AIBU to think the death penalty should sometimes be used?

[Gide]

In cases such as mass murderers, paedophiles, rapists? Obviously only if there is absolutely no doubt at all about their guilt.

Sometimes tough choices have to be made for the safety of the whole society so if a few people need to be executed to protected hundreds or thousands of others then so be it.
Life in prison achieves the same thing without killing anyone.

If someone raped or murdered my children I would want them dead and wouldn't care who carried it out, I would pull the switch if I could.
People are a little too emotional about this for my liking

You are.
Emotions shouldn't feature in deciding if someone lives or dies.
You shouldn't certainly decide on what happened to anyone who hurt a loved one. It would be revenge and not justice.

Maybe but they are over crowded and even if it does what is the point of keeping someone in a cage for the rest of their lives? It is much easier and simpler to just execute them especially if you are never letting them out anyway.

It is much easier and simpler to just execute them especially if you are never letting them out anyway.

Yes, if you ignore the fact that it is morally wrong.

Empathy also shouldnt be a factor when deciding someones worth to society.

If someone is not worthy of ever rejoining society then they are not worthy of their life.

Plus nothing wrong with revenge for the right reasons

Whether something is morally wrong is not important. Morals change over time.

We put down animals who injure people and are dangerous so why not do the same to other people what is the difference?

If someone is not worthy of ever rejoining society then they are not worthy of their life.

So people with mental illnesses so severe that they have to be institutionalised should also be executed? They'll never be able to rejoin society so lets just kill them...

Plus nothing wrong with revenge for the right reasons

There's no such thing. Revenge is all for the wrong reasons.

TooOld it's not 'off' that I'm offended at all. It's 'off' that when faced with a series of articulate, logical arguments against your opinion, you assume it's because threads "always go this way"

The only arguments for the death penalty are emotional ones about wanting to feel "safer" and "if someone hurt my family I would want them to die". This is not a good enough argument for killing people in the name of the state, especially as some would inevitably be innocent.

Pineapple, if you can't tell the difference between animals and people, you've got problems.

We eat animals. Do you think we should eat people?

The other thing I wanted to say last night: just think about how dangerous it would be to give power over life and death to the state. Who decides what is "death-worthy"? In Afganistan, women are still being stoned to death for adultery. If a husband in the UK wanted that, should we allow it? Where do we draw the line? How do we decide how to draw the line? How do we stop it being biased by race, sex, gender, sexuality?

agree with pineapple well said id help push the switch too

Easy to make such a ridiculous claim when you will never be put in that position.

Sometimes tough choices have to be made for the safety of the whole society so if a few people need to be executed to protected hundreds or thousands of others then so be it.

It is a much 'tougher' choice to abide by civilised principles and a moral framework for society, and refuse to entertain the death penalty.

The death penalty is a panacea for those who have no real ideas about law and order, rehabilitation, or the necessity to deal with the fact that every society has criminal elements which must be dealt with. The idea that the death penalty makes anyone safer is lazy thinking.

The only arguments for the death penalty are emotional ones about wanting to feel "safer" and "if someone hurt my family I would want them to die". This is not a good enough argument for killing people in the name of the state, especially as some would inevitably be innocent.

Precisely. And all the relevant statistics demonstrate that it doesn't make anyone safer. The homicide rates in states with the death penalty is now lower than the homicide rate elsewhere, and if anything the existence of the death penalty increases the incentive to kill a victim who might otherwise testify against his attacker.

If someone raped or murdered my children I would want them dead

I suspect I would, too. But we can't formulate how society works based on my primitive revenge reactions.

One mistake is one too many.
It is an extension of our attitude to smacking children. If we smack children for hitting others then we aren't teaching them it's wrong to hit. If you have judicial killing for murder you are saying it is ok for the government to do exactly what the offender has done...to take a life.
However I do think that in some cases life must mean life and I don't think prison for the worst offences should be easy.

Just because we eat animals doesnt make us superior. Some animals would eat us if they could.

Also we are animals too so no I see no difference.

The only difference I see is that a dangerous person is able to track and hunt down their prey whereas a dog isnt as able to do that so therefore people are more dangerous then animals.

pineapple, it is not the fact that we eat animals that puts humans onto an entirely different plane to them. If you can't understand what does, I doubt that anyone can explain it to you.

If you kill a murderer there will still be the same amount of murderers in the world.

Yabu.

The death penalty doesn't work anyway. Look at any US state that has it - crime rates are as high, prisons are as full, and no money is saved because of lengthy appeals processes.

Quite apart from that, we'd have to dismantle and rebuild our centuries old legal system to include a new verdict 'really, really guilty'

What would we do with criminals we decide are merely 'guilty'?

I understand that yes we are more advanced but that doesnt make us more deserving of life especially for those who are dangerous.
A murderer or rapist or paedophile is dangerous and therefore in my opinion nothong more than an animal and should be treated no differently.

Also we wouldnt need a whole new 'really really guilty'. Guilty is guilty and thats it

Also we wouldnt need a whole new 'really really guilty'. Guilty is guilty and thats it.
The trouble is some people who are found guilty are not actually guilty. You can't just let them out of prison with a "sorry we screwed up" if they're dead.

A murderer or rapist or paedophile is dangerous and therefore in my opinion nothong more than an animal and should be treated no differently.

Not accepting that serious criminals are as human as everyone else is an immature point-of-view, which should not be applied to the justice system.

A murderer or rapist or paedophile is dangerous and therefore in my opinion nothong more than an animal and should be treated no differently.

Not sure I'm entirely following your train of thought, pineapple, but are you now saying all animals are dangerous and therefore should be killed? Or are you saying that we should eat murderers.?

It may be but so is 'what if?'. If we spend too much time worrying about whether we may be wrong no one would get convicted of anything.

Human or not some people do not deserve to live and have committed crimes so horrendous that they should be put to death.