From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Dec 04 2002 - 01:06:30 MST
Rafal writes
> >>>> Now, how much of your own money would you personally pay to feed
> >>>> murderers in prisons? Are you going to support your high-minded
> >>>> moral sentiments with cold, hard cash?
> >
> > The usual figure is that it's more expensive to kill someone (and
> > deal with death row appeals) than to just leave them in jail for life.
>
> ### Just put a check-box on my tax form, allowing me to donate money to kill
> murderers. I (and a lot of other similarly irrational, bloodthirsty humans)
> will happily pay a nice sum for every head rolling off the guillotine.
I think that capital punishment---in those societies that
choose to exercise it---has profit potential. The state
might raffle off tickets for who gets to pull the switch
on an extremely notorious murderer or rapist. Or merely
let it go to the highest bidder, allowing corporate
sponsors and group contributions for one particular
candidate. Executions really should turn a profit.
This would be greatly facilitated by a television documentary
to hype (though staying within the bounds of the truth, of
course) the actual acts of the perpetrator. People who get
really angry---and in my opinion rightfully so---at some
hideous act committed by a criminal, will be willing to
spend more.
> >> ### OK, you don't want to pay. You won't let me kill the bad guy
> >> (who, say, killed my wife). What do you want to do? Let him go free,
> >> and keep killing?
> >
> > Who you think killed your wife.
> >
> ### Say, I have video footage from the cameras I have in my house. The
> murderer was bitten by my dog, there is his DNA splashed around the living
> room, the neighbor's cameras filmed him and his car arriving at my house and
> then leaving. All other evidence checks out.
Still, there is a finite non-zero probability that you
have the wrong man. To imitate those who reason from
that fact that capital punishment is wrong because
mistakes can be made, perhaps they would be happier if
criminals weren't locked up or punished in any way.
After all, since there is a finite chance that someone
sentenced to a long jail term really is innocent, what
right does the state have in punishing him? After all,
you can't really ever give him back those years spent
in jail.
Lee
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