BBC News - California to vote on abolishing death penalty
I'm not a californian, but as an individual I support the idea.
It is completely factual that keeping the death penalty is noticeably more expensive than keeping someone in life imprisonment. Besides that, there have been a number of studies that show that it is a rather inefficient way of preventing crime and that crime rates may even go up after a widely publicized execution. Based on that alone I see little point in keeping it.
There are moral considerations here as well, obviously. imo i don't see much point in killing someone for anything because all it does is satisfy vindictive urges, the only time where it would ever be remotely justifiable is when the person in question has serious mental issues that prevent them from being able to care or learn from their misdeeds and they are proven to be completely incapable of ever contributing anything positive to society ever again (which is a tall order). It negates what should be the whole point of the justice system, which is to rehabilitate people, it can't even be considered a punishment in the sense that they won't be able to learn or apply anything to their lives afterwards because they'll be dead. Is some feeling of vindictive satisfaction worth someone's life?
Thoughts?
I'm not a californian, but as an individual I support the idea.
It is completely factual that keeping the death penalty is noticeably more expensive than keeping someone in life imprisonment. Besides that, there have been a number of studies that show that it is a rather inefficient way of preventing crime and that crime rates may even go up after a widely publicized execution. Based on that alone I see little point in keeping it.
There are moral considerations here as well, obviously. imo i don't see much point in killing someone for anything because all it does is satisfy vindictive urges, the only time where it would ever be remotely justifiable is when the person in question has serious mental issues that prevent them from being able to care or learn from their misdeeds and they are proven to be completely incapable of ever contributing anything positive to society ever again (which is a tall order). It negates what should be the whole point of the justice system, which is to rehabilitate people, it can't even be considered a punishment in the sense that they won't be able to learn or apply anything to their lives afterwards because they'll be dead. Is some feeling of vindictive satisfaction worth someone's life?
Thoughts?