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The death penalty makes no logical sense. It only appeals to primitive emotions. Why have a penalty which 1) Can never be reversed if you kill an innocent 2) C

The death penalty makes no logical sense. It only appeals to primitive emotions. Why have a penalty which 1) Can never be reversed if you kill an innocent 2) Cost a lot more than life in prison. Now why it might be argued that a killer has no right to life, what about those close to the killer? Killers might have a wife, husband, brother, sister, friends, mother and a a father. By killing the killer you inflict hardship on these people. To what purpose? In prison this person can't hurt anybody else, so why unnecessarily reduce the life quality of somebody else. I see it being argued that the victims families deserve this, but I think that has been learnt and conditioned in society. E.g. in my own country Norway, I hardly ever read about victims and relatives who desire a death penalty or any particularly harsh or painful punishment. I think the desire for revenge is something which is simply promoted by conservative christian groups.

a13n 10y ago
The death penalty costs more than life in prison? Source?
- cobalt 10y ago
  Plenty of articles if you google. Gist of it is that the repeals process and such take many years and often end up costing more. Most people are on death row for >10 years
- 1024core 10y ago
  "It’s 10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive," http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/05/01/considering-the-death-penalty-your-tax-dollars-at-work http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/05/01/cons...
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  It's a pretty well-known fact that execution typically costs around 10 times more than life imprisonment. Here's a page with links to multiple peer-reviewed sources, covering multiple states: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty. The issue is that the appeals process is extremely expensive and time-consuming. You could conceivably simplify and streamline it (to the extent permitted by the Supreme Court, which has been mandating ever-stricter requirements for capital punishment cases), but that would make it even more unacceptably error-prone than it already is.
- raverbashing 10y ago
  I usually read this as "lawyers are asking for more money"
WillPostForFood 10y ago
"In prison this person can't hurt anybody else" - totally false. The homicide rate in prison is about double that of the rest of the country. In California it is 15 per 100,000 - terribly high. "Cost a lot more than life in prison" - death penalty opponents have driven up the cost, so if cost was a real reason you oppose the death penalty, then we could keep it and focus on reducing cost. "By killing the killer you inflict hardship on these people"- in your opinion. I think it would be a bigger hardship to have to have a living murderer as part of the family. "I think the desire for revenge" - Why is incarceration not revenge? Justice flows from the notion that punishment is proportional to the crime. Taking a life should mean losing your life Whether is is lifetime imprisonment or the death penalty, you can call it revenge or punishment or justice.

a13n 10y ago

The death penalty costs more than life in prison? Source?

cobalt 10y ago
Plenty of articles if you google. Gist of it is that the repeals process and such take many years and often end up costing more. Most people are on death row for >10 years
1024core 10y ago
"It’s 10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive," http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/05/01/considering-the-death-penalty-your-tax-dollars-at-work http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/05/01/cons...
Analemma_ 10y ago
It's a pretty well-known fact that execution typically costs around 10 times more than life imprisonment. Here's a page with links to multiple peer-reviewed sources, covering multiple states: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty. The issue is that the appeals process is extremely expensive and time-consuming. You could conceivably simplify and streamline it (to the extent permitted by the Supreme Court, which has been mandating ever-stricter requirements for capital punishment cases), but that would make it even more unacceptably error-prone than it already is.
raverbashing 10y ago
I usually read this as "lawyers are asking for more money"

WillPostForFood 10y ago

"In prison this person can't hurt anybody else" - totally false. The homicide rate in prison is about double that of the rest of the country. In California it is 15 per 100,000 - terribly high. "Cost a lot more than life in prison" - death penalty opponents have driven up the cost, so if cost was a real reason you oppose the death penalty, then we could keep it and focus on reducing cost. "By killing the killer you inflict hardship on these people"- in your opinion. I think it would be a bigger hardship to have to have a living murderer as part of the family. "I think the desire for revenge" - Why is incarceration not revenge? Justice flows from the notion that punishment is proportional to the crime. Taking a life should mean losing your life Whether is is lifetime imprisonment or the death penalty, you can call it revenge or punishment or justice.