Life sentence without parole regardless of the recovery of the baby or not. Death sentence if we had a judicial system that wasn't so incompetent and corrupt, but since we do, I'd settle for life in jail.
I'm personally against the death sentence, perfect judicial system or not. I'm much more in the "life of hard labor without possibility of parole" camp. Especially since, in some cases, the death sentence is actually easier than life w/o parole, depending on the point of view of the prisoner. There is a documented example of a mafioso in Italy, a country without the death sentence, begging to be put to death because he finds it preferable to the hell of being stuck in prison for the rest of his life. Of course, since Italy has no death penalty, he'll probably only die of natural causes (unless he finds some way to commit suicide or something).
I believe that if rehabilitation is not possible (which you are de facto declaring with a life sentence), then the problem is an economical one.
Of course, it often costs more to impose the death penalty than it does to just do life without parole due to all the legal fees, etc. Even with a perfect judicial system, odds are all the appeals and whatnot that go hand-in-hand with capital offenses would still take place as part of the standard safety checks against an honest mistake (as opposed to dishonest gaming the system, judicial bribery, institutional racism, and all the other nastiness that takes place in the current legal system).
There is also a moral and ethical issue here, given that the United States is the only western democracy that has a death penalty, it does make you wonder if somehow we're not as enlightened in this area as our peers (ignoring other areas in which we may be compared with our peers).
Personally, to blunt the economic issue, prisoners should be required to work some sort of in-prison job to help offset the cost of their incarceration for as long as they are physically and mentally capable. There is the old example of pressing license plates and whatnot, but that's legitimate as far as I'm concerned. There probably other jobs that can be done in a prison, such as laundry service, food service, janitorial service, etc., that prisoners can do. Admittedly, some of them may need to be limited due to the security risk (you don't want crazy stabbity-stabby guy working with knives in the kitchen, for example), but they should be required to do more than just lift weights in the prison gym all day long.
If we're talking about prisoners who could go out on parole or with limited term sentences, it's possible to get them some vocational training in the process of doing a prison job such that not only do they help offset the cost of their incarceration, they have a trade they could practice once they leave prison that may help them avoid becoming a repeat offender.
That said, if we emptied the jails of non-violent offenders, it'd be less of an issue.
Depends on the nature of the non-violent offenders. Someone who commits large scale fraud, despite being non-violent, does deserve some sort of appropriate punishment. However, if you're talking about people arrested for having a couple of ounces of weed on them or something, I do see your point.
I'm personally against the death sentence, perfect judicial system or not. I'm much more in the "life of hard labor without possibility of parole" camp. Especially since, in some cases, the death sentence is actually easier than life w/o parole, depending on the point of view of the prisoner. There is a documented example of a mafioso in Italy, a country without the death sentence, begging to be put to death because he finds it preferable to the hell of being stuck in prison for the rest of his life. Of course, since Italy has no death penalty, he'll probably only die of natural causes (unless he finds some way to commit suicide or something).
In your example it makes the death sentence seem like the more humane option. Personally I am not against the death sentence but have two big issues with it right now.
Firstly it should not cost more for someone to be sentenced to death than a it does for a life sentence. It is absurd for it to be that way. Once a person is sentenced to death it should be carried out shortly thereafter. Secondly there should be absolutely no possible doubt in the verdict for a death sentence to be given. There should be a 1 in 1e20 chance that the guilty sentence was incorrect. How to enforce that I do not know, maybe require visual proof of the incident or some other form of undeniable evidence. If you do not have that type of evidence then life in prison for the individual.
The second issue is really the biggest as an incorrect guilty sentence on a person who has life in prison is terrible but at least they can be set free, even if they may not have enough time left to have a fulfilling life. For a person who has been sentenced to death it would likely be too late in such a situation.
The second issue is really the biggest as an incorrect guilty sentence on a person who has life in prison is terrible but at least they can be set free, even if they may not have enough time left to have a fulfilling life. For a person who has been sentenced to death it would likely be too late in such a situation.
Part of the reason why the death penalty is so expensive is basically precisely due to making sure that the innocent aren't executed via all the appeals and whatnot.
As far as the death sentence being a more humane option, that often is up to the individual. It kind of falls under the same camp as to whether doctor assisted suicide is more humane than natural death due to terminal illness/injury -- it's often a personal issue. That said, I have no issue with a prisoner being given the choice of life without parole or death via something akin to a self-administered cyanide pill, for example. It's just the imposition of death upon the prisoner by an outside agent that bothers me.
I could get all philosophical here with a third option taken from sci fi, just for the sake of discussing the morality of it, but I won't unless pressed to do so.
Not to get off on too much of a tangent, but fraudsters and other non-violents could have more tailored sentences. Cap the white-collar embezzler's salary for the next 20 years to the median income for his area, for example. Enforce this through automatic audits of his bank accounts and spending with periodic checkups by human auditors and private investigators. Still cheaper than prison.
Busty Girl Comics is stopping! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To be fair, it was literally the same joke over and over.
Yeah, but it was still funny. I also really liked her art style and I have a lot of busty friends and it helped me understand why they complain about their boobs at times.
Not to get off on too much of a tangent, but fraudsters and other non-violents could have more tailored sentences. Cap the white-collar embezzler's salary for the next 20 years to the median income for his area, for example. Enforce this through automatic audits of his bank accounts and spending with periodic checkups by human auditors and private investigators. Still cheaper than prison.
White collar fraudster then leaves the country and moves somewhere without an extradition treaty. Yeah, yeah, you could confiscate their passports and whatnot, but if these fraudsters are devious enough to pull off their scams, they probably are also devious enough to work around passport forfeiture as well.
Sometimes the only effective punishment/deterrent for some of the worst offenders is the risk of getting sent to Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Except embezzlers go to Club Med prison, not pound me in the ass prison.
Club Med prison is a myth (at least now -- things apparently used to be much cushier). Yes, some prisons are less severe than others, due to having smaller proportions of non-violent offenders, but that still doesn't make them pleasant either. "As the saying goes, in minimum security prisons you get punched, and in medium security prisons you get knifed." Notorious Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff is going to medium security federal prison. Former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski didn't even go to federal prison, he's serving 25 in a New York state pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Part of the reason why the death penalty is so expensive is basically precisely due to making sure that the innocent aren't executed via all the appeals and whatnot.
As far as the death sentence being a more humane option, that often is up to the individual. It kind of falls under the same camp as to whether doctor assisted suicide is more humane than natural death due to terminal illness/injury -- it's often a personal issue. That said, I have no issue with a prisoner being given the choice of life without parole or death via something akin to a self-administered cyanide pill, for example. It's just the imposition of death upon the prisoner by an outside agent that bothers me.
I could get all philosophical here with a third option taken from sci fi, just for the sake of discussing the morality of it, but I won't unless pressed to do so.
I do not think the death sentence is a more humane option overall, I was more talking about your example. In some cases I could see it being, as with your example, but I do agree with the concept of a prisoner being given a choice. I think that would be the optimal solution, although I am unsure how many would agree.
I am actually a bit curious of your sci fi option.
I do not think the death sentence is a more humane option overall, I was more talking about your example. In some cases I could see it being, as with your example, but I do agree with the concept of a prisoner being given a choice. I think that would be the optimal solution, although I am unsure how many would agree.
I am actually a bit curious of your sci fi option.
Sorry if I implied that you (or anyone else in this thread) did. Whether the death penalty is more humane or not, assuming the prisoner is truly guilty, depends on many factors, including how the individual prisoner feels.
As for the sci fi option, the TV show Babylon 5 had a death penalty replacement called "death of personality." Basically, in its universe, they had the capability to completely wipe a person's memories and personality and replace them with ones of their choosing. Typically, they'd reprogram a capital prisoner with a personality geared towards service and charity. This was viewed by society at large as more humane than either physical death or life in prison. In th episode where it came up, a serial killer was reprogrammed to become a Catholic monk working in a charitable order, although they implied that he wasn't purposely programmed to become a monk but that he chose to become one out of his programmed desire to serve mankind.
I think that option falls into quite a grey area. I am not sure if it is more or less morally apt than the death sentence or a life sentence. When compared to a death sentence the only difference between the two is that one leaves the organism alive. Both effectively kill the person who was there even if one option replaces the husk with a new personality.
On the side of a life sentence, specifically the type that includes forced labor, it is not much different there either. In both scenarios the person is doing something against their will with one doing so by guards forcing them to and another by changing the person to want to do it.
In the sense that it is more humane for the organism to survive by changing the person inside the organism I could see it being a better option there, but on the side of what is more acceptable for the individual I do not see it being a better option than what we have now. I could see it coming down to which is more important, the individual or the organism, however if it went a more quantitative route I could see "death of personality" option winning as at worst it is equal to what we have now and at best it is the humane choice.
(Yay for late night rant about fictional punishments.)
I think if something like "death of personality" was available, we would also have much better options and so it's probably not worthy of consideration.
As for the realistic sentences, life without parole is clearly and universally preferable to the death sentence, although in most cases parole should be a possibility. However, with that example Lou mentioned in mind (the mafioso begging for death), ideally the option of assisted suicide would be available to them.
My beloved cat, Lucy, whom I have had ever since I was 12-13 years old has unexpectedly died. We found her underneath my parents bed. We cannot figure out what happened to her. There was blood on the floor but no signs of external injuries. We think she might have eaten something poisonous or maybe got sick with a disease or something.
She belonged to my brother who is away at college and we have no idea how to break it to him. Worst of all, she was the sister of my cat, Louie.
She was one of the sweetest cats we ever knew and is a tremendous loss to our whole family. We really will miss her.
Comments
That said, if we emptied the jails of non-violent offenders, it'd be less of an issue.
There is also a moral and ethical issue here, given that the United States is the only western democracy that has a death penalty, it does make you wonder if somehow we're not as enlightened in this area as our peers (ignoring other areas in which we may be compared with our peers).
Personally, to blunt the economic issue, prisoners should be required to work some sort of in-prison job to help offset the cost of their incarceration for as long as they are physically and mentally capable. There is the old example of pressing license plates and whatnot, but that's legitimate as far as I'm concerned. There probably other jobs that can be done in a prison, such as laundry service, food service, janitorial service, etc., that prisoners can do. Admittedly, some of them may need to be limited due to the security risk (you don't want crazy stabbity-stabby guy working with knives in the kitchen, for example), but they should be required to do more than just lift weights in the prison gym all day long.
If we're talking about prisoners who could go out on parole or with limited term sentences, it's possible to get them some vocational training in the process of doing a prison job such that not only do they help offset the cost of their incarceration, they have a trade they could practice once they leave prison that may help them avoid becoming a repeat offender. Depends on the nature of the non-violent offenders. Someone who commits large scale fraud, despite being non-violent, does deserve some sort of appropriate punishment. However, if you're talking about people arrested for having a couple of ounces of weed on them or something, I do see your point.
Firstly it should not cost more for someone to be sentenced to death than a it does for a life sentence. It is absurd for it to be that way. Once a person is sentenced to death it should be carried out shortly thereafter. Secondly there should be absolutely no possible doubt in the verdict for a death sentence to be given. There should be a 1 in 1e20 chance that the guilty sentence was incorrect. How to enforce that I do not know, maybe require visual proof of the incident or some other form of undeniable evidence. If you do not have that type of evidence then life in prison for the individual.
The second issue is really the biggest as an incorrect guilty sentence on a person who has life in prison is terrible but at least they can be set free, even if they may not have enough time left to have a fulfilling life. For a person who has been sentenced to death it would likely be too late in such a situation.
As far as the death sentence being a more humane option, that often is up to the individual. It kind of falls under the same camp as to whether doctor assisted suicide is more humane than natural death due to terminal illness/injury -- it's often a personal issue. That said, I have no issue with a prisoner being given the choice of life without parole or death via something akin to a self-administered cyanide pill, for example. It's just the imposition of death upon the prisoner by an outside agent that bothers me.
I could get all philosophical here with a third option taken from sci fi, just for the sake of discussing the morality of it, but I won't unless pressed to do so.
Sometimes the only effective punishment/deterrent for some of the worst offenders is the risk of getting sent to Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
I am actually a bit curious of your sci fi option.
As for the sci fi option, the TV show Babylon 5 had a death penalty replacement called "death of personality." Basically, in its universe, they had the capability to completely wipe a person's memories and personality and replace them with ones of their choosing. Typically, they'd reprogram a capital prisoner with a personality geared towards service and charity. This was viewed by society at large as more humane than either physical death or life in prison. In th episode where it came up, a serial killer was reprogrammed to become a Catholic monk working in a charitable order, although they implied that he wasn't purposely programmed to become a monk but that he chose to become one out of his programmed desire to serve mankind.
On the side of a life sentence, specifically the type that includes forced labor, it is not much different there either. In both scenarios the person is doing something against their will with one doing so by guards forcing them to and another by changing the person to want to do it.
In the sense that it is more humane for the organism to survive by changing the person inside the organism I could see it being a better option there, but on the side of what is more acceptable for the individual I do not see it being a better option than what we have now. I could see it coming down to which is more important, the individual or the organism, however if it went a more quantitative route I could see "death of personality" option winning as at worst it is equal to what we have now and at best it is the humane choice.
(Yay for late night rant about fictional punishments.)
As for the realistic sentences, life without parole is clearly and universally preferable to the death sentence, although in most cases parole should be a possibility. However, with that example Lou mentioned in mind (the mafioso begging for death), ideally the option of assisted suicide would be available to them.
She belonged to my brother who is away at college and we have no idea how to break it to him. Worst of all, she was the sister of my cat, Louie.
She was one of the sweetest cats we ever knew and is a tremendous loss to our whole family. We really will miss her.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/12/third-atheist-blogger-killed-in-bangladesh-after-knife-attack