Statement in my Cultural Anthropology textbook...

[Justin]

i am takeing these indoctrination classes also, as a matter of fact i just finished a cultural anthropology class myself. the aztec's scarifice might not have been truly for religious purposes. there is a school of thought that the whole idea of the sacrifices were set up not so much as a religious ritual but it was to provide needed PROTIEN in the diet. hey, livin on corn alone gets boring. so this story may have been made up to feed the people.

Soylent Green is PEOPLE!

 

[allmons]

Deterrent

I can tell you first hand that there are several people alive ONLY because I was afraid of getting caught and executed. This was before I was saved, when I learned that kind of thinking was so wrong.

But don't ever tell me that the death penalty is not a deterrent - I know that when I was a wild thing, it deterred ME.

 

[Tequila_Sauer]

So, would a citizen owning a gun be a deterrent to a criminal? Sneaking into the house of a well armed marksman and his well armed marksman wife would, almost certainly, be a death penalty (or damn near close). Suppose a criminal knew that these marksmen resided in a house he was hoping to rob. Would he be deterred from that home and, instead, go for the granola-eating botanist across the street who wouldn't dare "endanger" his family's lives by having a gun?

 

[NCP24]

It would be if when the sentence is given they were walked out the door and executed immediately. Unfortunately, that's not what happens. The fact sheet from Death Penalty Focus of California estimates that, due to constitutionally-mandated safeguards, the death penalty in Los Angeles County costs over $638,991 more per defendant than life imprisonment without possibility of parole. This estimate includes costs of trial, automatic appeals to the state supreme court, and incarcaration.

It’s hard to imagine that it costs over $638,991 more than life imprisonment. I won’t say the figures inaccurate, but I’m curious as to who funded the fact sheet?

 

[hso]

+1 geek

Saying the death penalty has any deterrance value because it deters the executed from commiting further criminal acts after execution is silly word gamesmanship like the stupid comparison in the text.

The question of the value of capital punishment is a serious question with enormous implications that warrants at least better treatment than a snide caption in the text. The text's authors and the instructor are grossly negligent for not treating the issue with the respect it deserves.

Regardless, it's been shown over and over again that violent criminals are not detered in comitting violent crimes because of the death penalty hanging out there, but because they don't think they'll get caught.

My MA instructor is a prison guard on Max at Brushy Mtn. He's spent years talking to and observing criminals. He tells us that overwhelmingly the violent criminals both headed for execution and those just burning time until they can get out and get back to their life of crime don't give a rip about the death penalty. What they do care about is whether the victem will be an easy target and what they hate is having to worry about whether the potential victem is armed or not.

Armed citizens deter criminal behavior because it makes the criminal hesitate about who is targeted for a crime.

Ask Preachman what his discussions with both death row and lifers have told him.

 

[rick_reno]

It’s hard to imagine that it costs over $638,991 more than life imprisonment. I won’t say the figures inaccurate, but I’m curious as to who funded the fact sheet?

The Death Penalty Focus group is supported by it's claimed 100k members, I would assume that's where the funding came from for the cited study. You can read all about them here http://www.deathpenalty.org/. There are published papers available that mention in Texas a death penalty case costs $2.3M. Google "death penalty cost effective" and you'll get access to them. I have no way of knowing how factual these cost figures are.

Back to the Constitutional protections offered, are you making reference to the 8th Amendment "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted" or the Fifth Amendment provides that '[n]o persons shall be held to answer for a capital...crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury...nor be deprived of life...without the due process of law.' This clearly permits the death penalty to be imposed, and establishes beyond doubt that the death penalty is not one of the 'cruel and unusual punishments' prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Are there some other Constitutional safeguards that I've missed? If you've got other parts of the Constitution that address this issue, please cite them.

From 1982 to 1992 five Federal correction officers were killed by prisoners serving life sentences for murder. Had these prisoners been executed, innocent lives would have been saved. The death penalty is, without question, a deterrent to murder.

 

[Iain]

This clearly permits the death penalty to be imposed, and establishes beyond doubt that the death penalty is not one of the 'cruel and unusual punishments' prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Are there some other Constitutional safeguards that I've missed? If you've got other parts of the Constitution that address this issue, please cite them.

Not being American the Constitution isn't going to play a role in what I'm about to say.

I kind of figure that even if the hallowed document fails to mention 'not being executed for crimes you didn't commit', it's still a bad thing. Therein lies the problem with 'courtroom to gallows' justice, innocent people get convicted, and they'd get hung too.

 

[Steamship Trooper]

I kinda figure the death penalty should be administered two ways-

1. At the time and place of the intended crime, preferably at the hands (muzzle?) of the intended victim.

2. Jury that decided death sentence should be the ones to pull the trigger, flip the switch, whatever. Easy enough done, just have them sit in the viewing booth at the execution site, with twelve buttons. Three of them are "live", the rest dummies. On go signal, all twelve push the button.

Utah has something similar with thier firing squad; five rifles, four blanks.

Can't say much about the first method, but the second method doesn't farm out "shooting the dog."

(thanks RAH and LNS)

 

[NCP24]

The Death Penalty Focus group is supported by it's claimed 100k members, I would assume that's where the funding came from for the cited study. You can read all about them here http://www.deathpenalty.org/. There are published papers available that mention in Texas a death penalty case costs $2.3M. Google "death penalty cost effective" and you'll get access to them. I have no way of knowing how factual these cost figures are.

Either way our system needs an overhaul.

 

[MrTuffPaws]

(no discussion of any kind, just a picture of an electric chair and a painting of an Aztec human sacrifice):

The worst thing is that I've seen this kind of pap before, and pointed it out to the professor (Ellie, if you catch this, it's Lynn Gamble again), who simply acted (badly) concerned and thanked me for the feedback. The way she teaches the class is right along those lines....

do you have proof that the death penalty reduces crime? If not, the statement in the book is correct.

 

[lysander]

If you are of the "churn 'em and burn 'em" bent when it comes to the death penalty I would be interested to hear an answer to my previous question.

What ratio of innocent people executed by the State are you willing to accept in exchange for the rapid and easy application of the death penalty to guilty parties?

1 to 1?
10 to 1?
100 to 1?
1,000 to 1?
10,000 to 1?

The fact is that no system of punishment is perfect. In addition, those who operate the system are human and thus prone to mistakes. If your batting average isn't a guaranteed thousand you are going to KILL AN INNOCENT person at some point. (and we already have)

How do you rationalize this away? Do you use a knee-jerk shortcut like.."he musta been doin' something wrong if they strung him up." to justify State sanctioned murder?

Revenge and the desire for it is easily understandable when it comes from an individual...but the State is not a person...it doesn't get its feelings hurt...it doesn't mourn lost family members...so it shouldn't be vengeful. It should be dispassionate and rational, treating all citizens equally.

If you give the State a large and easy to use hammer...everybody will eventually start looking like a nail.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

James D. Wright did a study involving interviews of 1874 convicts
in 18 prisons in 10 different states:
- about a third of the felons recounted anecdotes of
calling off a planned crime because they learned the
intended victim was habitually armed.

The thirty year sentence enhancement for use of a machine gun
in crime does seem to deter some criminals for using machineguns.

If fear of being shot deters crime, if fear of a thirty year add-on
deters use of machineguns, then surely some criminals look at
the possiblity of death sentence as too much to risk.

As the resumption of executions has reached the 1,000 milestone,
almost all categories of crime are down, including the usual death
penalty crime of murder. There are many reasons for the decline
in crime, including proliferation of cell phones and handgun carry
permits enhancing personal safety. The idea that some calculating
criminals may weigh the death penalty in their decision making
is worth consideration.

I have my own reasons for opposing the death penalty, but saying
it is totally ineffective as a deterrent is not one of them.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Deterrance of any kind is impossible to measure because you are trying to caculate the rate of non actions-

 

[Gordon Fink]

I support the death penalty, but I recognize that it is about vengeance rather than deterrence. That said, capital punishment should be held to an even higher standard of proof. Only those found guilty beyond all doubt should ever be put to death.

~G. Fink

 

[Ransom]

+1 Obvious -- for all the constitutional outrage on this page, I'm surprised so few people are taking this position.

Truly. We argue up and down about the government having the power to take our rights and such but many people here support the government having the power to legally kill its citizens. Not only that some want that power expanded.

I do support the death penalty in the idea that some scum just needs to die however the fact is there will always be innocent people to die when the system fails.

If I make a mistake when defending myself they will try and take my freedom away. When the government makes a mistake whats the punishment? Money? Does that seem right to anyone? We talk about government oppression being one of the worst things in the world but support a system in which innocent people will surely be killed by our government.

Its a pretty tough thing to support really.

 

[lysander]

Turkey Creek said:

Deterrance of any kind is impossible to measure because you are trying to caculate the rate of non actions-

General Deterrence (making an example, sending a message to society...whatever you choose to call it) isn't worthwhile at all, whether you can effectively measure it or not.

Interviews with criminals, studies conducted, and the continuing existence of all types of criminal activity offer proof of how fruitless the idea is. In order for deterrence to work as intended it requires that all who commit crime have their actions determined by rational, transactional thought. A cost-benefit analysis if you will. The reality is that people (and criminals) rarely act rationally. Or when they do...the rewards outweigh the risks (in their own minds).

In the late 18th and early 19th century England conducted public hangings of pick-pockets. During the hangings the crowd was often full of PICK-POCKETS! Does that make sense? Doesn't seem like a very effective deterrent. England had some 220 capital offenses during the same time period...yet crime of all types continued. If ye believe in "sending a message" surely everyone should have been huddled in their homes terrified of committing a capital crime.

I'm all for punishing specific criminals for their actions...but this whole "sending a message to the rest of the bad guys" is a tired justification for punishment.

 

[DRZinn]

The anthro book could have made that point without the sneering, idiologically driven condescencion.

Without the sneering, ideologically driven condescension the point wouldn't need to be made, because it would have NOTHING TO DO WITH ANTHROPOLOGY.

My point had nothing to do with the death penalty. It had to do with throwing these little political digs in where they're absolutely useless.

FWIW, I agree philosophically with the death penalty and disagree practically. Innocents have been executed. Until we can guarantee that won't happen, it's a bad idea.

 

[lysander]

Everybody has an agenda. Sadly, objectivity is lacking even in institutions of higher learning.

The worst of it is that not everyone will notice the message that you spotted. Some will brush past...worse...some will absorb it without even realizing it.