Bangladesh considers death penalty for rapists.

[The Grand Nudger]

Go one step further - 

What if you incarcerate an innocent person?

Many people think prison is worse than death.

Should we just scrap the penal system?

You're asking if we should scrap our penal system?  Yes.  It's a for profit body farm.  That's just how they're fucking the taxpayer and the guilty, to say nothing of the innocent.

[Duty]

It always amazes me when people say "it's just sex!" when confronted about, say, infidelity, given the severity of crime attributed to rape, paedophilia, sex trafficking etc. If it really were "just sex" then a proverbial slap on the wrist would be appropriate - the opposite is true.

[Aegon]

Doesn't matter what the crime is. If there's even a small chance that the justice system prosecutes the wrong guy and sentences an innocent person to death, there should be no death penalty. Period.

Go one step further - 

What if you incarcerate an innocent person?

Many people think prison is worse than death.

Should we just scrap the penal system?

Well, I have quite a bit to say about the American penal system in particular, but... if you don't already see the astronomical difference between the state wrongfully sentencing a man to 10 years with parole vs. the state wrongfully ending his one, only life on the planet Earth, I doubt I'll be able to explain it to you.

I can accept the state's power to imprison. However, whether we the people should permit the state the ability to legally kill as punishment for a crime is an entirely different discussion with different philosophical considerations.

---

I'm against the death penalty always.

I think prisons should be humane always. To this end they should be run by the government not a corporation!

Humans are worthwhile from an ROI perspective so even those that should not be free can be useful.

We should exploit them for labor like we do now.

This would give us the opportunity to release a wrongfully incarcerated person as well as get use from properly incarcerated people.

Prisons should be both humane and exploit prisoners for labor? How are you reconciling those two ideas? Exploiting prisoners for their labor is quite literally legal slavery. Don't believe me? Give the 13th amendment another read.

[onlinebiker]

At work.

So what I hear you saying is "you don't agree with MY opinion and therefore you are an idiot".

How nice of you to say so.....

It must make you feel soooooo special - and superior!

No you thick skulled, thin skinned Yank.

 I'll play the ball and not the man.

I notice my comparison of ideas wasn't addressed?

Y'know, the whole "Prison bad. Ban prison.  Guns bad. Ban guns"  comparative statement?

 And again, what people 'Think' (I think) we both agree does not often match reality.

You don't seem to know much about the incarcerated
..

It is a safe claim that many people would rather death than incarceration drawn from one simple observation -

The suicide rate of the incarcerated - which is FOUR TIMES that of the general (free) population.....

[Rhizomorph13]

Go one step further - 

What if you incarcerate an innocent person?

Many people think prison is worse than death.

Should we just scrap the penal system?

Well, I have quite a bit to say about the American penal system in particular, but... if you don't already see the astronomical difference between the state wrongfully sentencing a man to 10 years with parole vs. the state wrongfully ending his one, only life on the planet Earth, I doubt I'll be able to explain it to you.

I can accept the state's power to imprison. However, whether we the people should permit the state the ability to legally kill as punishment for a crime is an entirely different discussion with different philosophical considerations.

---

I'm against the death penalty always.

I think prisons should be humane always. To this end they should be run by the government not a corporation!

Humans are worthwhile from an ROI perspective so even those that should not be free can be useful.

We should exploit them for labor like we do now.

This would give us the opportunity to release a wrongfully incarcerated person as well as get use from properly incarcerated people.

Prisons should be both humane and exploit prisoners for labor? How are you reconciling those two ideas? Exploiting prisoners for their labor is quite literally legal slavery. Don't believe me? Give the 13th amendment another read.

Yes, they are good for something and if done properly it will give them a sense of purpose. Much better than killing them wouldn't you agree? So avoid immediately trying to mischaracterize something into a flimsy dog whistle please.

The same could be said of wage slavery and I largely agree with that too. Disabuse yourself of your perfect world where nobody exploits anyone else. We are all exploiters and we are all exploited. Don't believe that? Well, you're not paying attention.

I work for Intel a very humane company to work for and it gives me a sense of purpose in my life as well as money to live on. I am producing much value for the company and they are exploiting that while NOT passing all that value back to me. Wage slavery. That is just the way it is. I would like to change it, I'm not sure how.

[The Grand Nudger]

The suicide rate of the incarcerated - which is FOUR TIMES that of the general (free) population.....

Should we need to know more about the american penal system than that to realize that something is amiss?

[Rhizomorph13]

If only we would adjust our thinking to encompass the fact that free will is not real, then we could build a prison system that is less punitive and more reformative or just a storage for people who have shown they have a penchant for selecting bad outcomes based on their agency.

[Aegon]

Well, I have quite a bit to say about the American penal system in particular, but... if you don't already see the astronomical difference between the state wrongfully sentencing a man to 10 years with parole vs. the state wrongfully ending his one, only life on the planet Earth, I doubt I'll be able to explain it to you.

I can accept the state's power to imprison. However, whether we the people should permit the state the ability to legally kill as punishment for a crime is an entirely different discussion with different philosophical considerations.

---

Prisons should be both humane and exploit prisoners for labor? How are you reconciling those two ideas? Exploiting prisoners for their labor is quite literally legal slavery. Don't believe me? Give the 13th amendment another read.

Yes, they are good for something and if done properly it will give them a sense of purpose. Much better than killing them wouldn't you agree? So avoid immediately trying to mischaracterize something into a flimsy dog whistle please.

Flimsy dog whistle? What? I'm not mischaracterizing anything. It is legal slavery. Are you going to try to dispute that argument or not?

"It's better than killing them" is a pretty horrific way of looking at things and does not, in the slightest, justify slave labor. Think about all the dumb and horrible stuff you could try to justify with that line of logic.

The same could be said of wage slavery and I largely agree with that too. Disabuse yourself of your perfect world where nobody exploits anyone else. We are all exploiters and we are all exploited. Don't believe that? Well, you're not paying attention.

You're talking to a democratic socialist so... broadly speaking I don't disagree with you, but there are varying levels of slavery in a society and to say prison labor is a-okay because we have wage slavery is not a great argument at all. Wage slavery does differ from prison labor significantly. Prisoners are quite physically bound to the prison, are stripped of all freedoms guaranteed to citizens, and do not have the power nor capacity to refuse work. I understand the argument for wage slavery is that nobody can refuse to work since they will suffer and starve to death due to lack of income. This is a somewhat decent argument (disputes by the existence of a social safety net, as pithy as America's might be) but to compare prison labor and wage slavery is to intentionally ignore some pretty massive differences. Also if you wish to do away with the system that utilizes wage slavery, it's odd you would still support another kind of slave labor?

You can call yourself a wage slave all you want but the fact of the matter is you have an unfathomable amount of freedoms compared to a prison inmate.

[Rhizomorph13]

Aegon,

I live in Oregon. We have a prison. The way Oregon handles their prisoners is to give them hope by employing them and it has shown to be a good way to reduce recidivism.

https://www.oregon.gov/doc/inmate-progra...ining.aspx

While I was in college learning about prisons and what works I was happy to learn that Oregon was noted in the textbook as a good example of what works. Specifically work programs that helped bolster the self-esteem of inmates and give them hope that they could build a future after release. It kept them busy when they were in the walls of the prison. There are also several companies within Oregon that hire felons on purpose so they will have a place to work. Dave's Killer Bread is one as well as D Stake Mill.

I would push for fair wages because that is one thing that makes it not fair but with a caveat that an amount would be pulled off the top for lodging and food.

This isn't about touchy feely freedom arguments, just the cold hard facts of managing a situation with the best possible outcomes for all involved.

Let's assume that a person in prison deserves to have their freedom removed then move on from there to how do we best serve their needs.

BTW I understand that the system, as it is, is corrupt but that should be addressed directly.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

It is a safe claim that many people would rather death than incarceration 

Strikes me as a valid argument for the US joining the rest of the civilized world and abolishing the death penalty.

Boru