What do people here think about the death penalty?

Morally speaking I'm against it merely for the idea that nobody has any more right to kill than anybody else. Law is just a more ordered and systematic version of the old lynch mob. Interestingly enough, most of the conservative Christians that are anti-abortion are usually the same ones that are pro-death penalty. Apparently "Thou shalt not kill!" is applicable when they want it to be. I find Christianity extremely hypocritical. From a practical point of view, the death penalty only gets rid of someone but doesn't reduce the murder rate. The U.S. exceeds most countries in total number of murders. Though we are about average in murders by population (per 100,000 people). Really, you can only treat/house them, kill them or expel them. But the essential problem is that we don't do anything about the causes, the underlining problem. Drugs, mental illness and poverty. Making drugs illegal doesn't do diddly squat. Poverty is the biggest problem of all but we've enacted a sink or swim financial mentality in this country. As long as a small percentage of anyone holds most of the wealth, you are going to have severe problems. If it gets bad enough, you have a revolution. The only way to end poverty is to completely restructure out culture and financial system to redistribute resources evenly to everyone. Otherwise you are always going to have problems with crime and violence as the people with less will be upset that others have more. We teach kids to share and not fight over things. But as soon as we are adults we fight over jobs and money and fight to pay bills so we don't get evicted. Nothing is fair, so there will always be conflict and violence as long as that is the case. And so we will always have criminals and killers to deal with.

But how would you suggest dealing with them? That seems to be the premise of the question. There will be criminals. But are they worth the cost of institutionalizing or should they be killed?

Death Penalty for people who tell you upfront they wont change is perfectly fine. If people who have murdered and understand it was a mistake it's different.

@vampire_neko I think your qualm with Christianity being hypocritical applies to all of humanity. There are more than one billion people who claim to be Christians and they have a wide variety of beliefs. There are many very conservative ones who are not pro-death penalty. Not to mention that the death penalty and abortion are not equivalent concepts. There are faults to be found in religion, but there are also faults to be found in blaming religion for humanity's imperfections. I agree that poverty is a large part of the driving force for crime in the U.S., but I feel it goes deeper than that. Other countries have issues with poverty too, but they still don't have the crime and murder problem that the U.S. has. And redistributing everything evenly would absolutely not end poverty. The economy doesn't work like that. Humanity doesn't work like that.

I am fine I think with the concept of the death penalty, I just don't really trust that the right person will always be found guilty, especially since there have been times where the wrong person was imprisoned for years on death row.

Ah....Liberals. It's always religion and not just stupid people in general.But, remember to "coexist" as those bumper stickers say.;) Anyways.... There is no rehabilitating the unwilling. Also, is it right that a man who murders should live as a free man, but caged? Where's the justice in that?I don't want to pay to support a killer. I think our justice system just needs a rehaul. There are some crimes where i believe a person has just abandoned society and as such society needs to abandon them. I almost wonder how things would be if we chopped off hands for stealing or cut out tongues for lieing in court.

@yasshat And what would we do to politicians celebrities and corrupt corporation heads? @ neko vampire Harsher punishment is not supposed to be a detterent from crime. It should be what the result IS from committing said crikmes. Also distribution of wealth does not detter violence or poverty. Also in societies where everyone is around the same status, organized criminal organizations as well as corp0rate aabuse tends to prosper. Can you guess why? Because the only way to get more (human greed is a base impulse sorry but that's humanity for ya) is to join a place with promises of wealth albeit illegal, or becoming one of those with power by making your own organization and surviving long enough to be part of the top. Also drugs, education, culture, religion it all influences why some fall into violence and others not. The factors are too many to put blame on only one. And fixing is near impossible. The best solution is promotimg security through sheer force but never givingtoo much power to one enforcement agency I.e. police, fbi, cia, etc. It can. Be done some countries have, and they live in less violence than other nations with more money than them. The u.s. is rotten at its core corpprations owm the nation not the government. So punishing everyone that deserves it is. Pretty much impossible in the current u.s.a. Revolution is the esiest bet