3 ms·

The problem of lifetime state issued punishments that are designed to make people feel really bad is their economic insanity. Applying the death penalty in the

The problem of lifetime state issued punishments that are designed to make people feel really bad is their economic insanity. Applying the death penalty in the US involves spending millions in legal and incarceration fees. It also seems to have no deterrence effect on mass murderers, which the US has a high concentration of. The cost of lifetime imprisonment or execution is outright massive, in the millions over the lifetime of imprisonment. When you look at it in terms of economic output, these sentences are a calamity. For $2m USD spent on achieving a death penalty outcome, you could buy over 600k healthy school lunches for $3 each or pay the salary for one extra school teacher per year over a lifetime.

gjsman-1000 5y ago
In my mind, that would be a problem with the justice system, rather than the death penalty as a concept. Also, as for why it seems to have no deterrence, how many people in the whole United States were killed? Only 22 in 2019, and you probably have never heard the names of even one of those people. If the fact of who was dying, for what crime, was highlighted more often in the media, the statistics may be significantly different. Like, imagine if CNN and FOX had a simple image of who was dying each day with a two-or-three-sentence description of the crime, each time someone was put to death. To most people, that would be about every 2 weeks. Public awareness would explode. And criminals would have a far greater awareness that they could die for crimes.
- beerandt 5y ago
  Or bring back public-square and courthouse executions.