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California to vote on abolishing death penalty



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Wehrmacht

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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?
 

Oracle Spockanort

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>Californian
>Didn't know about this

Well, I know what I'll be voting for this November.

I've always thought the death penalty was kinda pointless. It isn't like they execute those on death row the second they get the sentence. It takes years for somebody to actually be euthanized, and a lot of these prisoners end up dying from sickness or age long before their assigned date. Not to mention it costs millions to do the procedure, so why spend the money of taxpayers that could go to education or more pressing issues on killing somebody?

It isn't like killing them will solve whatever crime they committed. More than likely they've killed somebody, but killing them won't bring the dead back to life. Let them rot in jail. They'll die eventually.
 

alexis.anagram

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I have mixed feelings about this. I'm completely in support of removing the death penalty, but I feel like it's missing the point. Capital punishment, in its entirety, is impractical. The death penalty just happens to be the most ineffective method of capital punishment. Meanwhile, prison populations are already unfeasible (mostly based on useless drug laws that could do with being abolished as well, among other things) and I can't really see people taking the necessary step of doing away with the prison system entirely, so I don't see the long-standing benefits. We'll still end up with more prisoners, less space, and a large contingent of tax payers complaining about their dollars going to waste feeding convicts.

Still, I would like to see the death penalty ended just for the sake of it.
 

Johnny Stooge

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Meanwhile, prison populations are already unfeasible (mostly based on useless drug laws that could do with being abolished as well, among other things) and I can't really see people taking the necessary step of doing away with the prison system entirely, so I don't see the long-standing benefits. We'll still end up with more prisoners, less space, and a large contingent of tax payers complaining about their dollars going to waste feeding convicts.
Doesn't the US have 'for profit' prisons?
 

alexis.anagram

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Doesn't the US have 'for profit' prisons?
Not nearly enough of them. And call me paranoid, but the last thing I want to see happen is a privatized, corporate-own and sponsored prison business sector a la Deadman Wonderland.

And suddenly I'm discussing prison politics with an Australian.
(Joking. Mostly joking.)
 

Recon

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I think this is a step that needed to be taken a while ago. California needs to recognize some of the other areas, like education and infrastructure, that are critical to the state. Because California isn't very stable economically, it really should focus on maintaining the amount of money to sustain the state. Personally, I think the decision was ethically right.
 

alexis.anagram

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I think this is a step that needed to be taken a while ago. California needs to recognize some of the other areas, like education and infrastructure, that are critical to the state. Because California isn't very stable economically, it really should focus on maintaining the amount of money to sustain the state. Personally, I think the decision was ethically right.
Just FYI, it still has to be voted on. No decision has been made. Unless you meant the decision to have a vote, in which case, carry on.
 

Sean

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What.

Well its good news nonetheless. The penalty was almost non-existent anyway.
 

Taylor

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The penalty was almost non-existent anyway.

this. entirely this.

california rarely even USES the death penalty. since the mid-70s, we've put to death a grand total of 13 people. and we halted all executions starting in 2006, and that lasted until just last year.

it doesn't even affect the state. we're not losing money on it, to be honest. it's a joke in california. i don't mind doing away with it because honestly, it's hardly in practice at all.
 

Ehres

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The death penalty is completely and utterly barbaric in every sense of the word, really. Plus, it's also the matter that prison -- for a veeery long time -- is considered by the majority of prisoners to be a worst hell than death. Staring at the same four walls and having the same routine for decades as well as a myriad as other in-prison events? I'd rather top myself, thanks, and this is the mentality of many others.
 

OmniChaos

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Support or oppose it, I've never quite understood the reasoning behind using such an expensive method of killing compared to cheaper or near-priceless methods. With technology as it is nowadays, I could imagine them to build a more efficient guillotine, or hell, even a gun works as well.
 

Taylor

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...lethal injection is the typical route nowadays.

i mean, not that there aren't other forms of the death penalty, but yeah
 

OmniChaos

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Celtis said:
...lethal injection is the typical route nowadays.

i mean, not that there aren't other forms of the death penalty, but yeah

I understand that, but I don't understand why. There are plenty of other methods (and possible methods) just as "painless" as it and a great deal less expensive. If the price is such a concern, you would think cheaper, more efficient methods would be sought out.
 

Taylor

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clearly killers didn't put a price on the life/lives they took...
 

OmniChaos

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The fact you put a price on human life is just as disturbing as the death penalty itself.

I was trying to approach the subject from a neutral, unbiased approach.

From a biased approach, I, personally, don't feel people who stab innocent people along the street (like a man did to a woman, her friend, and her 11 year old son (the mother died, btw, so the boy gets to grow up motherless) the other day where I live); people who go on murdering sprees or murder just for the "fun" of it deserve to be called "human". I don't feel people who find pleasure in torturing and tormenting innocent people, doing worse to them than anything the state could to a killer, deserve to be called "human". Again, this is a biased opinion, which was why I was trying a more neutral approach.
 
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