From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Mon Jul 29 2002 - 01:51:40 MDT
> I found this interesting statistic:
>
> Of the 52,000 state prison inmates serving time for murder in 1984
> 810 had previously been convicted of murder and had killed 821 persons
> following their previous murder convictions. Executing each
> of these inmates
> after their first murder conviction would have saved 821 lives.
>
> It seems to me that letting a CONVICTED murderer kill again
> is just as big a
> failure of the legal system as executing an innocent man.
>
> John K Clark jonkc@att.net
Say that it is as bad to let a convicted murderer kill again as it is to
execute an innocent man. You would execute 52,000 people to save 821.
Therefore, no more than 821 of the 52,000 must be innocent, or else you are
in the wrong (by your own maths). Are you confident that the legal system is
98.5% correct about murderers?
Looking at this another way, it seems like you've got a ballpark chance of
around 1 in a million of being killed by a convicted murderer. However, at
any time about 1 in 2,500 people is in prison for murder. If you execute
everyone of those, aren't you swapping risk of being murdered by a murderer
for risk of being falsely executed for commiting murder? In all likelihood,
the risk of the latter would turn out to be higher.
Emlyn
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