Some thoughts on crime and punishment
Today I was thinking about crime and punishment. Canada, like many countries, doesn't have a death penalty, though polls often show that an ever-shrinking majority would favor reinstating it.
This would be a terrible idea. I object to the death penalty mainly because I don't think the system is infallible. Nothing that man has ever created has been perfect, and the justice system in any country is far from it. If the state kills just one innocent person out of ten thousand on death row, that would be one death too many.
If you've ever worked in a customer facing field, you begin to believe that everyone's an idiot. If you were on trial, would you want to trust another person to decide whether you live or die, especially if that someone can't figure out how to work a VCR?
Then there's the media, which finds you guilty long before you've stepped into the courtroom. I really wonder if people like Scott Peterson got a fair trial.
Now, some people would say that the death penalty in the states proves that stiffer sentences don't reduce crime. Countries without the death penalty have lower murder rates, so obviously the punishment doesn't prevent the crime. This is also untrue. There is a relationship between crime and punishment, but its not a linear relationship.
If you remeber highschool math, the relationship would probably look like negative exponential, as you increase punishment crime decreases. Yet after a certain point, you can double, triple, quadruple, etc. the punishment but it won't really make much of a difference. I would say that threshold is about 15-20 years. I'm 27 now, and if I commited a crime that had a two year sentence, I'd get out at 29. That doesn't seem so bad. But at 15 years, I'd then be 42 when I got out. That's a huge chunk of my life gone. 30 years would put me at 57, is that much worse than getting out at 42? Not really. There is a percentage of people who would commit a crime no matter what that punishment is, and "getting tough" on them isn't going to make much of a difference.
posted by Kyle_From_Ottawa @ 8:52 a.m.
3 comments
3 Comments:
What about the difference between being locked up in the general population versus being on death row?
In America, being on death row is much worse than regular inmates, in terms of priveleges and daily life. I believe that most death row inmates spend 23 hours a day indoors and isolated.
Also, I agree with your "1 innocent death per 10,000 prisoners is too many" idea. However, is it any different for an innocent man to be executed or to sit in a cell forever? Should we eliminate prisons altogether to make sure no innocent man is ever incarcerated, even for one day?
I admit our system isn't perfect, as you say no human creation is. However, at some point we have to say this is the best we can do, and we're going to live with the results. If we put on a trial with lawyers and judges, and a jury agrees that a person deserves to die, I say we have to respect the process, because I believe that there are crimes and criminals who deserve nothing less than the death penalty, regardless if it may be applied incorrectly to somebody else.
Here's my response:
My position isn't out of any sympathy to the guilty. I'd support it if the judge, jury, and prosecuter would be willing to stake their own lives on someone's guilt. If you aren't so sure that someones guilty that you'd say your own life is forfeit if you're wrong, then you shouldn't be sentencing someone to death.
In Canada, we had a case where a man was exonorated from first-degree murder 30 years later by DNA evidence. He's received millions of dollars in compensation from the government which will not really make up for the years in prison. However, if had kept the death penalty, he wouldn't be alive today. Could you imagine what would go through your head if you were an innocent person and it was your day to be executed?
I see your point.
I would prefer to see the death penalty reserved for serial murderers, or repeat offenders who have consistently demonstrated a propensity to violence.
What about the corrections officer who gets killed trying to supervise these animals in prison?
No doubt it's a tough issue, and first time offenders should never be given the death penalty, but I do favor it being an option in a few very limited circumstances.
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