This is exactly my point, how can you tell, that it's not already "low". There could always be more. How can you not believe death penalty has no deterrence effect for example on apostasy or drug crimes? The only way you could know is, that these countries removed their death penalties now.

When I called your statement a blanket statement, you didn't single out homicide. You cannot measure capital punishments deterrence by just homicide rates, unless capital punishment is only reserved for homicides. Why don't you use for example Afghanistan's apostasy numbers? Based on them, you could say CP is in fact an effective deterrent.

Just look at the list. Out of those 6 countries, only USA reserves death penalty only for murders (plus treason, espionage and some military crimes).

When something is deterred it leaves no numbers or statistics that you can count, because it doesn't happen. Disproving deterrence is as easy as disproving lack of god. You are only left with a guess, which is as good as mine.

I'm sure you believe hand-free saves lives. If I asked you how many, you wouldn't be able to tell me. You could only guess it prevented, but you couldn't actually tell which cases it prevented. Why is this so hard to accept on death penalty?
Sound logic? A man using hands-free, while driving, died in a car accident -> hands-free doesn't prevent deaths. Clearly sound logic indeed.

I used homicide rate because that is usually the crime where people get the death sentence, and also because homicide rates usually correlate with other crime rates.



Look at the other countries... are the crime rates similar, or spread out randomly (like the homicide rates are). If apostacy rates were similar for countries with similar CP rates, then you could say there's a correlation.

While I wouldn't advocate returning him to the public, I have changed my stance on capital punishment over the years and no longer support it. I have no problem with life in prison however. The problem is in the US legal system, an life sentence is only 15-25 years long, so a 25 year-old who kills a couple people but had a good excuse may be on the streets again at age 40, fresh out of jail where he's been working out every day and learning the tricks of the trade from all the other inmates. We need real life sentences for killers, not fictional ones.

Capital Punishment Statistics. In 2007, 2x as many white murderers were executed as black murderers.....even though the number of people under death sentence, was more evenly divided by race.

And read this.....



"Among inmates under sentence of death and with available criminal histories at yearend 2006:
-- nearly 2 in 3 had a prior felony conviction
-- 1 in 12 had a prior homicide conviction. "

This means we already have a good idea who is going to murder. And we already had them in jail at least once, and released them back on society, to do their murders. Using this statistic, there is no reason murders, further murders, could not be prevented.

Again, evidence that CP is not a deterrant to crime. If it was, these repeat offenders wouldn't continue, right? Because they would know that the death sentence would be much more likely the second time around...
Also, as AZBrandon (and others) have said, tougher penalties need to be made for these types of crimes, to keep people with a history of criminal activity from commiting crimes again (i.e. life sentence means being in prison for life).

Wouldn't that require an active neural net?

NJ.....just how do you figure CP is not a deterrent? Using those statistics one out of twelve murders could be prevented if all murderers were given CP for their first murder. Not only does it deter murder.....it prevents another murder by the same person.

This argument always amuses me, although it usually raves about some "liberal" "experiment" that "isn't working" (out of interest is there an American senator who spouts this? It is usually too similarly worded for it to be original thoughts amongst all these people).

Lets look at it this way.

Various crime deterrents used over the last few millennia:

Mutilation E.g. Removal of hands for theft
Hanging (In the case of treason with a dose of drawing and quartering)
Immolation
Impaling
Crucification
Beheading
Stocks (Inc. pillory etc...)
Gibbeting
Keelhauling
Flogging
Poisoning
Branding
Gladiatorial combat
Hard labour

Funnily enough there was demand for these punishments for the entire time they were legal. They are obviously great deterrents.

EDIT: You would also have murdered 11 out of 12 people to prevent them from committing a crime that they will never commit again (thats assuming they all were guilty in the first place!)

Such a liberal use of intentional ignorance.

Look at the statistics - the countries with the highest CP rates have no similarity in the rates of homicide... that's how I figure that CP has no effect. Not that I expect you to actually consider any statistics, but you might give it a try sometime.

Besides, do you think that someone who is about to commit murder thinks about that anyway?
Did Zommer think about getting a death sentence before he killed the old woman? It didn't do much to deter him, did it?

You can say that crime is prevented by CP, but you can't provide any evidence...

As expected....more pity for the murderers, with the implication that murder cannot be prevented, no matter what method society attempts.

Dead bodies litter the streets. Old ladies are beaten to death with their throats slashed. Police are killed enforcing parking rules......and yet. It would be cruel and unusual...murder even.... to punish the murderers in a manner befitting the crime.

Makes me wonder if the murder-apologists foresee a situation in their own future, where they, themselves, might benefit from an end to extreme punishment.

I haven't said that murder can't be prevented. I haven't ever said that I feel any kind of pity for murderers. To suggest either of these is completely false.

I'm just saying is that CP is not a deterrant to crime. If you're so sure it is, let's see some evidence.

Hi Carl,

Do you have your "opposite colored glasses" on?

Prevent murder by removing the large supply of guns. Where do criminals get their guns from, anyway?

Umm,. isn't that the right to own and arm bears?

Follow-up to the OP......The murderer from the original post used an unregistered, stolen gun to shoot the first policeman. It was revealed today. All along his supporters have been calling him a "model citizen", a credit to his community, etc.

Now.....tell me how any gun law would have removed that gun from his hands, after he bought it on the streets. There are enough of these illegal weapons around to fight several wars. They aren't going away.

The only thing for us to do, if we're serious about stopping murders, is to increase punishments for gun-related crimes to the point that gun use in any crime, is punishable by certain death. It won't stop every murder.....but it will stop many. One murder is too much....

Edit....this belongs in the other murder thread. There are so many murders lately, they blend together.

Eh, when looking for recidivism rates, the best study I found within 10 minutes was one from Washington state, which states that "Despite generally held views, the more violent offenses, manslaughter, murder and robbery, accounted for the smallest number of offenses and, along with sex offenses, the lowest recidivism rates".

"Offenders sentenced for non-violent crimes were more likely to have had a previous felony conviction than those sentenced for a violent crime, 61% and 47% respectfully."

I think you're forgetting that most murders are committed by people between 18 and 40, we should just lock all of those people up and then let them out when they've grown into responsible grown-ups

The murderer from the OP.....was 51 when a hail of police bullets saved him from capital punishment.

Edit....too many murders to keep track of. The murderer from this thread is still alive, hopefully not for long.

I always thought it was the right to own and bare arms... Yay, T-shirts!

Mexico

Because most attackers of whites are white... Black attackers get off more easily - we've discussed all this before. The system is yet again racist against whites.

Some educated investrigating would reveal greedy gun companies completely run by white men.

Sigh...we are just oppressed Caucasians -- NOT! Figure it out folks; this is not that hard...



1 in 100 Americans in prison

the Bluefront way.

tell you what, why not go to the extreme that Bluefront is advocating - murder (sorry, execute - murder isn't murder or is it?) everyone in prison. That'll clear out expensive overcrowded prisons, reduced recidivism (SP?) to zero and prevent almost every murder that might happen in the US. Then apply sharia law (because the US love the muslims right?) - cut hands off for theft, stone women who've been raped and execute anyone and everyone you care to. Obviously, some people aren't going to be happy about this (damn liberals!), so throw them in jail +/ or execute them. You won't get anyone complaining then!

Obviously, the current system isn't working as poor old grannies are still being murdered (horribly too!), so what's to lose? Give it a go!

The best part about state sponsored revenge killings is that it miraculously brings murder victims back to life while teaching that killing is wrong at the same time.

You could also say that capital punishment is the only sure way to prevent a murderer from murdering a second time. And it shows a potential murderer what might happen to him.....if he gets real unlucky.

Polly want a cracker?

And if you don't care about murdered victims, you can act like a sniveling brat.

Polly wants two crackers.

That's one smart bird.