Keeping them alive is, imo, a purpose of itself. Getting them to work benefits everyone, including the convicts.

		Head banger wrote:
		no, you proposed economic ideas to keep them alive, I am pointing out that fails.  its cheaper to kill them, but thats not the reason.  I just think its beter.      _strat_ wrote: Im sorry, but if youre proposing to kill people to save money, Im out of it.      Head banger wrote: I will take just those few cases, no doubt, no waste of time holding them.  it costs over 200 000 a year to hold someone in max security, no way they can do enough work to pay that off, let alone help the victims family.      _strat_ wrote: Good afternoon Ron...  Well, the jury and a judge are not fundamentaly right. And if we go to court, there is always the problem of justice... A rich guy can afford a good lawyer that will get him off the hook, no matter what he did. If you are poor, youre screwed. Besides, I was also saying that nobody should have the right to decide wheter somebody should live or die. The murderer took that right, yes. But it doesnt mean that anyone should be legally able to do the same. If you only take the cases where there is absolutely no doubt... Well, you are not going to have a lot of them.      ronhartsell wrote: Good morning Strat... In my eyes, revenge would be to zip-tie the murderer's hands and leave him in a room with the victim's family for a while... To appease the public?...it's an issue of the brutal crime with paying for his existence...a cost issue... In the States, a jury of Peers or a Judge (the defendant has the choice of which) decides a person's guilt and their sentence... I'm only talking talking of cases where there is absolutely NO DOUBT of their guilt...not the probability of...      _strat_ wrote: Hmm... Well, as I said, I am against capital punishment. Heres why: justice is justice and revenge is revenge. Capital punishment is about revenge, not justice. Sorry, but I dont see how or why should we support the "eye for an eye" logic, and think of ourselves as a modern and at least a remotely tolerant society.  The thing about killing a convict is first of all that it only serves to appease the public. He killed = he was killed. But thats all. Besides that, death penalty doesnt serve anything at all. If you keep him/her in prison for life, and get him to work, then we have something. Maybe put a part of his earnings to the family of the victim? All that fails if you simply strap him on an electric chair, to the amusement of sadistic cop thugs. That, and I already feel uncomfortable enough knowing that the only armed force in the country is under state control. To have state decide who lives and who dies, hell to have anybody decide that, would be too much. And there is the issue of certainty. I guess in certain cases it is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt who was the murderer. But in many cases it isnt. A couple of years ago we had a case, where a man was released from prison. He was charged with murder, and already served of some 20 years (I think), when new evidence came to light, and shown that he was innocent. Sure, he lost 20 years in prison, and that is terrible. But, if he was sentenced to death, what then?