Support for the death penalty

[OldWiseGuy]

I'm guessing that all data I present will be ignored.

Murder rates and murder numbers can be confusing. The point is that we aren't doing a very good job dealing with crime.

 

[VirOptimus]

Murder rates and murder numbers can be confusing. The point is that we aren't doing a very good job dealing with crime.

So lets kill em all?

 

[Desk trauma]

Murder rates and murder numbers can be confusing.

Murders per 100,000 of population in the US
1980: 10.2
2019: 5

In what way is that confusing?

The point is that we aren't doing a very good job dealing with crime.

With the decades long trend of reductions in both violent and property crime I don't see how that is the case.

 

[Whyayeman]

The numbers are still pretty bad.

It is all relative, I suppose. I think the UK murder rate is 'pretty bad', but compared to America? Not so much.

There is little doubt (at least among informed people) that the death penalty is not a deterrent, yet the idea persists that it is; I don't know why.

There are other arguments for retention but they are not all related to justice. The most ignoble is economic; killing prisoners is cheap. The Biblical argument is risible and offensive as it is demanded for trivial crimes which today are not crimes at all (Leviticus is one such source for capital offences). The punishment of 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' has never actually been practised anywhere as far as I know. Biblical scholars are welcome to put me right here.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Murders per 100,000 of population in the US
1980: 10.2
2019: 5

In what way is that confusing?



With the decades long trend of reductions in both violent and property crime I don't see how that is the case.

I meant that people are confused about what those numbers mean.

 

[Desk trauma]

I meant that people are confused about what those numbers mean.

If people are confused over 5 being smaller than 10 they have more pressing matters than the national murder rate to concern themselves with.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

If people are confused over 5 being smaller than 10 they have more pressing matters than the national murder rate to concern themselves with.

What is concerning is that they are not concerned.

 

[Desk trauma]

What is concerning is that they are not concerned.

About crime being on a continuous downwards trend for the past forty years or peoples innumeracy? Should I be rending my garments over things getting better year after year?

 

[OldWiseGuy]

About crime being on a continuous downwards trend for the past forty years or peoples innumeracy? Should I be rending my garments over things getting better year after year?

Isn't violent crime on an uptick?

 

[Desk trauma]

Isn't violent crime on an uptick?

You can speculate or read the data I provided.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

About crime being on a continuous downwards trend for the past forty years or peoples innumeracy? Should I be rending my garments over things getting better year after year?

Let's see.

Murder rate.
1960: 5.01 per 100,000
1919: 5.00 per 100,000

Not much progress I'd say.

 

[Desk trauma]

Let's see.

Murder rate.
1960: 5.01 per 100,000
1919: 5.00 per 100,000

Not much progress I'd say.

Your posts say a great many silly things.

 

[Desk trauma]

Also back to total rewrites of post after they have been replied to I see.

Why do I bother?

 

[Whyayeman]

Let's see.

Murder rate.
1960: 5.01 per 100,000
1919: 5.00 per 100,000

Not much progress I'd say.

Two can play at that game!

1930: 10.00 per 100,000
2019: 5.00 per 100,000

Call that progress? Still, these numbers are an irrelevance to the discussion. The death penalty or lack of it is not a significant factor in the murder rate over more than a century. As a punishment it is an inhumane anachronism. It is time for abolition!

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Two can play at that game!

1930: 10.00 per 100,000
2019: 5.00 per 100,000

Call that progress? Still, these numbers are an irrelevance to the discussion. The death penalty or lack of it is not a significant factor in the murder rate over more than a century. As a punishment it is an inhumane anachronism. It is time for abolition!

You started the game at 1960. Don't move the goalposts. My point is that murder is still a very serious problem regardless of 'progress'.

 

[VirOptimus]

You started the game at 1960. Don't move the goalposts. My point is that murder is still a very serious problem regardless of 'progress'.

And therefore we should kill more people.

 

[Whyayeman]

Well, I agree that there is a very serious problem, which certainly did not go away in 1960. (I thought 1960 was a curious cut-off point, as if this was a historic problem only of interest to academics studying the early C20, when actually it is a current issue.)

These figures illustrate that there has not been any progress since 1960, since the murder rate is the same sixty years later. Perhaps that was the point you were making.

My point is that the death penalty has never been a deterrent to murder. Over the periods we have mentioned the death penalty has been abolished in many countries with no discernible effect on murder rates.

The case for abolition has not been made here, but it has nothing to do with deterrence. In the UK it became morally repugnant to a large part of the population from which juries were drawn. Cases came to light in which innocent people had been hanged. Juries were reluctant to find accused people guilty because they did not want to send people to the gallows; their only recourse was to acquit. A few notorious cases were heavily criticised in the press and in Parliament.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Well, I agree that there is a very serious problem, which certainly did not go away in 1960. (I thought 1960 was a curious cut-off point, as if this was a historic problem only of interest to academics studying the early C20, when actually it is a current issue.)

These figures illustrate that there has not been any progress since 1960, since the murder rate is the same sixty years later. Perhaps that was the point you were making.

My point is that the death penalty has never been a deterrent to murder. Over the periods we have mentioned the death penalty has been abolished in many countries with no discernible effect on murder rates.

The case for abolition has not been made here, but it has nothing to do with deterrence. In the UK it became morally repugnant to a large part of the population from which juries were drawn. Cases came to light in which innocent people had been hanged. Juries were reluctant to find accused people guilty because they did not want to send people to the gallows; their only recourse was to acquit. A few notorious cases were heavily criticised in the press and in Parliament.

Deterrence isn't the purpose. The death penalty is appropriate punishment for certain murders. Criminals aren't 'deterred' by the fear of punishment as most don't believe they will be caught. Others don't care if they are caught. Many also take pride in the 'street cred' they get from incarceration. Prison is also 'graduate school' for career criminals, as well as a second home for many.

 

[Whyayeman]

Well, that simplifies matters.

We are diametrically opposed on the issue of the appropriateness of the death penalty. As a little boy I was puzzled by the admonition 'Thou shalt not kill' as it was expressed to me; the exceptions made for murderers conflicted with my Christian upbringing. Nobody has ever managed to make this dichotomy go away.

 

[.Mikha'el.]

I am okay with it, but only with incontrovertible evidence that the accused is guilty, such as DNA. If there is any room at all for someone else to commit the crime, life in prison is the way to go. I'm very leery of the innocent losing life.