless we simply don't like the reality of it.
What's the alternative? Do we prefer situations like like Breivik?
In November 2012, Breivik wrote a 27-page letter of complaint to the prison authorities about the security restrictions he was being held under, claiming that the prison director personally wanted to punish him. Among his complaints were that his cell is not adequately heated and he has to wear three layers of clothing to stay warm, guards interfere with his strictly-planned daily schedule, his cell is poorly decorated and has no view, his reading lamp is inadequate, guards supervise him while he is brushing his teeth and shaving and put indirect mental pressure on him to finish quickly by tapping their feet while waiting, he is "not having candy" and he is served cold coffee, and he is strip-searched daily, sometimes by female guards. Authorities only lifted one minor restriction against Breivik; his rubber safety pen, which he described as an "almost indescribable manifestation of sadism," was replaced with an ordinary pen.[137]
In letters to foreign media outlets he told about his demands (in 2013) to prison authorities "including easier communication with the outside world and a PlayStation 3 to replace the current PlayStation 2, because it offers more suitable games"; media reported in 2014 about demands that he would starve himself to death if refused "access to a sofa and a bigger gym"; furthermore he said that "Other inmates have access to adult games while I only have the right to play less interesting kids’ games. One example is ‘Rayman Revolution,’ a game aimed at 3-year-olds," Breivik complained to prison officials."[138][139]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik
- tim333 10y agoHe should remain alive because it's simpler to have a general rule not to kill people. Once you start doing executions you get a bunch of innocent people killed too in practice.
- aaron-lebo 10y agoThat's an argument for improving our justice system, not eliminating a punishment altogether. 20 years in jail for an innocent person is no less horrible.
- icc97 10y agoIt's the acceptance that no justice system can be 100% perfect. As repeated in many other comments, it gives the innocent person a chance to be released, which is better than the zero chance. Also as you say - 20 years in jail is a serious punishment, so it isn't eliminating the punishment, it's just only using a reversible one. It also allows for improvements in the justice system over time.
- kafkaesq 10y agoThat's an argument for improving our justice system, not eliminating a punishment altogether. Empirical evidence strongly suggests that such a reform is extremely unlikely to happen -- and that in particular, we basically will never have a system win which the false conviction rate is not simply unacceptably high. So again, the argument is to at least design for "fault-tolerance", and not impose categorically irreversible sentences in the first place. 20 years in jail for an innocent person is no less horrible. If you were let out of jail after 20 years, I think you might disagree. But the bigger point is that the 20-year sentence can at least be appealed (and if overturned, substantially mitigated) if new evidence emerges that's relevant to your case -- as it very frequently does, in fact.
- striking 10y agoDeath isn't easier. The cost of imprisoning someone for life is still less than putting them on death row.
- zeveb 10y ago> The cost of imprisoning someone for life is still less than putting them on death row. That's openly because execution foes have made it so expensive to execute. Execution could be extremely cheap: lead the convict from the courtroom to the gallows, and be done with it. Imprisonment could be made to be even more expensive than execution, if there were strong-enough foes of life imprisonment (they could mandate every appeal and review that condemned men receive for those given life sentences). 'We shouldn't execute people, because it's more expensive to execute them (because we chose to make it more expensive),' is hardly a compelling argument.
- jcrei 10y agoYes. Yes we do prefer to have situations where a mass shooter is in-prisoned and denied access to the latest Playstation 3. I'd rather have people like Breivik exposed for their childish behaviour in prison than to have the death penalty for them and innocent people.
- burkaman 10y ago> Why does he get to keep what he took from others? If we kill him, why do we get to keep what we took from him?