Orf wiv their 'eads [2]

[davywavy]

My post on capital punishment the other day appears to have sparked a fair old debate, which is always gratifying. It's interesting to note that the pro/anti camp on the poll seems fairly evenly split, which surprised me considering that LJ tends to be the natural environment of the woolly lefty and led to me thinking that the atavistic human desire for revenge is quite strong across the population.
After consideration, my own opinion of the death penalty is that I'm against it; not because I consider people inherently worth saving or because I'm worried about ethical concerns of turning the state into a murderer, but simply because I reckon that giving the state the power of life and death over it's citizenry is a really bad idea which historically has gone badly wrong so often that it simply isn't worth the risk and the death penalty is just the thin end of the wedge. Let's face it - I wouldn't trust Tony and Gordon with my phone number* and so any suggestion that a legal structure giving a state with them in charge the authority to kill its people is just plain laughable.
I think that most people wouldn't argue that there are some people out there who just plain have it coming and if they were kiled by a falling piano tomorrow then the world would be a better place for it - whether or not we should go out and kill them, however, is another matter.

Last Sunday I found myself in the happy position of rowing a remarkably attractive young lady across a lake (this hasn't got much to do with my point, I just wanted to boast) and this topic of conversation came up. "Ah", she said. "What about euthanasia?"
Good point, thinks I, and the more I think about it, the better it gets, especially as the people who oppose the death penalty tend often (in my experience) to be pro-euthanasia, and vice versa.
By way of comparison: The death penalty is a system whereby highly trained (legal and medical)professionals are given the option of ending the lives of people who by any reasonable moral standard have really got it coming. Euthanasia is a system whereby highly trained (legal and medical) professionals are given the option of ending the lives of people who have, at worst, just been unlucky. The question is: is it legitimate for the state to allow the legal killing of people who've just been dealt a bum hand, but not to allow the legal killing of people who can reasonably be said to have it coming?

^{*Because they'd sell it to telemarketers to try and pull the Labour party out of the £14m black hole it finds itself in. Either that or John Prescott would make dirty phone calls to my sister.}

Comments

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

So would you be in favour of prisoners being allowed to elect for the death panalty in lieu of life imprisonment?

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Given the suicide rate of prisoners I think we're effectively already at this situation.

But, as I just said in a reply to your original post on this, making the state a murderer legitimises killing as a means of restitution. So, no, I ain't keen.

And as someone of little faith who doesn't necessarily believe in an afterlife, the death penalty surely therefore serves little or no deterrent purpose.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

What about the case of Carl Panzram, the first documented serial killer, who famously sprinted to the gallows and, when asked if he had any last words, barked "Yeah, hurry it up!" He was aware that not only would he never stop wanting to kill but also he would never be freed and so actively pursued the death penalty as preferable to that?

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

So now we're onto rehabilitation vs. retribution?

If you view the prison's role as purely retributive then of course, roll on the gallows for the vicious bastards. I, however, believe that the purpose of a criminal justice system should be to influence society and individuals not to engage in destructive behaviour. I have a lot of faith in mental health professionals (by and large) and nowadays would therefore contend that there is no one beyond their help. And my point was precisely that: if you're an atheist or agnostic then the death penalty is preferable to life in prison.

Now, I could say that the difference is that you choose to become a serial killer and that this is where the difference lies, but of course many serial killers have severe mental ill health. Nowadays, however, they'd not go to prison but to high-security psychiatric facilities for treatment, and that's the right place for them.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

So now we're onto rehabilitation vs. retribution?


No. Where did I say that? I said that in at least one historically documented case*, a prisoner has actively pursued/requested the death penalty. This goes back to my original question of whether you would allow prisoners to do so, in light of your feeling that we should give people the freedom to end your life at a time of your choosing with dignity.
Should prisoners be denied that freedom?

*I can cite others

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

We deny them all sorts of other rights, and my point was that this question is about establishing the purpose of imprisonment. If it's to sate our desire for revenge then it's fine to off them. If it's to serve some wider purpose for the individual and society then it's absolutely NOT OK for them to elect to sidestep the process by asking the state for death.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

The purpose of imprisonment is manifold, including, but not limited to:

1) Punishment
2) Rehabilitation
3) Protection of society from dangerous individuals.

How well it acheives those aims and how much time/effort should be put into each is an ongoing matter for debate. However, I'm worried by the assumption that people should be forced into treatment.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

I'm not a big fan of compulsion either (and indeed successfully lobbied against it recently) but the current iteration of the Mental Health Act pre-empts us both.