Ok, I just read the paper from two days ago.. some guy who was jailed for rape and murder charges was let out on parole and he murdered a young man and raped a fifteen-year old girl. WHAT THE FUCK, PEOPLE?? Who the hell sent this guy back onto the streets? Why do we bother arresting murderers if we're going to release them with no more than a slap on the wrist to let them kill again? This guy raped an eleven-year old, was sent to jail for a short time, and went out and raped another girl! She's going to live with those scars for the REST OF HER LIFE. Her entire mental and emotional well-being is now DESTROYED and it was OUR jailing system that failed her. Anyone who commits a crimes this terrible should be put to death IMMEDIATELY after being found guilty. And with forensic science as good as it is, there's very little chance of arresting the wrong person. People who destroy the lives of others should pay for their crimes with their life. Why should we be this merciful to the foul dregs of humanity they turned out to be? This is bullshit!

Hey Jess, I'm inclined to say that I agree with you, but I just wanted to add my two cents. I think the problem is that there is parole for crimes like murder and rape. If once they were put in jail they STAYED THERE, there would be no problems like repeated crimes. I disagree on the death penatly because I believe it is way too merciful. The girl he raped has to live with that for the rest of her life. So he should also suffer for the rest of his life, as a prisoner in a maximum-security prison, with no cable or bullshit like that where he does hard work for seven decades and is miserable. To put him to death is to give him no time to lament what he has done and to wish he had never done it. And if you ask me, if you take away parole, jail will become a place where far fewer criminals want to go. Most murders and rapists are so messed up they don't care if they die. But they'll care if you tell them they'll be in jail for seventy years. But, of course, my solution would cost too much and take precious dollars away from the government. Since your solution is cheaper, that's probably what the government would go for. And if I had a choice between paroling a rapist or murderer and having him put to death, I'd vote for the death penalty anyway.
At least we live in a country where rape is illegal (that's what I tell myself whenever I get upset about this stuff).

i tend to agree. Lock them in a box for 70 or so years were they get raped and see if they like it. I'm pretty sure england outlawed the death penalty... Stupid england. Though Death should only be in cases were there is forensic evidence. If they can't find that then no parole. (that is just cause i have read about many falsely sentanced to death people where later the forensic evidence clears them.)

Life is too precious to simply "take away"....

but that is what murders and rapists do to their victims. They take thier lives away.

Killing the murderer doesn't bring the victim back, does it?

no but it makes sure it won't happen again. If you can find a reasone to kill once you can find a reason to kill again.

Of course, nothing can bring the victim back, but it gives closure to the victim's families and also gives them a sense of completion. No parent wants their child's killer to live on.

And who says their life in jail is hard? This prisoners have food and shelter over their heads, they don't have to keep a job, they can see their families, they can get pen pals, then can get parole, they are exercised and can get work leave. They may be stuck behind bars but they'll never have to worry about sleeping on the streets! We spend more money to keep them alive for a "life" sentence then to just use the full penalty. Jail life is not hard. Any man who could be incarcerated for crimes worthy of death deserve what they get in jail. You want them to sufgfer? Ok. They sit for awhile on Death Row, brooding, and if you really want them to suffer, we could do away with "humane" methods of execution. Bring back the Chair.

But yes, eliminate parole for rapists and murders.

I assume you've been there?

I have family that have been...one for multiple charges of murder (and I'm not talking about Norman Bates), and from what I've heard, jail is anything but "not hard".

But yes, the exemption of parole for offenses like rape and murder would be the most logical approach, imo.

While we're on this topic, is there anybody who would think that parole for murderers is a GOOD idea? Apparantly somebody does, because guys like this get out all the time. How does a situation wind up like this, and then why isn't it stopped? Who's making the laws in this country, anyway?

Lol, ok Norm. But they're still living off the system. That's a crime in of itself.

If you can consider that living.

Hot meal three times a day, bed, work.. Ever see that VH1 special, "Bands Behind Bars?" Jail has become rehab.

well to keep a prisoner in prison is like 25,000 dollars, per prisoner, so that adds more conflict...and diane, they aren't merciful...although texasis the only state with the electric chair...there was one case where the guy had to be shocked 15 times before he died....owchies

I read a fairly persuasive argument from some guy saying that all women want to be raped. The thesis was pretty much that when they are raped it is telling them that men are the stronger and more powerfull gender and they have that primal reassurance that everything is okay, and the real trauma of rape is that those ideas clash with the ideas that they were taught all along.

That guy just seemed really fucked up, like he was one of those 40 year old fat guys living in an appartment his mom is paying for to get him out of her house.

..I dont agree with anything he said.

They aren't required to have those things, and the government sure isn't going to throw the books at a warden because of neglect of such things.

Hmm...."Bands Behind Bars"...couldn't be because they're in for drugs and not murder or rape...

Who's Norm?

She was poking fun at me because I said "Not Norman Bates" and my last name is Bates and all and...yeah.

I think the victims family should assign the penalty. It shouldnt be assigned by some judge. For example.

Say you have a game board. Say I steal your game bored. But then a judge assigns the appropiate punishment. This is wrong. Think about it. To a judge its just a game bored. But to you it could be a presicous family item passed down for generations. See what I'm trying to say?

I am in full support of the death penalty. Honestly I think i t's used too sparingly. Rape, murder, and any crimes that currently fall under the same viciousness category in the laws of the united states should all have the death penalty. These people have failed society to satisfy their own ambition and they've hurt innocent people in the process. My idea for the death penalty is that we should allow a relative of the victim (in cases of murder) or the victim themselves in other cases where teh victim is still able to do so sdministor the penalty. Whether it be flipping teh switch on the electric chair, injecting the lethal needle, or being given a pistol to take the life of the criminal. As far as those of you who will argue "What if we get the wrong guy?" Well with forensic science, and our justice system (though with it's flaws, still one of the best systems in the world) how many of these vicious crimes do you think have the wrong people convicted of them? And even if we do get the wrong person and he's killed, I think the true criminal got the idea don't you?

Now for the cost of jailing and care for the prisoners, it costs the tax payers of this country far too much to be caring for these slime that didn't have the decency to care for the person they killed and or raped. Don't you think it's a little ironic that good hardworking taxpayers can have a fraction of their hard earned money go to the person who killed a relative of said person? How would you like to know that your money goes to the state pen. where your sons murderer is sitting, having a meal and being allowed to live his life?

As for prison life, I've got a few inside sources on this (don't ask, my family members aren't the nicest people in the world) From what I've heard this life is composed of, waking up and workign for a bit then eating. Followed byt various other activities and another meal, then guess what, these people are allowed to sleep. Do you think that their victims family lost sleep over the events? I would think so, but these people lay in a BED EVERYNIGHT and sleep like normal human beings.

Now onto the effect these events are going to have on the victim. A target of a crime of this class has a 73% chance of mental disturbance. DOn't you think that's a little high? These victims have had their lives changed, they will never again be the same person they were.

In conclusion I repeat that I support the death penalty in all it's forms an I believe that it should be used much more often than it is.

Archaic and inhumane moral codes espousing creeds such as "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" were manipulated to provide justification for what is really a heinous criminal act, all the more repugnant because it is government supported. Those who argue for a strong death penalty should realize that two wrongs do not ever make a right. Killing one person as punishment for the death of another is in my mind an unconscionable abuse of the democratic process and a savage expression of vicious primal instincts. The death penalty is the most naive and contemptible manner of law enforcement ever created by a supposedly civilized nation.

"People convicted of serious crimes take up valuable prison space, and it would be more humane and agreeable to them if they were expeditiously executed. Is it really worth it to keep these people in prison?."

What kind of an elitist attitude relegates criminals, who are still human beings like the rest of us, to become "those people," not even worthy of our consideration? Committing a violent crime does not make someone any less of a human being; in fact, such violence is an unfortunate trademark of the human race.

A criminal might rather choose initial execution over a long, harsh life in prison. This argument screams out with the obvious: any person in prison, no matter how poor the conditions, and no matter how hard it is to readjust after release or acquittal, is alive. It would probably be difficult to rebuild a life after a lengthy prison term, but it is impossible to rebuild a life after execution. Death is irrevocable. No capital punishment policy can be 100 percent foolproof, and each time an innocent victim is killed by the "judicial" system, the greatest crime of all is committed.

Advocates of a strong death penalty argue that the punishment must fit the crime, that criminals should be made to pay for their wrongdoing. I agree with this philosophy to the point of fines, repossession, and incarceration, but not to the malicious level of state sponsored murder. It is just as hypocritical and cruel to punish those convicted of rape and assault by raping and beating them as it is to kill murderers. Lives cannot be traded like commodities and added and subtracted like grains of sand as we do with the punishments of fines and prison terms. It is foolish and morally blasphemous to assign a discrete amount to something of immeasurable and deeply personal worth. The value we place on a human life has long been a murky issue. Our government pays people to kill our enemies everyday, with questionable motives, and then turns around and severely punishes a murderer, possibly to the point of taking his or her life. What kind of system is this, that both encourages and punishes, and then institutionalizes, murder?

Shon McHugh is an example of why the death penalty must be more vigorously enforced. I am disgusted with McHugh. I think his murder of Yngve K. Raustein was one of the most awful things that anyone could ever do, and his thoughtless, arrogant attitude offends me to no end. However, I would be no better a person than McHugh if I advocated inflicting the same horrible punishment on him. In these cases, we must force ourselves to avoid the simple knee-jerk reaction and instead to take the moral high ground, to act like the civilized society that we claim to be. Just because people commit atrocious deeds does not mean we must stoop to their level in handing out retribution. By punishing McHugh and other murderers with death, we as a society would be implicitly condoning their violent way of life. If we desire, to set an example for criminals, we must demonstrate through our own actions that the taking of a life is not now, and will never be, a solution to any problem.

"It is unfair for a person to take someone's life without just cause." I wholeheartedly agree with this policy, and believe it applies equally to murderers and those who would murder them in turn. It is important to set an example for criminals, but by enforcing the death penalty, society is being hypocritical and implicitly accepting their violent motives. Instead, we must show that human life is sacred and should not be destroyed, especially by government policy.

oh good, I have someone intelligent to argue with.


I believe that as a society we have every right in the world to define a human being who has commited one of these vicious crimes as no longer human. no matter how hard you try you can not reform someone who decided to murder someone in cold blood. I agree with you in the idea that life is something special, that's why when someone decides that they can take the life of someone or many people in some cases that our government should have the authority to take theirs. It puts closure on the lives of those affected by the initial crime and gives a sense of justice to the masses.

Can you honestly tell me that a man who has raped a 15 year old girl and done something as despicable as killing her parents after forcing them to watch as he defiled their child (Lawrence Highman did this) is still as much of a human being as you or me?

You're breaking one of your "forum rules", Sean.

What the heck would justify that? Who are we to decide who belongs and who doesn't, a crime is a crime, but it is not our place to decide what is human and what isn't.

I gotta agree with Bates on this one. I'm not a judge or a jury, I'm just one man. No one person can make these decisons on what makes us human.

If they cease to have respect for human beings, why should we have any respect for them as a human being. They've lost all their humanity by ruining another life. They are no longer human in my eyes.

Because we're better than them, that's why. When someone wrongs you in some way, if you have the strength to not do it back to them, that makes you the better person and at the same time shows the perosn that wronged you how a civilized being should act. Two wrongs do not make a right. Ever. The death penalty is not justice. It is revenge. And to any of us who have ever taken revenge out on someone, we know that it does not provide closure. It does not bring the lost thing back, and then adds guilt and shame to the person who has caused there to be even more malice. It is the person who stops the continuation of cruelty and wrongness who is good, not the person who perpetuates it.

The reason our society has jails is not so much as the punishment of criminals, but more of as a protection for society against them. Parole ruins this purpose, but without it jail is a place where people who wish to harm others go, so that they can no longer harm others. The reason our society spends so much money on prisons and has things like criminal rights movements (yes there have been some), is because we want to be civilized. We do not want to endorse the primal practices of revenge, such as if you are a thief then you get your hand cut off. As a society we recognize this as savage and repungent. We strive to be better than this, and so wind up with the prison system.

I'm sorry, Sean, but criminals are still human beings. They've got human bodies and human DNA, and human brains to go with it. They may not be what we would call a good human, or civil, but they're human none-the-less. This is not an excuse for what they have done, but rather a condemnation. To be human is to know what you are doing. An animal that kills another is not a murderer because they only operate on instint. Only humans can commit murder, therefore all murderers must be human. I agree they are the slime of the earth, and I don't want them running around in my society. But I also must disagree with putting them to death. Here is the reason: if you told me that I would have to be the one to kill the murderer, I could not do it. Something stops me; I could not, in person, kill another person. Probably not even if they were trying to kill me. There must be a reason for this. I come to the conclusion that it is wrong. If it is wrong for me to do it, than it is wrong for someone else to do it. So if we cannot kill our murderers, than we must keep them in jail so they can never hurt others. Which is why I still say there should not be parole, ever, for this kind of crime.

*nod

You're the BIGGEST Trigun fanboy like.. ever! You should understand this the most!
Nobody has the right to take anyone's life, Vash only killed Legato to save Milly and Meryl. And you're forgetting the horrible conditions of prison, stone beds, filthy toilets, daily ass rapings.... That cant be any paradise.

You have just uncovered it helfgott, I've been playing devils advocate. how oculd anyone be that insane? "We don't use the death penalty often enough" Anyway, I do know that taking a life is wrong, but I have to say there must be some sort of way to get these peopole besides having them live in jail. The death penalty should be used in EXTREME cases only. If someone is a MASS murder or a serial killer they should be put to death.

As far as teh definition of being HUMAN is, I see human and homo sapien as two different things. Humanity is having the decency to do what's right, homo spaien is simply the classification of a certain type of animal. Just like living and existing are two VERY different things, human and homo sapien are two VERY different things.

Sure you were! :rolleyes:

Bates: Actually three of the four guys in the first epp of "Bands Behind Bars" were murderers.

Diane: Humanity is defined by one's soul. When you slit the throat of a young girl and rape her dying body, then butcher her and throw her corpse into a river, then go home and watch tv and drink beer, are you a human? If you keep the corpses of young men around your house and make things out of their skin, and eat parts of them, are you human? If you feed the bodies of ex-lovers to a pit of crocodiles, are you human? I certainly don't think so. To commit these henious, despicable crimes indicates to me an abscence of heart and soul. Consider John Wayne Gacy, a man who lured young men to his home, had sex with them, and killed them. He buried the corpses under his house in a crawl space. He led a double life as a children's party clown. He died for his crimes. Ted Bundy, the Lady Killer, died for his crimes.

I support the death penalty in cases such as rape ending in murder, gang rape, murder, serial murder or mass murder (Yes there is a difference), etc. In fact, I believe it's worse for a rape victim to be left alive after being attacked. The rest of their lives are ruined by fear, doubt, self-hate and depression. They can never be intimate with their lovers, they can't focus on daily mundane tasks, they can't sleep. They have been robbed of their humanity. Many wind up commiting suicide to end the pain. I'm with Sean completely on this.

Actually that post was to buy me some time until I could get some back up. Now Jess is here, so I'll continue my insanely hardcore support of the death penalty.

What'll be your excuse next time someone owns you in a debate, Sean? I'm dying to know :P

Says who?

So...someone should be killed for your "indication" of them?

The problem with your arguement is that you are injecting it with your own opinion and not law, nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is a human or "humanity" or "heart and soul" defined.

That's what an arguement is Bates, the trading of opinionis. And the reason I bailed out for a moment was because I was not about to argue with 4 people at once.

But this is an arguement based on the death of a person which is both conveyed through factual information and opinion, and I do not think it is right to have someone live or die at our opinion.

Not only that, but it is also an arguement that seeks to reform our current system of laws, yes, they were first established through opinion, but who are we to question the "god given right to live"?

i dont think the death penalty is a good idea, sure it saves money(if its not apealled) room, time, effort thinking up a real punishment...

i think its stupid to kill someone like that...

I agree that there are cases where the death penalty is not a good punishment for a murder. A stupid 21 year old robs a 7-11 and kills a guy by mistake or in the heat of the moment. A man shoots and kills someone who robbed his house. Do I think those murderers should be killed for this act? No. Then again a single murder is different from a series of brutal rape/killings. Serial killers do deserve to die. Ask the father of the 15 year old who was raped and murdered or worse raped and lived if he thinks that its justice for the rapist to live. Ask him if he feels guilty when the murderer dies. Ask the mother of the small child who was kidnapped and raped if she thinks the sexual predator is human. If your own child, your life, the most precious thing in the world was stolen from you in a brutal violent graphic manner, and think about this real hard, would you feel guilty about the thief's death? Life is precious, that is why those who steal it deserve to truly understand what it is they have stolen. They should feel the same pain and fear their innocent victim felt. Murder and rape are the ultimate crimes. One steals life the other steals the soul. The ultimate crime deserves the ultimate punishment. It's not an eye for an eye because the kind of crimal who keeps killing and raping won't even feel regret. They will never have to face the horror of buring their child. They won't have to live with out a mother or sister. They won't know the pain of living when their reason to live is gone. The only thing such predators feel is sorry they got caught.

I'm totally with Heather-chan and Sean here. Bates, you're just like every other liberal: You're trying to hard to stay in the argument.

Widely known fact of debating-you can't continue, you simply insult the other participant.

owned


right there, you see that? yeah? that's what owned looks like.


Anyway, In Outlaw Star they pretty much get the punishment for crimes such as these perfectly. A high gravity world where it is 1g at the equator and moves up in gravity reaching 10g's at the poles. The prison is funded by the Frontier Space Forces (who essentially own everything, they dont need a currency) they send people to this prison on sentences of 200+ years for murder, and 70+ years for simple crimes such as theft. They get really harsh on thier punishments, but if it was for murderers and rapists then it is the perfect solution. A total bloodless execution ground. Though if they did have that then they'd have space travel and many many many star systems colonized and you know what that means... SPACE OUTLAWS! So then that prison would have a lot of outlaws and bounty hunters which is bad :( we want them to continue being the neutral free faction that we all love!

Though I feel that life imprisonment without parole is what murderers and rapists should get. I dont care how much of a paradise thier foot diameter filthy toilets and constant ass rapings seem to you, that's no way to live. And they are without the most important thing in life, even beyond living. Freedom.