My colleague Graeme Wood suggests that we should harvest the organs of executed criminals. His argument is surprisingly persuasive, for all that I am against the death penalty. But in the end, I hesitate to give the state, or juries, a compelling additional reason to kill a man.
Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
These organs are valuable, and incentives matter.
Science fiction author Larry Niven has a famous story called "The Jigsaw Man" (written around 1967) about this topic. It postulates a world where, due to the demand for organ transplants from those convicted of capital crimes, capital offenses have been defined WAY down.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jigsaw_Man
I think they should harvest the criminals' brains and transplant them in econobloggers so we get better posts.
We have an example of this - they've been doing it in China for decades. In the 1990s, it was well known in Hong Kong that the best prices and selection across the border in Shenzhen were around holidays, particularly Chinese New Year (it's an ancient practice to have executions at the beginning of holidays, both because troublemakers cause far less trouble after they're dead and because it's good family fun to watch the executions).
But as the Chinese government learned Western management techniques, they developed both just-in-time inventory and better quality control. For an extra fee, you could have your donor killed to order, rather than having to wait for a holiday. And they began using lethal injection rather than a bullet through the head, so that they wouldn't damage valuable inventory (although it had always been possible to have them shot lower down when the corneas were needed). With the Beijing Olympics this summer, the selection of organs will be greater than ever, and they might even consider selling to non-Chinese.
But in the end, I hesitate to give the state, or juries, a compelling additional reason to kill a man.
Yup. The reasoning behind applying the death penalty in any particular instance needs to be crystal clear and motivated only by judicial concerns. It already freaks me out that death-penalty advocates cite the money-saving value in execution vs. life in prison. Treating death-row inmates like an organ farm makes it that much worse.
There is no more way to manage this practice without it becoming horribly corrupt than there is a way to manage torture without it becoming horribly corrupt. Hell, even just imprisoning people is horribly corrupting, as any number of scandals demonstrate, but there is no way around the practice. There is no compelling need to execute people, and giving large incentive for some citizens to pursue it is a very bad idea.
The reasoning behind applying the death penalty in any particular instance needs to be crystal clear and motivated only by judicial concerns.
Why isn't this a "judicial concern?" We lock up or execute criminals in part for the benefit of society. Saving lives with organs harvested from executed criminals would also be a benefit to society. That doesn't mean we should necessarily do it. But it is a benefit.
Mortimer,
How's that liver? Just asking, no real reason.
There is no compelling need to execute people
What constitutes a "compelling need" in the context of criminal penalties? The relevant question is not whether it is "needed" but whether it is just. There's ultimately no objective answer to that question.
I hesitate to give the state, or juries, a compelling additional reason to kill a man.
I agree, but this can be solved. Organ harvesting should never be the default method of execution, but could be a choice made by the convict. This way, there is no direct "benefit" from imposing the death penalty, but on the other hand we don't exclude potential donors from the system.
Well, it would give substantial new motivation to doing something about prison rape. With AIDS and hepatitis infection rates behind bars being what they are, probably only a minority of inmates would have organs suitable for harvesting.
Maybe the Chinese screen their candidates, or maybe, being the cut-rate service, it's just caveat emptor.
Mixner, whether the criminal penalty is required to reduce or eliminate the conduct which was so threatening to society was to warrant a criminal penalty is my answer. It is perfectly possible to incarcerate people in a manner which reduces the threat they pose to society to practically zero. There is no compelling need to execute anyone, and my justice-o-meter is broken, so I can't tell when executing someone will increase that quality.
Will Allen, the cost to society to find, arrest, convict and incarcerate even a minor criminal is so much higher than the expectation value of the cost to the individual of being a criminal, that if the only way to stop a man from being a criminal was to incarcerate him, we'd be overwhelmed with crime. To make a crude analogy, if the only way to stop a man from committing a crime is to have another man hold a gun to his head 24/7, then obviously crime can't be prevented at all.
Any criminal punishment that does not deter by its mere existence far more criminal behaviour than that which it actually punishes is, ipso facto, worthless.
Whether or not capital punishment fits into this category is the real subject of debate.
Another vote in the "against" category. Or rather, while I would have no objection to a condemned man voluntarily wishing to be an organ donor, and executed in a conducive manner, mandatory organ harvesting seems downright Orwellian.
Moreover, incentives very much matter, especially if the harvesting were contracted to a private party as would likely be the case in at least some states. One only needs to spend a half hour looking into the corruption, fiscal abuses, and due-process circumventions that have arisen as a result of speed and red-light cameras to be utterly spooked by the prospect of applying the model to capital punishment.
Will Allen,
Mixner, whether the criminal penalty is required to reduce or eliminate the conduct which was so threatening to society was to warrant a criminal penalty is my answer.
I've read this sentence several times, and I still can't make any clear sense of it. Perhaps you could try again.
It is perfectly possible to incarcerate people in a manner which reduces the threat they pose to society to practically zero.
Criminal justice is traditionally understood to serve at least four purposes: incapacitation, deterrence, retribution and rehabilitation. Your conception of "compelling need" only seems to concern the first of those goals. And your conception is flawed even in terms of incapacitation, since prisoners pose a threat to other prisoners and to prison guards even if we assume that they pose no threat to other members of society outside the prison walls.
Well, no, Mixner, there is no need to imprison someone in a way that allows him to threaten guards or other prisoners. With available technology, it is possible to imprison even the most violent criminals in a manner which reduces their chances of harming someone to about the level of the chance of being struck by lightning. There is a compelling need to impose criminal sanctions on some behaviors because failure to do so would threaten society. There is no compelling need for the sanction to be execution. I have little regard for what the traditional purposes of criminal justice have been. I have no objection to providing resources to prisoners who express a desire to better themselves, as long as they follow the rules of the institution to the letter, but I don't have any belief in the ability of an institution to rehabilitate someone who is not highly motivated to change.
Carl, perhaps I was unclear, but I am not in disagreement with you. I see no measurable net benefit to society in executing people, therefore I oppose it.
Will Allen,
Well, no, Mixner, there is no need to imprison someone in a way that allows him to threaten guards or other prisoners. With available technology, it is possible to imprison even the most violent criminals in a manner which reduces their chances of harming someone to about the level of the chance of being struck by lightning.
I seriously doubt that. But what matters is not some theoretically possible alternative to execution, but the realistic alternative. And that realistic alternative would almost certainly involve an increased risk of harm to other prisoners and to prison guards, and perhaps to others also. And in any case, as I said, incapacitation is not the only purpose of criminal justice. No one else is obliged to accept your limited idea of what "compelling need" the criminal justice system exists to serve.
If you ask supporters of the death penalty why they support it, I think most of them would say that their fundamental reason is retribution. There are some crimes that are just so heinous, so cruel, so barbaric, that the perpetrator deserves to lose his life for committing them. And I think that's a legitimate position, even though for me retribution is not a sufficient justification.
I'm pro-death penalty (I'd be in favor of it for prison rape, in addition to 1st degree murder), but I'm squarely against this. We should not treat people as a means to an end. Carl Pham aptly points out disease rates in prison (which may create a perverse incentive for criminals to acquire some type of infectious disease), others have pointed out the room for abuse (which will expand if the demand for organs grows), and we may not need 3rd party organs much longer (new methods of growing them from adult stem cells may eliminate the need for these types of transplants). But ultimately, the decision to donate one's organs should be a personal decision and not a state decision.
However, for those who oppose this but favor harvesting embryos, perhaps you can understand why people were creeped out by the latter.
Mixner, it is not theoretical that in the highest security level within the Federal Supermax prison in Florence, CO, there are two prisoners who have practically zero human contact. The chance of a guard being harmed by them really is lower than the chance of the guard being struck by lightning, and certainly lower than the chance that a guard will be harmed by a prisoner on the typical death row. There is absolutely zero chance that they can harm another prisoner. No one is obliged to care about what you doubt.
Will Allen,
Mixner, it is not theoretical that in the highest security level within the Federal Supermax prison in Florence, CO, there are two prisoners who have practically zero human contact.
Two prisoners, you say. Out of how many waiting on death row?
One has to wonder, too, why confining a prisoner for the rest of his life under conditions in which he has "practically zero human contact" should be considered a significantly more humane penalty than painless execution. I think many people might consider it far worse.
The point, Mixner, is that these two prisoners, serving life, pose less of a threat to guards and other prsioners than hundreds of prisoners on death row across the country, disproving that capital punishment is the means best able to maximize safety for guards and other prisoners. If this is deemed too inhumane, then that still doesn't mean that capital punishment will greatly improve the safety of guards and other inmates. Actually, there is a third prisoner, Ramzi Yousef, who has zero contact with other humans by choice. He prefers to sit alone in his cell 24/7/365, rather than submit himself to what he considers a religously unacceptable procedure, a strip search.
Will Allen,
The point, Mixner, is that these two prisoners, serving life, pose less of a threat to guards and other prsioners than hundreds of prisoners on death row across the country, disproving that capital punishment is the means best able to maximize safety for guards and other prisoners.
No, it doesn't disprove it. Unless you can prove that it would be politically and economically feasible to incarcerate, for the rest of their natural lives, criminals that we currently execute, in conditions that would effectively eliminate their risk of harm to all other human beings, you haven't established anything.
If this is deemed too inhumane, then that still doesn't mean that capital punishment will greatly improve the safety of guards and other inmates.
No, but since you're suggesting it as a supposedly better alternative to execution the question of whether it really is a more humane way to treat human beings is obviously relevant.
And as I said, even if a death penalty proponent were to agree that lifelong imprisonment with "practically zero human contact" is a more humane form of treatment than execution, and no less effective a form of incapacitation, and that it would be politically and economically feasible, he may still favor execution for a variety of other reasons, most obviously the simple conviction that people who commit really heinous crimes deserve to lose their lives.
No, Mixner, you stated that life imprisonment meant that other prisoners or guards would be subjected to greater risk of being attacked, than is the case when capital punishment exists. This is false.
Now, after the falsity of your assertion is established, you have put forth an entirely new rationale, that it isn't economically feasible to imprison criminals in a way which makes other prisons or guards safe, compared to allowing capital punishment. This rationale is as nearly as baseless as your previous false assertion, given the extraordinary cost of the appeals involved in executing prisoners.
Also, the extreme measures used on the two prisoners in Florence is quite the exception. The rate of violence in Florence is quite low, without having to go to those extremes. There is no reason to suppose that the threat to guards and other prisoners is lower when capital punishment exists. The notion that executions improve the safety of other guards and prisoners is simply false, as is the notion that capital punishment lowers the cost of running the penal systems. As far as death penalty proponents believing that some people really deserve to lose their lives, well, I'm also sure there are people who think that some criminals really deserve to be tortured to death over many weeks. So what?
"it is not theoretical that in the highest security level within the Federal Supermax prison in Florence, CO, there are two prisoners who have practically zero human contact."
If we could do that in the case of all serial-killers, mass-murderers, murderous gang-leaders, and terrorists I'd be okay with getting rid of the death penalty. However I doubt we can or that we will.
For one I'm skeptical that would be deemed any less "cruel and unusual" by most death penalty opponents. For another I'm skeptical it could work in all the cases I mean.
I really think the death penalty should be rare, but there are people who continue to kill or rape after being imprisoned. Or who are so despised that killing them might be safer than keeping them from being killed or committing suicide. Granted this makes it sound like a form of euthanasia and I'm normally opposed to that. By saying the lives of the psychotically violent aren't worth living we may slow work in treatment for such things. Still I think the cost of keeping such people around is comparatively high. The desire for prevention or treatment of such people I think would also remain high regardless of whether they're executed after 5-10 years of study.
As for the organ donation thing in theory I think it sounds very sensible. I used to think the death penalty should essentially involve putting them under and removing any healthy organs until they eventually die in surgery. However it is a very utilitarian way to view things and opens the door to tremendous abuse. Still I think they should have the option of "death by surgery" as an execution method so long as it's totally voluntary.
"The notion that executions improve the safety of other guards and prisoners is simply false" WA
Except that
1: There are certainly cases of people serving life who continue to kill.
2: Actual statistics show violent death in prison has gone down since reintroducing the death penalty. (Granted this is correlation not causation, so better science might be involved)
I'd really like to believe that what you say is true as I'm uncomfortable with the death penalty. However I really doubt it is, even if you can point to 1 prison where it works.
Yes, Thomas, there are people serving life who continue to kill, because they aren't incarcerated properly. There are airplanes which crash, but that doesn't mean that flying makes traveling less safe. The reinstituting of the death penalty roughly coincides with new methods of supermax incarceration, so yes, it would be an error to state that it is proven that the death penalty makes prisons safer.
It seems to me that anyone who is willing to harvest the bodies of executed prisoners can hardly object to markets for organs on moral grounds.
"because they aren't incarcerated properly."
I'm just not sure "proper incarceration" is possible for all these cases. Or that it wouldn't be struck down as unconstitutional.
I actually like the idea if it's doable. I just have my doubts it is as practical as you think. Especially as there are cases where the person is so despised you'd have to guard them from others to a great degree. I'm not sure protecting America's most psychotic people is the best use of resources or the best thing for the public good.
Still I'd really prefer if the death penalty was used much less than it is now. The way we use it now is not great and too costly. I think it should really be a rarity. Connecticut's way is mostly okay by me. The only guy they executed in modern times was a man who raped and murdered several women. He was also willing to die. The Catholic Church in Connecticut was against it. somewhat to my annoyance. (Although perhaps not surprise, New England Catholic hierarchy strongly believes in mercy for rapists as history shows) The way I read Evangelium Vitae the death penalty is probably unnecessary, but may be acceptable in certain rare cases of defense or public good. And that's more or less what I think, I'm just more skeptical on the "probably unnecessary."
(Regarding complete inmate isolation) "If we could do that in the case of all serial-killers, mass-murderers, murderous gang-leaders, and terrorists I'd be okay with getting rid of the death penalty. However I doubt we can or that we will. "
It was the practice for all prisoners to be treated this way for years in Eastern State Penitentiary, a now defunct prison in Philadelphia. It was originally conceived as a more benign form of imprisonment with better prospects of reform. Prisoners were isolated from the bad influence of other prisoners. They had a clean warm place to live. They had decent food.
It turned out to be a devastating form of psychological torture. Logistically, it is certainly possible for the small numbers of people who are sentenced to death to instead be given this form of incarceration. I suppose some of the more grievous psychological problems could be mitigated. The original plan denied all means of occupying time to the prisoners so that they could reflect on their crimes - no books, no hobbies not even any chores. There is not really a need to go that far.
"The original plan denied all means of occupying time to the prisoners so that they could reflect on their crimes - no books, no hobbies not even any chores."
That sounds like taking it to a greater extreme than I was meaning. Although I think I could make it in a situation like that for a fairly long time. I like people, but I could do without them if I had to. And I can usually keep myself entertained even without anything to entertain me. Although a lack of even music might bug me after a certain point.
Most people are not like me though, I'm something of a strange outlier. I used to consider being a Carthusian, but there aren't any in the US outside Vermont.
I, too, am heavily influenced by Niven's Jigsaw Man analysis--but even more so by his Gift From Earth resolution: advancing technology will eventually render the whole transplant business moot.
(See, Mom and Dad, all that science fiction I read in my youth was good for something!)
For the same reason, I didn't much worry about the whole human-embryo stem cell brouhaha. I knew that a technique would quickly become available to make adult stem cells pluripotent, and indeed, it looks like that technology is well on its way, and the first steps towards organ growth have already been made as well.
Organs grown from the patient's own stem cells will be superior to harvested organs anyway, since there will be no rejection issues.
ThomasR, when something is already being done, it's hard to argue that it isn't doable, espcially when we are only talking about a few thousand people at most.
Look, show me that the violent offenders commit fewer violent crimes per capita behind bars in Texas than they do in Minnesota, and I'll maybe lend more credence to the notion that capital punishment improves the safety of prisons. If you are going to kill people, you at least have the burden to show that the killing will accomplish some public good.
Will Allen,
There are over 3,000 inmates on death row. Even if you managed to persuade death penalty supporters to accept your dubious claim that imprisoning those people for their entire natural lives under conditions of "practically zero human contact" were a more humane policy than painless execution, rather than a decades-long living hell of psychological torture, it seems unlikely that the policy would be economically or politically feasible.
And even if you could somehow overcome those objections, you have no effective answer to people who think that certain criminals should be executed because they deserve to die for their crimes, regardless of issues of incapacitation or deterrence.
Hmm, harvesting organs from murderers.
Haven't I see this horror film more than a few times?
Iain.
Mixner, you wrongly think that they would all need to be imprisoned in that manner to reduce the risk they pose to others. Mixner, I don't care that some people think they know who deserves to die. I didn't have any answer for those who thought that people of certain races shouldn't be allowed to drink at certain public fountains, either. There sometimes is no answer to those who have misguided thoughts.
Mixner, you wrongly think that they would all need to be imprisoned in that manner to reduce the risk they pose to others.
No I don't think that. But your statement above is irrelevant to the point, anyway. A mere "reduction" in risk is not incapacitation. As long as their risk to others is greater from keeping them alive than from executing them, it's an argument for execution.
Mixner, I don't care that some people think they know who deserves to die.
If you don't care about that, you don't care about the death penalty. The death penalty is probably not going to go away as long as there are a large number of people who think that some crimes are so heinous their perpetrators deserve to die.
No, Mixner, given the typical span between sentence and execution, there is no reason to believe that execution reduces risk more than a supermax confinement which falls short of completely shutting off human contact. If you have proof that prison systems with capital punishment are safer than those without it, produce it, otherwise it can be safely assumed that it is merely something you have created in your head.
Yes, and keeping people of certain races away from certain public drinking fountains wasn't going to go away as long as a large number of people thought that people of those races shouldn't use those fountains. Sometimes, really stupid ideas, like people of certain races shouldn't use certain public drinking fountains, or that we can determine with any precision who deserves to die, fall out of favor. Sometimes they don't. There is quite often no "effective answer" to those who embrace stupid ideas, because stupidity is frequently popular.
Will Allen,
When you can show that lifelong incarceration, under conditions that eliminate all meaningful risk of harm to other prisoners and prison workers, is a politically and economically feasible alternative to execution in all death penalty states, then you'll be in a position to argue that this is a viable alternative. Until then, you're just blowing smoke.
And when you've done that, you can explain why you think this kind of alternative treatment would be more humane than painless execution, rather than a living nightmare of psychological torture.
You keep missing the point about retribution. If you care about the death penalty, as you seem to quite a lot, you should care about the reasons people have for supporting the death penalty.
Also, I think there are many, many people who believe that a criminal who, for example, rapes, tortures and murders a child deserves to lose his life for that crime. Comparing people who believe this to racists probably isn't going to persuade them, or even most of those who disagree with them, that you have a morally serious opinion about capital punishment at all.
Will, I think you've made it clear that you accept no pracitcal basis for capital punishment, but that doesn't mean that the following is a reasonable assertion from that premise:
If you are going to kill people, you at least have the burden to show that the killing will accomplish some public good.
If the goal were merely threat removal as you have implied in other posts, we could cheaply and easily deal with all violent offenders the way we deal with violent animals -- round up and euthanize. If the goal is to show that some public good comes out of it as in the above quote, organ harvesting seems like as reasonable a solution as any.
However, man is not an unreasoning animal, enslaved to passion and instinct without capacity for restraint or foresight. Criminal actions are judged on the basis that the perpetrators are held as moral actors capable of reason. As such, the scope of a criminal action, and punishments thereto, are tailored to respond in a reasoned assessment of moral retribution. No person is more delusional than the one who thinks he or she respects human dignity, then refuses the very basis of human dignity (the capacity to function as a moral actor) when criminal activity is involved.
If you accept no grounds for capital punishment, you might as well say so and be done with the argument. If you refuse capital punishment on the grounds that human systems of judgment are flawed, say so, but be prepared for strong counterarguments. Meanwhile, trying to compare death penalty supporters to Jim Crow racists on the grounds that both have ideas too stupid to address is a ten-guage shotgun shell emptied into the foot of your credibility.
Actually Will you're more convincing to someone like me than many death-penalty opponents. I find what you say interesting and I'm more than a little sympathetic to it. In fact I almost wish we'd do it.
However I don't think it'll happen. It's just not practicable at the large-scale for the time being. Even if it were I don't think it'd ever get sufficient legal or popular support. I think many death penalty opponents would consider this idea to be just as cruel as capital punishment. In parts of the EU there is a movement to abandon life imprisonment as a sentence because they deem it cruel. While the majority of death-penalty supporters seem to feel that the desires of the victims' family outweigh the kind of ethical concerns you or I might have.
While the majority of death-penalty supporters seem to feel that the desires of the victims' family outweigh the kind of ethical concerns you or I might have.
I don't think this is true, either. Most death penalty supporters may believe that the wishes of the victim's family should be a significant factor in determining the proper penalty for the crime, but I doubt many of them think the wishes of the family should override all other considerations. They just don't share your belief about the ethics of execution in general. If one believes that there are certain crimes that are so brutal, so cruel, so depraved, that the perpetrator deserves to pay for them with his life rather than just his liberty, then the death penalty may be a just punishment for those crimes.
Anonymouse, read what I wrote. I didn't say all death penalty proponents are as stupid as racists. I said people who support the death penalty, because they think they can determine with any degree of precision who deserves to die, are stupid. The statements are not the same. People who think they can determine with any degree of precision who deserves to die and who deserves to live are quite stupid, as evidenced by any study of how the death penalty has actually ever been practiced in any society, resulting in wildly disparate outcomes where whether the offender "deserves" death becomes in practice often divorced from any moral calculation.
Now, when we encounter people in the economic realm who dimiss predictable, consistent, empirical results in favor of theoretical hopes of justice, it usually is the case that they are silly socialists and other similar practicioners of hogwash. In the criminal justice system, we get silly people who think they can predictably reform criminals on end of the spectrum, or we get silly people on the other end of the spectrum who think they have a justice-o-meter, which they can plug in and use to make sure the right people are being killed, and the right people are being allowed to live. There may be good reasons to have executions, but the conceit that courts and juries can do a good, consistent, job in determining who should be killed isn't one of them.
Anonymouse, when calculating public good, one normally does not merely tally who benefits.
No, Mixner, you are blowing smoke. You have asserted that executing people produces the positive good of safer prisons. That is something you just made up out of thin air. Now, when you wish to discuss something that has actually been measured in an empirically sound fashion, let me know. If you want to discuss things that you purely have imagined, well, I prefer other venues for such flights of fancy.
I didn't say all death penalty proponents are as stupid as racists. I said people who support the death penalty, because they think they can determine with any degree of precision who deserves to die, are stupid.
So which death penalty proponents do you believe are not stupid?
Whatever alternative you favor over execution (presumably, lengthy or lifelong imprisonment), what non-stupid basis do you think you have for supporting it? If no one can determine "with any degree of precision" who deserves to die, how can anyone determine "with any degree of precision" who deserves to go to jail, or how long anyone deserves to go to jail for?
You have asserted that executing people produces the positive good of safer prisons. That is something you just made up out of thin air.
Nonsense. There is a zero risk that an executed prisoner will harm someone. There is a non-zero risk that a living one will. Given the rampant rape and violence in U.S. prisons, the risk of harm is significant. Even if it is theoretically possible to confine prisoners in conditions under which their risk of harming another human being is zero or infinitesimally small, you haven't shown that that is a feasible alternative even for the 3,000+ prisoners currently awaiting execution, let alone all future ones.
It can't be done, Mixner, but it needs to be tried, because failure to do so would allow the sociopathic to dominate society. So we should muddle along, and do the best we can, while trying to avoid lying to ourselves that we are really doing a good job of achieving "justice".
Now, show me a death penalty proponent who is willing to frankly acknowledge, "Well, our system by which we kill people is inevitably extremely flawed, and won't really result in a good consistent standard being employed as to who should be killed, but it is very important that we kill people, so let's get on with the killing.", I would tip my hat in response to their honesty. I don't meet too many people like that, however.
No, Mixner, you are engaging in nonsense, by making things up in your head, instead of measuring what it very measurable. We have multiple prison systems in this country, some with capital punishment, and some without. If it is true that capital punishment improves prison safety, it should be measurable. Show me the measurements. I'm not interested in what you conjure up out of thin air.
It can't be done, Mixner, but it needs to be tried, because failure to do so would allow the sociopathic to dominate society.
Huh? What can't be done but needs to be tried?
And of course the system is "flawed." So what? It's flawed not just with respect to executions, but all other kinds of penalties also. False convictions and inconsistency of sentencing also afflict states without the death penalty.
We have multiple prison systems in this country, some with capital punishment, and some without. If it is true that capital punishment improves prison safety, it should be measurable. Show me the measurements.
There are all sorts of factors that influence prison safety, and the effect of the death penalty is probably very small compared to other factors, because there are so few executions in comparison to the total number of prisoners. It is therefore probably not possible to isolate the influence of the death penalty in a statistical comparison between states. But the undeniable empirical fact that prisoners do harm other prisoners, and that they could not have done so if they had been executed, proves that the death penalty can be a more effective means of incapacitating criminals than imprisonment.
Still waiting for your answers to my questions in my post of 10:22pm.
Will Allen,
By the way, here is an actual example of a prison murder that would not have happened if the killer had been executed for his original murder instead of being incarcerated. He was imprisoned in 1990 for Aggravated Murder, and ten years later, in 2000, he murdered his cellmate in prison. He also had a record of violence against other prisoners while he was in jail. If he had been executed for the first murder instead of imprisoned, he could not have committed the second murder.
Uh, no, Mixner, because a prisoner who knows he will be executed is not identical to a prisoner who will not be, thuse we cannot know for sure that a prisoner who knows he will be executed will not not present more total danger up unitl the time of execution, than one who is never executed. Your logic is flawed, and you have no empirical measurements which back your claim regarding the superior safety of prisons with capital punishment. You made it up out of thin air.
Read the thread. You asked a question which inquired "how" something might be done. I replied that it can't be done.
Yes, Mixner, and a prisoner who knows he faces execution may attack, having nothing to lose, where he may not have, if he had priviledges which he enjoyed in life which he wished to preserve via good behavior. Your logic is flawed. Please supply statistical data which supports your claim. Again, what you imagine, and present as proven, is of no interest.
"Yes, Mixner, and a prisoner who knows he faces execution may attack, having nothing to lose," Will Allen
Oh I don't think this quite works. For one he could be harming his chances for future appeals.
For another this could be just as true for a person who serves "life without possibility of parole" in a nation that lacks the death penalty. I mean if he's serving life anyway, and death is off the table, what's he got to lose by killing someone? Are they going to give him "more life." (I saw a movie where they made the woman immortal to make her life sentence worse, but that's essentially a fantasy) True they could give him the "life in solitary" you mentioned, but then what? Presumably they have to have a doctor, or someone, check on him on occasion to see if he's still alive. What would he "have to lose" in killing such a person? What would we do, without a death penalty, if he did?
Will Allen,
Uh, no, Mixner, because a prisoner who knows he will be executed is not identical to a prisoner who will not be, thuse we cannot know for sure that a prisoner who knows he will be executed will not not present more total danger up unitl the time of execution, than one who is never executed.
Sorry, you're not allowed to make ad hoc assumptions about changes in behavior for which there is no evidence. If you have evidence that prisoners sentenced to death present more total danger up until the time of their execution than they would over the remaining course of their lives if they received a non-capital sentence instead, then produce it. Otherwise, you're just blowing smoke again.
Your logic is flawed, and you have no empirical measurements which back your claim
I just gave you a concrete example of a prisoner convicted of murder who committed a second murder after ten years of imprisonment, a murder he obviously could not have committed if he had been executed for his first murder.
Still waiting for you to explain which death penalty proponents you do not consider "stupid," and how you think anyone can determine "with any degree of precision" who deserves to go to jail, or how long anyone deserves to go to jail for, if no one can make a similar determination about who deserves to lose their life.
"If one believes that there are certain crimes that are so brutal, so cruel, so depraved, that the perpetrator deserves to pay for them with his life rather than just his liberty, then the death penalty may be a just punishment for those crimes."
You're right that's a pretty significant element. At times I believe in that too, but in general I'm more thinking a person like that is going to be a focal point for violence and executing them would be away to avoid mob violence.
Still there was a case in Japan I remember. The guy stabbed several elementary school students to death. Before his execution he expressed regret that he didn't go after a kindergarten because "they couldn't have ran away as fast with those tiny legs." The people who knew him said he had no compassion, empathy, or personal growth of any kind. However as he was drawn to kill kids he wasn't a threat to anyone behind bars. Still I felt at the time his execution was right and basically still do. So I suppose I'm not solely going by "continuing danger." That guy did seem to have a life that was just not benefiting anyone including himself.
No Mixner, you gave evidence that it is a bad idea to house violent criminals with cell mates. Given the typical appeals process between conviction and execution, your example proves nothing. I'm still waiting for you to produce evidence that executions make prisons safer. You made this up out of thin air, and presented it as "fact". Will you please stop making up phony "facts"?
Mixner, if you won't read the thread, what's the purpose of continuing? I've already answered your question regarding how I think anyone can determine "with any degree of precision" who deserves to go to jail, or how long anyone deserves to go to jail for, if no one can make a similar determination about who deserves to lose their life. Again, will you please read the thread, or just stop posting?
Finally, I suppose I could come up with a hypothetical situation in which supporting capital punishment would not be as stupid as supporting laws which prevented people of certain races from drinking at certain fountains, having to do with combat conditons during war, or perhaps a time of martial law, but not in the current state of our society.
Yes, Thomas R., it is impossible to know with certainty what will motivate a prisoner to behave in the way he did, which is why it is impossible to say that a murderer who had not been executed within 10 years of conviction, and then killed again, would have not done so if he had been sentenced to death. Unless one wishes to get rid of the appeals process, and execute prisoners immediately after convictions, there is no way to know if capital punsihment makes prisons safer, other than to actually do the hard work of examining rates of violence between various prison systems.
Will Allen,
I've already answered your question regarding how I think anyone can determine "with any degree of precision" who deserves to go to jail, or how long anyone deserves to go to jail for, if no one can make a similar determination about who deserves to lose their life.
Sorry, I must have missed it. Where did you explain this? Give me the date and time of the post.
No Mixner, you gave evidence that it is a bad idea to house violent criminals with cell mates. Given the typical appeals process between conviction and execution, your example proves nothing.
No, I gave proof that a convicted murderer who was sentenced to prison rather than execution committed a second murder in prison that he would not have been able to commit if he had been executed instead. And your claim about "the typical appeals process" is utterly irrelevant. Prisoners sentenced to life without parole obviously spend far longer in prison, and thus have far more time to harm others, than prisoners sentenced to death, notwithstanding the lengthy duration of the appeals process in capital cases.
No, Mixner, you gave evidence that a prisoner sentenced to life had killed again. You did not prove that had he been sentenced to death, he would not have killed again. You didn't even prove that that had an execution been carried out in less than ten years, he wouldn't have killed again, since we can't know how this man would have behaved if an execution been scheduled in less than ten years. Either produce concrete evidence that capital punishment makes prisons safer, or acknowledge that you are imagining facts out of thin air.
Finally, Mixner, you aren't willing to read the thread, or for some reason refuse to do so. Good bye.
Will Allen,
No, Mixner, you gave evidence that a prisoner sentenced to life had killed again. You did not prove that had he been sentenced to death, he would not have killed again.
You're not listening. He could not have committed the second murder he actually did commit if he had been executed instead of being imprisoned. You simply cannot get around the undeniable empirical fact that dead prisoners cannot kill other prisoners, but living prisoners can, and do. And the longer a prisoner remains alive, the more time he has to kill other prisoners, or rape or assault them. Execution absolutely incapacitates prisoners from committing further acts of violence. Imprisonment does not. Violence is widespread in American prisons.
Still waiting for you to point me to the explanation you claim to have provided as to how you think anyone can determine "with any degree of precision" who deserves to go to jail, or how long anyone deserves to go to jail for, if no one can make a similar determination about who deserves to lose their life.
No, Mixner, you aren't reading the thread. I'm still waiting for you to provide evidence that you have taken the time to read the thread. If you won't take the time to do so, I'm certainly not going to take the time to repeat myself once again.