Death Penalty

[Amarok]

I agree with this 100% in principle but I can't see it working in practice. Prisons would actively encourage suicide by abusing prisoners.

Assisted suicide is a can of worms.

Pretty sure  there would be some ethical objections to the scenario you describe., at least in Oz. So far, my country is not sufficiently mature to allow the assisted suicide of the pain-ridden, terminally ill. No sure how they would respond to the terminally evil.

I'd also argue that there is hope for the person so guilt ridden as to believe he /she is undeserving of life. My perception is that truly evil people rarely see themselves as evil.

1. I'm not sure how mature country needs to be to allow people to choose death . Plus I was more talking about the suffering of a life sentence .

2. Well if they don't see themselves as evil then they will simply live out their sentence unless the find that unbearable thus the first option .

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I'm not following your reasoning on this

It's just human nature.

What kind of person chooses to work as a prison guard? Not a social progressive. Such a person would be unlikely to pursue such a career path. A prison guard is likely to be a social conservative. On top of this, such a person is constantly exposed to the dregs of humanity. Knowing these prisoners had easy access to an, "off switch", don't you see that they would have a temptation to encourage prisoners to avail themselves to this option? It would certainly make their job easier.

I'm about as socially liberal as they come and I can tell you if that if I were a prison guard, I would be highly tempted to encourage violent prisoners to select this option. It's certainly an option I would select if I were in their place.

Easy, assisted suicide might seem attractive on the surface but if you think about it closely, it is unethical. The only way it would be ethical is if the guards were completely unemotional robots that had no emotional investment in whether a prisoner chose suicide or not.

1. That's not my experience working in the penal system . Most of the guards are the opposite your description . 

2. I think you would change your mind if you did the job 


3. Therefore I can't agree with your conclusion