I used to be in favor of the death penalty. Not as a punishment, but as a protection. After all, some people are really broken, right? No hope of rehabilitation, right? Right...?
There are two problems with it that have caused me to lose support. The first is the fallibility of our (or any) legal justice system. The possibility of putting to death an innocent person is not worth the institution, in my mind. Would that change if evidence became so sophisticated as to be 100% accurate in some cases...? Perhaps. But it's also hideously expensive to sentence someone to the death penalty. Like, many times over more expensive than life in prison, and this cost often falls to the state.
The second problem is that it's entirely beside the point (that is, if your point is how to make society safer). Executing someone doesn't any good, statistically, for the population. It's not an effective deterrent. Instead, take a look at how
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“Most ********* in Norway spend just 14 years behind bars. The terrorist is 32 years old. He will get out when he’s 53. That means he’s serving about 3 months for every person he ********. Justice?” asked a blogger at Big Peace.
Yet before Americans rush to judge Norway’s criminal justice system — which relies far less on punitive measures than ours and that has a strong focus on rehabilitation — they should look at the results it produces. Norway is one of the safest countries on earth, boasting some of the world’s lowest crime rates...
Most of the time a death penalty discussion comes up, it's more about emotional reactions than reasoning. People instantly conjure up the anti-Christ in their head and all the ****** and pillaging that villain could/would have potentially done, and how righteous it would be to execute them. Hell, I came up with about five or six different villains just looking at the poll list in this topic. But acting on that gets us nowhere good.