Views on the Death Penalty? (a poll)

[Anomalocaris]

With a typical criminal, I think the only good reason for death penalty is the assessment of high probability that if not executed, the person will find a way to kill again.

If we live in a fragmented society ruled by warlords and terrorists, in which tides of power ebb and flow, and no consistent central authority can be counted on to sustain its influence, then if I catch a particularly murderous bastard, I'll kill him because I have no assurance he won't get away from me to kill again.

Since I have trouble conceiving of how such an assessment of high probability of repeat offense can be made given the incarceration options available in a civil and reasonably stable society, I have to say in a civil and reasonably stable society, there is not any good reason for the death penalty in ordinary criminal cases. I believe even Norway has options to keep breivek confined beyond his sentence if assessment is made that he remains murderous.

Breivek, whatever his self absorption and self importance, is not a person of enormous influence and symbolism. A monsterously criminal petty criminal, but still a petty criminal. He is not a symbol to motive nations to go to war.

With Hitler or other decisive national leaders or extreme political it is clearly a different case. Political leaders are symbols, and nations can go to war over such symbols. Here the calculus of what needs to be done to symbols that can motivate nations requires a whole different calculus than whether the particular person would likely be able to reoffend.