Living in a country where the death penalty no longer exists, and has long been a thing of the past, this all seems incredibly barbaric to me.

The clear issues that I see are:
1. The possibility of a single innocent person ever being executed on false grounds is simply horrific.
2. Lowering yourself to the level of the person that you are punishing degrades the system that you are representing.
3. There is actually very little punishment involved. Death is so final; life in solitary confinement is a long, ever-challenging punishment that the guilty person has to continually wake up to and deal with.
4. It creates the possibility for situations like this, wherein the guilty person can now be viewed as a victim, which is a direct detraction from their heinous crime/s.

I just see no positive side to the death penalty besides the economic benefits of not having to jail the guilty person for an extended period of time. But, aren't we, as members of civilized society, meant to hold human life at a higher regard than just some economic commodity?

Fat_Vulture wrote Living in a country where the death penalty no longer exists, and has long been a thing of the past, this all seems incredibly barbaric to me.

The clear issues that I see are:
1. The possibility of a single innocent person ever being executed on false grounds is simply horrific.
2. Lowering yourself to the level of the person that you are punishing degrades the system that you are representing.
3. There is actually very little punishment involved. Death is so final; life in solitary confinement is a long, ever-challenging punishment that the guilty person has to continually wake up to and deal with.
4. It creates the possibility for situations like this, wherein the guilty person can now be viewed as a victim, which is a direct detraction from their heinous crime/s.

I just see no positive side to the death penalty besides the economic benefits of not having to jail the guilty person for an extended period of time. But, aren't we, as members of civilized society, meant to hold human life at a higher regard than just some economic commodity?

so question. Someone we know will spend the rest of their life in prison, why continue to pay for their prison internment when there are many more matters more important than the livelihood of someone who has committed a heinous crime. There is a system in place for appeals and it works, just look at the individuals exonerated while awaiting the death penalty. However when we know for 100% certainty, what's the point of paying for them. It's not cost effective. Their debt to society is paid with their life. Unfortunately for certain crimes, I completely agree with eye for an eye in a sense. There will never be a humane and 100% sure way for a criminal execution.

Cincinnati-Bengals wrote
so question. Someone we know will spend the rest of their life in prison, why continue to pay for their prison internment when there are many more matters more important than the livelihood of someone who has committed a heinous crime. There is a system in place for appeals and it works, just look at the individuals exonerated while awaiting the death penalty. However when we know for 100% certainty, what's the point of paying for them. It's not cost effective. Their debt to society is paid with their life. Unfortunately for certain crimes, I completely agree with eye for an eye in a sense. There will never be a humane and 100% sure way for a criminal execution.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely see the logic of what you are saying. It may just be a personal moral dilemma on my end. I find it really hard to see how a society can adequately teach future generations why it is so bad to take a human life, while they are simultaneously creating avoidable deaths. It seems a lot like the failed parenting technique of "Do as I say, not as I do". I also find it really disturbing for a government power to follow the criminal motto of "God forgives, I don't."

But, back to answering your question; the private prison system in America has a ridiculously high profit margin. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as if the indefinite incarceration of the worst kind of criminals, as opposed to their killing, could easily be accommodated with a little less greed from large corporations, and zero cost to the innocent tax payers of the nation.