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[smjjames]

I hate to say it, but Texas has the right idea. If they fail two appeals, fry their ass. Or gas them. Or whatever, preferably something humane and painless. I'm a moderate liberal, but fuck man. Murderers and torturers and serial rapists. At what point does it become okay to live, when you're ruining MULTIPLE lives?

Mostly just how expensive it is to kill them.

In large part due to the legal fees involved in death sentence appeals.

Plus how they get botched up.

[Frumple]

I hate to say it, but Texas has the right idea. If they fail two appeals, fry their ass. Or gas them. Or whatever, preferably something humane and painless. I'm a moderate liberal, but fuck man. Murderers and torturers and serial rapists. At what point does it become okay to live, when you're ruining MULTIPLE lives?

By that metric we should be gassing much of our justice system

... I'd actually agree in a void execution is better than life imprisonment for various reasons, but we're not in a void and our justice system is shit and well known at this point for fucking murdering innocents, never mind all the economic inefficiencies regarding the process. Better to not let it have the option to terminally fuck someone and save us some money on the side.

[Trekkin]

I hate to say it, but Texas has the right idea. If they fail two appeals, fry their ass. Or gas them. Or whatever, preferably something humane and painless. I'm a moderate liberal, but fuck man. Murderers and torturers and serial rapists. At what point does it become okay to live, when you're ruining MULTIPLE lives?

By that metric we should be gassing much of our justice system

... I'd actually agree in a void execution is better than life imprisonment for various reasons, but we're not in a void and our justice system is shit and well known at this point for fucking murdering innocents, never mind all the economic inefficiencies regarding the process. Better to not let it have the option to terminally fuck someone and save us some money on the side.

I'd agree with the latter part of this, at least, and it's potentially getting worse, as death qualification is removing more and more jurors from the pool.

I'll support capital punishment when we can bring them back to life if it turns out we messed up.

[smjjames]

I hate to say it, but Texas has the right idea. If they fail two appeals, fry their ass. Or gas them. Or whatever, preferably something humane and painless. I'm a moderate liberal, but fuck man. Murderers and torturers and serial rapists. At what point does it become okay to live, when you're ruining MULTIPLE lives?

By that metric we should be gassing much of our justice system

... I'd actually agree in a void execution is better than life imprisonment for various reasons, but we're not in a void and our justice system is shit and well known at this point for fucking murdering innocents, never mind all the economic inefficiencies regarding the process. Better to not let it have the option to terminally fuck someone and save us some money on the side.

I'd agree with the latter part of this, at least, and it's potentially getting worse, as death qualification is removing more and more jurors from the pool.

I'll support capital punishment when we can bring them back to life if it turns out we messed up.

If it were possible to bring innocents back to life, then it’d be possible to bring criminals back to life. At that point, execution would probably involve complete and utter atomization or some other method that would make it impossible to revive said criminal.

[Kagus]

"Life sentence without possibility of parole" is also a thing, but I'm unfamiliar with the technicalities of the law and as such can't say whether or not it's just straight up lying about the possibility of parole.

The system has issues. I'm also one who feels that a (humane, there's no need to get any last-minute revenge boner) execution can be preferable in cases of impossible rehabilitation. Stops them from being an active influence on the other inmates, prevents the possibility of them getting back out (either by escaping or legal loophole), and also doesn't subject them to living the rest of their life behind bars, in an environment that could very well be quite unpleasant for them.

However, as mentioned, the legal system is borked. Not only in that innocents can and do get convicted, but also in that the prison system makes too much money off of having inmates... The longer the better.

Not only do they get those sweet government dollars to just have the person kick around until they die on their own, but they can also be used for slave labor as Ispil pointed out (or rather, how Ispil's point ends up getting skewer by the system as it stands now), squeezing a few more drops of revenue out of an individual. It really wouldn't surprise me to find that executions are deemed as expensive as they are because of some strings pulled to keep a more entrepreneurially-adjusted status quo in place.


It's interesting to note that Norway not only does not have a death penalty, but no prison sentence (lifetime, multiple-lifetime or otherwise) can exceed 23 years. Period. You cannot be incarcerated for longer than 23 years at a time. If you come out and re-offend, then you can of course get a new sentence, but they can't put you away for the rest of your life.

This came up a bit when Breivik (he has since changed his name to Fjotolf Hansen, because the old name had gotten a bit too much negative press for his liking) has his reign of terror in Norway. People were concerned about him eventually hitting the streets again, regardless of the sentence leveled against him, so there was at least one petition going around to instate a death sentence for this one person.

Now, I may not be intrinsically opposed to the death penalty, but that is absolutely not a good idea. We're supposed to have a legal system that people can be judged by, not some committee lynch squad that makes exceptions to the rule.


Since I'm on the subject anyways, might as well mention that he's had a humdinger of a time in prison and has been causing a stink pretty much from the very get-go. He constantly complains about the food, the accommodations, about how he only gets to play on a PS3 and not a PS4 (and how it "doesn't have any fun games"), and he has repeatedly stated that Norway's prison system is by far the most barbaric, inhumane institution of its type in the world.

He also launched a lawsuit against the prison system, saying that the guards were treating him "unfairly" and we're isolating him without due cause (I.E., no offense that warranted solitary confinement). The guards said that yes, they were isolating him... Because if he's left around the other inmates, they'll beat the shit out of him.

He ended up winning the suit and was awarded some concession by the government, I forget what exactly. Fun chap.

[Trekkin]

It's interesting to note that Norway not only does not have a death penalty, but no prison sentence (lifetime, multiple-lifetime or otherwise) can exceed 23 years. Period.

With three caveats: the military penal code allows for actual life imprisonment, the maximal sentence was extended to 30 years for crimes against humanity in 2008, and preventive detention can theoretically last forever provided the prisoner were still judged likely to commit more violent crimes in the future; there's no cap on how many five-year renewals are allowed. That last is what Breivik was actually sentenced to.

[Kagus]

I thought he eventually did get hit with the psychiatric evaluation deal, or was that completely thrown out in the proceedings? I knew there was something keeping him from getting out (not that it's been 30 or even 23 years yet), I just didn't remember what it was.

I don't know what the system is like in Sweden either, I just know about the cookie incident, which I thought was pretty great.

[Trekkin]

I thought he eventually did get hit with the psychiatric evaluation deal, or was that completely thrown out in the proceedings? I knew there was something keeping him from getting out (not that it's been 30 or even 23 years yet), I just didn't remember what it was.

I don't know what the system is like in Sweden either, I just know about the cookie incident, which I thought was pretty great.

His second evaluation did not find him to be criminally insane, if that's what you mean. There was some thought that he might be indefinitely detained in a psychiatric hospital as an alternative to a prison term, but the sentence of preventive detention isn't dependent on his mental health or anything and can certainly keep him in prison indefinitely. That is, in some sense, what it is designed to do: to sequester people that are likely to remain a danger to society regardless of prison regime.

[martinuzz]

I'll support capital punishment when we can bring them back to life if it turns out we messed up.

^^

[Reelya]

I hate to say it, but Texas has the right idea. If they fail two appeals, fry their ass. Or gas them. Or whatever, preferably something humane and painless. I'm a moderate liberal, but fuck man. Murderers and torturers and serial rapists. At what point does it become okay to live, when you're ruining MULTIPLE lives?

There's a step up between rape and murder charges, no matter how we feel about rapists. e.g. the thing is, a rapist might kill the victim because that hides the tracks, and if rape already carried the death penalty, that might in fact become more common: "nothing left to lose now, might as well kill the girl".

The bar for the "ultimate punishment" in fact needs to be set pretty high, otherwise there's no dis-incentive to violent criminals escalating things, and they might be of the mindset "dead men tell no tales". e.g. the stated "serial rapist" in a world where that carries the death penalty might just graduate to "serial killer"

even for murderers the automatic death penalty is a questionable tactic. e.g. if murder = death automatically, for one murder, then it's exactly the same punishment as "rape+torture+murder" or murdering any number of other people to cover up the first murder.

[Starver]

(Demolition Man)

[scriver]

"Isolation until death". Stick 'em in a cell with a noose until solitude and sensory deprivation makes them kill themselves.

I'm not being serious for reasons well put by martinuzz and trekkin above. But I'm also unsure of how to handle seriously grave offenders like Breivik and similar (not just your common murderers). I would like for imprisonment in perpetuity to at least be an option in the most severe cases.

I've also grown less patient with repeat offenders. I feel that if you have a system built around trying to rehabilitate criminals or otherwise prevent reoffense, which is what I want the justice system to be based around, and have a welfare state which offers ample opportunity to support oneself when in need, which is what I want society to be like, then you also need to be systematically harsher against those who repeatedly and consistently choose to hurt others.

[martinuzz]

Even though we still have life imprisonment in the Netherlands (for which we are criticized by the EU Human Right Court, because life imprisonment with no parole is forbidden by EU human rights, in practice, it is almost never ruled.
What does happen regularily, is that someone gets X years in prison, plus 'TBS' (Ter BeschikkingStelling aan het Rijk = put at the disposal of the state).TBS means someone gets put in a locked psychiatric institute, likely for the rest of their life.
A Breivik here would never walk the streets again.

[Kagus]

"Isolation until death". Stick 'em in a cell with a noose until solitude and sensory deprivation makes them kill themselves.

I'm not being serious for reasons well put by martinuzz and trekkin above. But I'm also unsure of how to handle seriously grave offenders like Breivik and similar (not just your common murderers). I would like for imprisonment in perpetuity to at least be an option in the most severe cases.

I've also grown less patient with repeat offenders. I feel that if you have a system built around trying to rehabilitate criminals or otherwise prevent reoffense, which is what I want the justice system to be based around, and have a welfare state which offers ample opportunity to support oneself when in need, which is what I want society to be like, then you also need to be systematically harsher against those who repeatedly and consistently choose to hurt others.

Thing is, that's how you can end up with things like the US' "Three Strikes" rule, where a person can end up with life imprisonment because of something as "mundane" as theft (at least in California).

But yeah, more focus on actual rehabilitation and making sure that people come out with skills and confidence (not to mention opportunities!) enough to become productive members of society is really the ticket. Maybe not having a multi-billion-dollar private prison industry that directly benefits from repeat offenders, even.

[Kagus]

I believe that one was thrown out by the courts.

Which case are you referring to? It's not an isolated event, there are multiple individuals who have ended up with exceptionally long or life-term imprisonments due to misdemeanors or minor felonies. California apparently reformed its laws in 2012 though, requiring the third offense to be a felony of violent nature in order to warrant life imprisonment.