Lethal Injection Cruel & Unusual? Options

[impala454]

I don't have a link but it shouldn't be difficult to find. Apparently here in Texas we're halting executions because some dipshit judge decided to rule lethal injection as "cruel & unusual punishment". WTF is cruel & unusual about it!!??

[pebkac]

I think what Cathryn is trying to say is that we focus too much on punishment rather than rehabilitation.

In Texas, over 60% of the people that are in prison have been there before. Justice is a big industry. If prisons were set up to prevent people from coming back, a lot of people would be out of jobs and a lot of companies would be out a lot of free or very cheap labor. Therefore, there's a lot of sociologists who argue that our prisons are intentionally set up to keep people coming back, and I think there's some truth to that if not on a conscious level then on an unconscious level (talking about the prison administrators that is).

[impala454]

I think what Cathryn is trying to say is that we focus too much on punishment rather than rehabilitation.

In Texas, over 60% of the people that are in prison have been there before. Justice is a big industry. If prisons were set up to prevent people from coming back, a lot of people would be out of jobs and a lot of companies would be out a lot of free or very cheap labor. Therefore, there's a lot of sociologists who argue that our prisons are intentionally set up to keep people coming back, and I think there's some truth to that if not on a conscious level then on an unconscious level (talking about the prison administrators that is).

wow... so instead of just using the simple logic that perhaps those who commit imprisonable crimes are prone to do it again, we blame the prison system for making them want to come back so we can have a few jobs!??!

wow.

or we blame the prison system for not rehabilitating people!?!?? geezus.

these are the liberal views that baffle me to this day... (and the whole point of the pussification thread). lets blame everyone else for our problems

punishment is there for a reason. if the punishment isn't harsh enough, the person who commits a crime will do it again because they're not afraid of the punishment.

look at countries where they publicly cane people who vandalize a car, their crime/prison levels are virtually zero.

[pebkac]

wow... so instead of just using the simple logic that perhaps those who commit imprisonable crimes are prone to do it again, we blame the prison system for making them want to come back so we can have a few jobs!??!

wow.

or we blame the prison system for not rehabilitating people!?!?? geezus.

these are the liberal views that baffle me to this day... (and the whole point of the pussification thread). lets blame everyone else for our problems

punishment is there for a reason. if the punishment isn't harsh enough, the person who commits a crime will do it again because they're not afraid of the punishment.

look at countries where they publicly cane people who vandalize a car, their crime/prison levels are virtually zero.

Yeah. That's right. Numerous criminologists have documented what I just said many times. Criminologists refer to jail as "graduate school for criminals." I can name you concept after concept as to why our current system is a bad way to rehabilitate people. And you're just going to go with your gut on this one?

Answer me this. Why is it that countries with less punishment (and have no death penalties at all) have
lower crime rates than us as well?

well the bottom line is prison is nicer than a lot of people's lives. so, regardless of whether or not there's rehabilitation in the prison, having clean clothes, food, a place to sleep, and mild entertainment and other services is incentive enough to come back. not to mention that no doubt a lot of people gain 'reputations' in prison and are more socially accepted by their fellow prisoners.

If prison isn't so bad, what keeps you from going there? You get clean clothes and three (terrible) meals a day. Of course you do also have to live in constant fear of getting raped/beat up/killed. And then there's the whole not being able to see the outside world thing. But jail isn't so bad, right?

As for the TV thing, ask anyone who's ever worked in a prison. TV works on prisoners just as well as it does on children. Its the most effective form of riot control ever invented.

[blaarg]

Answer me this. Why is it that countries with less punishment (and have no death penalties at all) have
lower crime rates than us as well?

I thought about this actually for a while and found some UN statistics on crime on a country by country basis
Here is the the Link

Anyways, here are the stats (# of reports per 100,000 population) with our crime statistics compared to mostly our European counterparts who have abolished the death penalty (also with some other countries of note, like Mexico):

Country Homicide Assaults Rape

USA 4.55 805.21 32.05
Australia 2.04 735.02 81.41
Canada 1.59 725.73 78.08
Denmark 1.09 183.58 9.31
England 1.61 851.60 16.23
France 1.78 180.79 14.36
Germany 1.17 142.23 9.12
Italy 1.29 50.38 4.05
Mexico 14.11 260.39 13.33
Netherlands 1.15 277.54 10.36
Poland 5.61 84.73 6.20
Romania 2.50 41.83 4.96
Spain 1.25 228.99 14.34
Sweden 1.18 125.31 2.86

So I feel like it is safe to say that our European counterparts (which, one might assume DOES have similar law enforcement #'s as us, since we are all (mostly) developed countries) who have the death penalty abolished have less crime. Granted there are some exceptions. An interesting side note is that Japan (where the death penalty is legal) has DRAMATICALLY lower crime than all of these countries mentioned, so *shrug*

EDIT:: Well the formatting fucked up from copy/pasting, but if you are careful you can view the stats ok...

[impala454]

I thought about this actually for a while and found some UN statistics on crime on a country by country basis
Here is the the Link

Anyways, here are the stats (# of reports per 100,000 population) with our crime statistics compared to mostly our European counterparts who have abolished the death penalty (also with some other countries of note, like Mexico):

Country Homicide Assaults Rape

USA 4.55 805.21 32.05
Australia 2.04 735.02 81.41
Canada 1.59 725.73 78.08
Denmark 1.09 183.58 9.31
England 1.61 851.60 16.23
France 1.78 180.79 14.36
Germany 1.17 142.23 9.12
Italy 1.29 50.38 4.05
Mexico 14.11 260.39 13.33
Netherlands 1.15 277.54 10.36
Poland 5.61 84.73 6.20
Romania 2.50 41.83 4.96
Spain 1.25 228.99 14.34
Sweden 1.18 125.31 2.86

So I feel like it is safe to say that our European counterparts (which, one might assume DOES have similar law enforcement #'s as us, since we are all (mostly) developed countries) who have the death penalty abolished have less crime. Granted there are some exceptions. An interesting side note is that Japan (where the death penalty is legal) has DRAMATICALLY lower crime than all of these countries mentioned, so *shrug*

EDIT:: Well the formatting fucked up from copy/pasting, but if you are careful you can view the stats ok...

are you kidding me??? are you going to sit there and argue 2 murders difference per 100,000 people!?? and as far as stuff like rapes go, yeah of course those will skew our direction, every 14 year old girl who loses her virginity to some guy she lied to about her age gets a successful rape conviction. there's a ton of other factors as well, like population density, # of major metro areas, culture diversity, amount of law enforcement, etc. not to mention how you found skewed numbers from several large countries like japan