Alternatives to death penalty?

[crwth]

The first and most obvious negative is that, well, executions kill people. Isn’t it very hypocritical for us as a society to punish people for killing by killing them, especially when there are more humane methods of dealing with them? And what if the person we are punishing has actually done nothing wrong? There are numerous cases where people who were executed were found to have been innocent all along soon afterwards. One such case is that of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was sentenced to death for starting a fire that killed his three daughters despite overwhelming evidence for his innocence. Willingham was executed in 2004, with doubts of the wrongfulness of the execution arousing soon afterwards. Several investigations have concluded that Willingham was, in fact, innocent of his crime, yet as of August 2015 the state of Oklahoma has yet to overturn his verdict. If he hadn’t been executed, chances are he would’ve already been released based on the aforementioned investigations.

First of all, executions were done to kill people, that's just the purpose of them punishing. I'm not a firm believer in the death penalty, but I want to have justice, for it to be done to people who really deserve it. It's not just basically killing them, but having them living on earth is not ideal. Yes, there are more humane methods, but it's still going to be death. The journey is different, but the destination is the same.

I guess there are a lot of people who were accused by the wrong thing, and they say there are people who died in the death penalty but is innocent. We can never know that for sure, but the fact that you were caught and there was evidence (if investigations were done), it's probably true. If the accused was wrongly convicted, it's the system that needs to stop. It's the corruption, and it would be hard to stop it, but we could do our parts.

[afluence]

Even if we leave the humanitarian and judicial concerns, there’s also the monetary and purely practical ones. Cases that pursue the death penalty tend to be a lot more expensive to the state than cases that only pursue life without parole due to the former being a lot more complex and lengthy than the latter. If the state of California alone replaces the death penalty with life without parole, it will save $1 billion in taxpayer’s money over the next five years. Additionally, due to the different living conditions, the price of accommodating just one death row inmate a year is $90,000 higher than the same price for someone serving life without parole – and keep in mind, death row inmates are often imprisoned for at least 10-15 years before their execution. When all is said and done, on average, every execution (meaning the trial, imprisonment and the eventual procedure to put the prisoner to death) costs the state about $250 million. And remember – these are all taxpayers’ money that could be used for the improvement of the community.

[SinarG]

I believe that if our society follows the path of humanization, then the death penalty is not acceptable.
First, everyone has the right to repentance for his crimes and rebirth for society.
Secondly, the judicial system is imperfect, it has errors. There is always a percentage of unfairly convicted citizens. It turns out that we can commit a higher evil, deprive an innocent person of life.
For all these reasons, I am against the death penalty. And I think that a civilized society should abandon it.

[hoverdrone]

For some reason hypnosis comes to my mind. This concept may be too far-fetched, but if it`s impossible that the criminal will rethink his crimes and change, why not to psychologically 'rewire' them? Is this humane enough or we should care more about murderers` personalities?

[Becksinsky]

I think the alternative is, of course, the imprisonment of a person, but in addition to this, psychologists must communicate with every prisoner on a daily basis, which would help to correct their views on life and, as a result, their behavior.
I understand that this seems like a very mild punishment. But think about what we will fix in a person if we physically torture him? This is the same senseless anger, it is not constructive.
It is necessary to try to fix the person, and not to revenge him.

[Blanca_Gregory]

I believe people need to get a chance to change themselves and even mentally challenged person should get medical help to recover.
And prison are not a great way to make them better person and is very costly.
I believe prisoners should be indulged to labour works and social works under proper supervision.

What about the serial killers? The mass murderers? Do they deserve the same treatment as well? If they all use mental illness as the reason for their crime, it will be a shame to people who are truly suffering from it. Sometimes, a person who has done a terrible crime deserves to be sentenced to death. But as for alternative to death penalty ideas, the only thing I can think of is to have them experience what their victims experienced. For example, have a rapist be screwed over and over and over by a pig or a horse. Or starve them off. Lock them in a padded cell with a noise barrier while limiting their food and drink supplies.

[coolcoinz]

Basically – life without parole. A lot of death penalty proponents stipulate that convicted criminals will be out on the streets in seven to twenty years, potentially unleashing them back on society. Nobody wants a vengeful serial killer or rapist back on the streets and free to track down the people who testified against him – that’s a scenario straight out of a nightmare! But in reality, most people sentenced to life without parole for violent crimes are not released at all, and the ones who are usually released after at least 25-30 years in prison, by which point most of them are old men and women anyway. As mentioned above, life without parole also costs a lot less and allows for mistakes to be corrected. Overall, we feel like the death penalty has a lot of negative sides and no positive ones, and while life without parole is not a perfect solution, it certainly beats the alternative.

Who is going to pay for that? Murderers usually know that they can spend the next 20 years in jail. Does it stop them from taking lives?
Would "no parole" change the crime rates? IMO it wouldn't. As a result the same murderers who are now leaving the system after 20 years will have to stay there for another 20, despite being old, grumpy, and unable to care for themselves.
What's the point of keeping a 70 or 80 year old grandpa in prison?

[BADecker]

How's about brainwashing? Now it's true brainwashing doesn't last very long after you take someone off it. And even the best of brainwashing breaks down after a while. So, how about the idea of eternal life as an alternative to the death penalty? Here's how.

If someone deserves death for some crime he committed, stick him in a brainwashing stimulation center. Brainwash him into believing Jesus-salvation so that when he dies of old age in the center, he goes to Heaven... eternal life. Let the brainwashing continue for the rest of his natural life.

This doesn't mean that he should NOT work off his debt to society while he is still alive, living in the brainwashing center.

[JSRAW]

@BADecker is that sarcasm or you are serious? lol

[BADecker]

@BADecker is that sarcasm or you are serious? lol

But if I am serious, or if it is sarcasm, or if it is something else, you haven't explained much about why you are laughing.

[af_newbie]

Death penalty has its pro and con but I think it has little effect on reducing crimes. Though it does help reducing cost spent on prison. What do you guys think? Is there alternatives to punishing crimes?

It is a difficult question.

From the economic point of view, the average cost of incarceration per inmate is around 150K/year.

I would propose to create two options for all convicted death row inmates:

Option 1: death penalty, execution in one week.  This is a default option if option #2 is not chosen.

Option 2: work for free in a prison factory for the rest of his/her life.  Family members/friends would have to agree to pay the difference in prison costs+20%.  Any breach in the contract would trigger option #1.

The cost of the two options will be minimal to the rest of us. 

I already see money-raising campaigns to "save the lives of death row inmates".
You know the ads you see on TV about saving tigers or starving children in Africa etc.  I think option #2 will be very popular and in the end will make money for the government.

You will basically spread the cost among the willing participants, instead of the current system when all taxpayers are on the hook.

[daniel08]

For me death penalty is the ultimate punishments for all criminals specially those who commits the most serious crimes like murder , rape etc. For the alternative punishments it depends in the crime that a criminal commits like example of when someone rape a woman , the one who commits this crime shall be cut his penis and imprisonment.

[JSRAW]

@BADecker was laughing at my confusion