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What do you suggest in regards for money being spent on containing people who have zero chance on rehabilitation? Sweden can't afford cancer medication for cer

by seivan 11y ago

What do you suggest in regards for money being spent on containing people who have zero chance on rehabilitation? Sweden can't afford cancer medication for certain people, but has no issues containing violent sadists. http://www.svd.se/effektiv-cancermedicin-anvands-inte http://www.svd.se/effektiv-cancermedicin-anvands-inte http://www.sydsvenskan.se/skane/hon-fick-ny-cancermedicin-utomlands/ http://www.sydsvenskan.se/skane/hon-fick-ny-cancermedicin-ut... Some people in the middle east tortured children, women and committed other atrocities while laughing and recording it. Whats your take on that?

ablation 11y ago
I have no take on it.
DanBC 11y ago
The death penalty is more expensive than life in prison. If the US didn't imprison so many people they'd easily be able to afford to house the actually violent criminals.
- seivan 11y ago
  Does it have to be that expensive? Have there been efforts to cut costs? I don't disagree with the second statement, frivolous prison sentences cause all sorts of problems, but I disagree that life sentence costs are insignificant.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Making an effort to cut costs is likely to mean that more innocent people get executed.
- maxlybbert 11y ago
  That's only true because the cost of appeals is included in the cost of having somebody on death row. For the record, I'm very happy that people on death row get so many appeals. I'm very happy that some of those appeals are automatic (all states I'm familiar with automatically appeal any death penalty sentence to the state supreme court). But given that the average death row inmate lives 20 years or so in custody, and that the average life sentence prisoner lives two or three times that long, and assuming that the people on death row don't get incredibly expensive food, it seems that the only reasons for a difference would be increased security costs (are life sentence inmates less likely to try to break out?) or costs not directly related to jail, such as legal appeals. We could save a lot of money by simply denying appeals to inmates on death row, but I don't think that would be an improvement. If anything, the difference in cost between death row and life imprisonment suggests that life sentences aren't getting the same scrutiny that death sentences get, and we probably have more innocent people serving life sentences than awaiting execution.
  - kawakiole 11y ago
    How on earth is the cost of a legal appeal not directly related to jail?
    - maxlybbert 11y ago
      The statement that "putting people on death row costs more than putting them in prison for life" is incomplete. The complete statement is "under our current legal regime, including costs of various appeals, putting people on death row costs more than putting them in prison for life." Since the costs of appeals dwarfs all other relevant costs, it's just as true to say "under the current legal regime, appeals for death row inmate cost much more than appeals for life sentence inmates." That's a very different statement, and not necessarily something we want to fix. If we did want to fix it, we could either spend less money on appeals for death row inmates (make it much harder to get off of death row/get exonerated), or spend more money for appeals for life sentence inmates. Indeed, it might just be that we aren't doing everything we should to find wrongfully convicted inmates who weren't given the death penalty. But that's certainly not the message people seem to be trying to make with the statement. The message I've always heard was "it would cost less to put him in jail for life." Or "it would cost less to get rid of the death penalty altogether." The first message has less impact when you realize that the costs involved are nearly all about legal appeals, not about running a prison, feeding the prisoners, etc. The second message is provably false: in a regime without the death penalty, the resources currently used to get people off death row would be used to get people out of life sentences.
dethstar 11y ago
Mine is that perhaps money should be invested in prevention of crime. Prisons aren't made for rehabilitation, specially since it's really hard for a person to go out and make a living. 'Prison is a recruitment center for the army of crime. That is what it achieves. For 200 years everybody has been saying, "Prisons are failing; all they do is produce new criminals." I would say on the other hand, "They are a success, since that is what has been asked of them." ' https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/17/specials/foucault-prisons.html https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/17/specials/foucault-pri...
codingdave 11y ago
My take on that is that human life shouldn't have a price tag on it. Killing someone because it would cost money to keep them alive is not a solid basis for morality in my book. Frankly, I'm so weary of the problems in this country being justified by money. We trash the environment because it would cost money to do better. We underfund schools because we don't want to pay more property tax. And we try to kill convicts because it is cheaper... or we privatize the prisons so it becomes a profit center for somebody. Even on HN, wealthy founders are hero-worshipped, and investors are treated like kings. There is some talk about meaningful work, but a lot more talk about monetization of <insert trendy app here>. This is not a healthy, moral society in which we currently live.
glesica 11y ago
My recollection is that the death penalty, with all the appeals and procedure that are involved, ends up costing more than a life sentence. One of the first links from a quick search... http://www.nbcrightnow.com/story/15519792/what-costs-more-the-death-penalty-or-life-in-prison http://www.nbcrightnow.com/story/15519792/what-costs-more-th...
jkyle 11y ago
> What do you suggest in regards for money being spent on containing people who have zero chance on rehabilitation? Life in prison without parole is cheaper than the death penalty. In fact, it's 10x more expensive to put someone to death than to imprison them for life. [1] [1] 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...
- tzs 11y ago
  > Life in prison without parole is cheaper than the death penalty ...at the moment. I bet if you ran the numbers for the 1930's, for instance, when the average time from conviction to execution was 14.4 months (the range was 4.6 months to 46.1 months) [1], the death penalty would come out cheaper than life without parole. The cost argument is a risky one for death penalty opponents, since the cost can be fixed either by getting rid of the death penalty or by making it more efficient. [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=8cYom4BacjMC&lpg=PA164&ots=Pw69d5u2-b&dq=average%20time%20from%20sentencing%20to%20execution%20in%20the%201930s&pg=PA164#v=onepage&q=average%20time%20from%20sentencing%20to%20execution%20in%20the%201930s&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=8cYom4BacjMC&lpg=PA164&ots...
  - jkyle 11y ago
    > The cost argument is a risky one for death penalty opponents, since the cost can be fixed either by getting rid of the death penalty or by making it more efficient. Not really. Because the precursor to the cost argument is that there is a trade off between between swift and being sure. The quicker you execute, the less certain you can be of guilt. People are constantly being set free after being on death row for years. The only way reconcile that with any concept of justice is to put more resources into gaining higher certainty. And even if you assume 100% certainty could, somehow, be gained...you then run into the cost wall. Fact is, being pro death penalty is being pro arbitrary execution of innocent people....and spending a lot of extra money to do it.

by seivan 11y ago

ablation 11y ago

I have no take on it.

DanBC 11y ago

The death penalty is more expensive than life in prison. If the US didn't imprison so many people they'd easily be able to afford to house the actually violent criminals.

seivan 11y ago
Does it have to be that expensive? Have there been efforts to cut costs? I don't disagree with the second statement, frivolous prison sentences cause all sorts of problems, but I disagree that life sentence costs are insignificant.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Making an effort to cut costs is likely to mean that more innocent people get executed.
maxlybbert 11y ago
That's only true because the cost of appeals is included in the cost of having somebody on death row. For the record, I'm very happy that people on death row get so many appeals. I'm very happy that some of those appeals are automatic (all states I'm familiar with automatically appeal any death penalty sentence to the state supreme court). But given that the average death row inmate lives 20 years or so in custody, and that the average life sentence prisoner lives two or three times that long, and assuming that the people on death row don't get incredibly expensive food, it seems that the only reasons for a difference would be increased security costs (are life sentence inmates less likely to try to break out?) or costs not directly related to jail, such as legal appeals. We could save a lot of money by simply denying appeals to inmates on death row, but I don't think that would be an improvement. If anything, the difference in cost between death row and life imprisonment suggests that life sentences aren't getting the same scrutiny that death sentences get, and we probably have more innocent people serving life sentences than awaiting execution.
- kawakiole 11y ago
  How on earth is the cost of a legal appeal not directly related to jail?
  - maxlybbert 11y ago
    The statement that "putting people on death row costs more than putting them in prison for life" is incomplete. The complete statement is "under our current legal regime, including costs of various appeals, putting people on death row costs more than putting them in prison for life." Since the costs of appeals dwarfs all other relevant costs, it's just as true to say "under the current legal regime, appeals for death row inmate cost much more than appeals for life sentence inmates." That's a very different statement, and not necessarily something we want to fix. If we did want to fix it, we could either spend less money on appeals for death row inmates (make it much harder to get off of death row/get exonerated), or spend more money for appeals for life sentence inmates. Indeed, it might just be that we aren't doing everything we should to find wrongfully convicted inmates who weren't given the death penalty. But that's certainly not the message people seem to be trying to make with the statement. The message I've always heard was "it would cost less to put him in jail for life." Or "it would cost less to get rid of the death penalty altogether." The first message has less impact when you realize that the costs involved are nearly all about legal appeals, not about running a prison, feeding the prisoners, etc. The second message is provably false: in a regime without the death penalty, the resources currently used to get people off death row would be used to get people out of life sentences.

dethstar 11y ago

Mine is that perhaps money should be invested in prevention of crime. Prisons aren't made for rehabilitation, specially since it's really hard for a person to go out and make a living. 'Prison is a recruitment center for the army of crime. That is what it achieves. For 200 years everybody has been saying, "Prisons are failing; all they do is produce new criminals." I would say on the other hand, "They are a success, since that is what has been asked of them." ' https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/17/specials/foucault-prisons.html https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/17/specials/foucault-pri...

codingdave 11y ago

My take on that is that human life shouldn't have a price tag on it. Killing someone because it would cost money to keep them alive is not a solid basis for morality in my book. Frankly, I'm so weary of the problems in this country being justified by money. We trash the environment because it would cost money to do better. We underfund schools because we don't want to pay more property tax. And we try to kill convicts because it is cheaper... or we privatize the prisons so it becomes a profit center for somebody. Even on HN, wealthy founders are hero-worshipped, and investors are treated like kings. There is some talk about meaningful work, but a lot more talk about monetization of <insert trendy app here>. This is not a healthy, moral society in which we currently live.

glesica 11y ago

My recollection is that the death penalty, with all the appeals and procedure that are involved, ends up costing more than a life sentence. One of the first links from a quick search... http://www.nbcrightnow.com/story/15519792/what-costs-more-the-death-penalty-or-life-in-prison http://www.nbcrightnow.com/story/15519792/what-costs-more-th...

jkyle 11y ago

> What do you suggest in regards for money being spent on containing people who have zero chance on rehabilitation? Life in prison without parole is cheaper than the death penalty. In fact, it's 10x more expensive to put someone to death than to imprison them for life. [1] [1] 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...

tzs 11y ago
> Life in prison without parole is cheaper than the death penalty ...at the moment. I bet if you ran the numbers for the 1930's, for instance, when the average time from conviction to execution was 14.4 months (the range was 4.6 months to 46.1 months) [1], the death penalty would come out cheaper than life without parole. The cost argument is a risky one for death penalty opponents, since the cost can be fixed either by getting rid of the death penalty or by making it more efficient. [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=8cYom4BacjMC&lpg=PA164&ots=Pw69d5u2-b&dq=average%20time%20from%20sentencing%20to%20execution%20in%20the%201930s&pg=PA164#v=onepage&q=average%20time%20from%20sentencing%20to%20execution%20in%20the%201930s&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=8cYom4BacjMC&lpg=PA164&ots...
- jkyle 11y ago
  > The cost argument is a risky one for death penalty opponents, since the cost can be fixed either by getting rid of the death penalty or by making it more efficient. Not really. Because the precursor to the cost argument is that there is a trade off between between swift and being sure. The quicker you execute, the less certain you can be of guilt. People are constantly being set free after being on death row for years. The only way reconcile that with any concept of justice is to put more resources into gaining higher certainty. And even if you assume 100% certainty could, somehow, be gained...you then run into the cost wall. Fact is, being pro death penalty is being pro arbitrary execution of innocent people....and spending a lot of extra money to do it.