Indonesia to execute six drug offenders

[Thumpalumpacus]

"Letting the public discuss" this?

How would you propose to regulate this speech?

You've a fair point about incentivizing prison labor, but given a robust adversarial court system, I'm not sure that would be such a danger as it was in, say, the Soviet Union.

[DeistPaladin]

1. Enslaving convicts to work creates a perverse economic incentive to incarcerate more, for any reason.

Hence, how our privatized prison system in America coupled with our financial lobbying that is so intertwined in how our democracy/oligarchy functions has resulted in the highest per capita prisoners of any country in the world.

On a related note, an argument against the death penalty that swayed me from hesitant-"for" to an "against" is the prospect of executing an innocent. If even one innocent person is executed, that is unacceptable. You can release an innocent person from jail. You can't give them their lost time back but you can at least give them the rest of their life back. You can't bring back anyone from the grave.

[robvalue]

I guess for the second point, we have solitary confinement or something.

Long term Solitary Confinement causes intense physical and mental harm, harm which has yet to be treatable and possibly never can be solved.

It is tantamount to torture.

Yet you advocate that.

Shows how little you know and why letting the general public discuss anything is a waste of time.

"For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, elegant and wrong" comes to mind as a quote.

Erm, nice to meet you

I'm sorry I didn't run my throwaway comment by you first, whoever you are.

Show me where I said "long term"?

[Autumnlicious]

robvalue, your statement left that open as a possibility.

Let's take a closer look at what you posted.

I've been giving this some thought, and I've come round to the idea that putting murderers to work for the community is probably a better idea than execution. Well, putting all criminals to work I guess. Why should they get to lounge around?

The problems I see with doing this for murderers are:

1) Risk to the public
2) What action is taken if they refuse to work properly / at all

I guess for the second point, we have solitary confinement or something.

Consider a "murderer" (as you put it), refusing to work. Your suggestion, denoted as #2, was to use solitary confinement.

However, if said "murderer" continues to refuse to work, repeated use of solitary confinement will add up, creating effective long term solitary confinement.

While we're on this topic, how will you handle work-related injuries from this legalized slavery? How far can you use or abuse a prisoner? Until their joints become arthritic? Past that point?

And there remains the question of what to do for someone wrongly convicted and made part of the enslaved "work" crews. Let's say they've been crippled on the job -- how are you going to give their missing limb back?

Now let's pretend we're going to reduce the type of work to an industry that, most likely, is not at risk of causing debilitating injuries. Once again, what of the fruits of poisoned labor? Would the wrongfully-convicted receive a percentage of the profits and how much would justify loss of income and emotional trauma from wrongful incarceration and wrongful forced labor?

Nothing but a minefield of bad ideas, opportunities for financing/creating a perverse incentive for wrongful convictions and an incredibly large swathe of edge cases.

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"Letting the public discuss" this?

How would you propose to regulate this speech?

By mocking foolish, half baked ideas mercilessly. What else can I do? There is nothing that prevents ones own fingers from posting drivel upon a public forum (except a sledgehammer to them).

You've a fair point about incentivizing prison labor, but given a robust adversarial court system, I'm not sure that would be such a danger as it was in, say, the Soviet Union.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/....html?_r=0

?

Some robust court system.

[robvalue]

No apology, just complete assumption I see.

I'm not allowed to block mods, so you can just expect me to ignore you.

How very rude.

[Thumpalumpacus]

"Letting the public discuss" this?

How would you propose to regulate this speech?

By mocking foolish, half baked ideas mercilessly. What else can I do? There is nothing that prevents ones own fingers from posting drivel upon a public forum (except a sledgehammer to them).

It looks to me, then, that you're actually in favor of letting the public discuss this.

You've a fair point about incentivizing prison labor, but given a robust adversarial court system, I'm not sure that would be such a danger as it was in, say, the Soviet Union.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/....html?_r=0


?

Some robust court system.

Yes, because that equates to a GULag system, amirite? You cite two examples to derogate a system of about 3150 county court systems, 50 state systems with multiple courts in them, about 100 federal district courts, an appellate system, and the Supreme Court. Surely if the court system was unreliable in enforcing our rights -- many of which convicted felons often lose as a result of their crimes -- if the system was that unreliable, you'd have a larger sample, or a more substantive reply than "Yeah, but what about this?", which is what posting your two links amounts to.

Maybe you think prison ought to be a vacation home, I don't know. You've yet to put forth any positive ideas, instead enjoy sniping in this thread. Perhaps you have something to actually add to the conversation.

How would you go about replacing the death penalty? Be specific.

[robvalue]

1. Enslaving convicts to work creates a perverse economic incentive to incarcerate more, for any reason.

Hence, how our privatized prison system in America coupled with our financial lobbying that is so intertwined in how our democracy/oligarchy functions has resulted in the highest per capita prisoners of any country in the world.

On a related note, an argument against the death penalty that swayed me from hesitant-"for" to an "against" is the prospect of executing an innocent. If even one innocent person is executed, that is unacceptable. You can release an innocent person from jail. You can't give them their lost time back but you can at least give them the rest of their life back. You can't bring back anyone from the grave.

My response to this is perversely mathematical. If you have a system where murderers are let out, like in the UK, then if the reoffend murder rate is higher than the innocently executed rate, then you save innocent lives by execution. Not easy to accurately get these numbers I know, and I haven't looked in detail to see how that would work out. That would be interesting.

It's fine to call me a heartless bastard, by the way. I can take it.

[Brian37]

When you break the law in a land ruled by primitive fucks you really should not be surprised by the outcome.

We have a right wing in this country in America who wants to turn back the clock and have tons of gung ho gun nutters who are delusional and blindly patriotic who would love thing more than for us to become a Christian theocracy. Because Gawad Guns and Gravy.

[abaris]

My response to this is perversely mathematical. If you have a system where murderers are let out, like in the UK, then if the reoffend murder rate is higher than the innocently executed rate, then you save innocent lives by execution. Not easy to accurately get these numbers I know, and I haven't looked in detail to see how that would work out. That would be interesting.

It's fine to call me a heartless bastard, by the way. I can take it.

The problem is, you haven't looked at it at all. The UK as every other European country has a system in place where life actually can mean life. It's called preventive detention and if a person is considered too dangerous to be released, they end up there. Sometimes for more years, decades or until they die.

It's the same uninformed outrage that went with the Brejvik trial. Yes, on paper he got 21 years. That's the maximum sentence in Norway. But the message was there for everyone being really interested and didn't rely on tabloids only. Brejvik will never walk the streets again.

And honestly, I don't find any words for someone being comfortable with innocents being executed.

[robvalue]

I was trying to save lives with maths. (edited)

My maths may be well off. But as far as I know, some murderers get released. Maybe this study has been done already, probably. I didn't kill anyone by talking about it :p

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Say the reoffend rate was 40% and the innocent execution rate was 1%. What would you do? Assuming life imprisonment for everyone was not an option. Which it should be, I agree.

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When did I say I was comfortable with innocents being executed? I'm accepting it's an inescapable part of the death penalty.

And yes, I admitted I haven't looked at all. What's the problem? I may have no point at all. I'm sorry if the subject makes you uncomfortable.

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(Edited, I went overboard, sorry.)