• RaskolnikovsAxe@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    7 days ago

    Give me one tangible, evidenced benefit. Not sure how you grew up with it and are still unable to figure out that your position is entirely supported by emotion.

    You’re not going to insult me by suggesting that I respect my thinking on this topic.

    • Matty Roses@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 days ago

      Give me one tangible, evidenced benefit

      Deterrence. And unlike most criminal cases, these are people who do indeed have other options and can easily make a choice not to run rape rings for the wealthy, can easily choose not to fuck children, etc.

      by suggesting that I respect my thinking on this topic.

      Oh, so you don’t respect it either? Cool bro, fuck off now.

        • Matty Roses@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          4 days ago

          Yes - and that’s because most often it’s applied to people who have few alternatives to criminality. There isn’t a good deterrence when good alternatives don’t exist. This is looking at the general population, and the death penalty is not effective then.

          Which is exactly what I stated above - it’s different when you’re dealing with elites, and there actually is a deterrence effect then.

          • RaskolnikovsAxe@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            4 days ago

            In guessing you get to decide who is an elite.

            Look, I’m all for enforcing our laws and punishing elites and I happen to believe that billionaires shouldn’t even exist, but frankly on the three main claimed benefits of the death penalty - deterrence, cost and incapacitation - the evidence is nonexistence or in outright opposition, and would be met with proper life without parole without running afoul of the Blackstone dilemma.

            • Matty Roses@lemmy.today
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              4 days ago

              Me? No. We supposedly decide laws through democratic means.

              I’d say individuals with a net worth of a billion dollars, or who are the President of the US, are a good start though.

              • RaskolnikovsAxe@lemmy.ca
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                4 days ago

                I’m pretty sure we couldn’t agree on a universal definition that wouldn’t be subject to error or interpretation, and after we’ve killed an innocent person and likely created a martyr and a drive to retribution by some segment of the population, we can’t really back out of that mess.

                There’s a perfectly workable solution that aligns with the imperfections and uncertainties of justice, and conveniently also achieves the same or better metrics as evidenced by countless studies on the topic. Seems like an easy decision.

                However that won’t satisfy retributive blood lust, or make anyone feel like a tough guy when advocating for it, so the death penalty persists where those things are important.

                  • RaskolnikovsAxe@lemmy.ca
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    3 days ago

                    Well, that understandable drive for retribution - which blinds us to principles of equality and justice - is exactly why we don’t let victims administer justice or mete out punishments.