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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: E who wrote (29955)2/3/1999 8:28:00 PM
From: Dayuhan  Respond to of 108807
 
Well said.



To: E who wrote (29955)2/3/1999 8:53:00 PM
From: Father Terrence  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 108807
 
Here's another good reason:

Dateline: today Illinois - after spending 17 years on death row for a crime he didn't commit, a Death Row inmate will be released soon. With less than 2 days from the scheduled execution, a Milwaukee man confessed to actually committing the crime. Cook County Illinois prosecutors have no comment.

No, of course they don't.

Question: How many innocent people have been executed?
Answer: More than one... and one is too many.

FT



To: E who wrote (29955)2/4/1999 6:38:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 108807
 
>I put this under deterrence for a reason. It is so unbelievably expensive to execute, an
exercise that does not, apparently, effect the crime rate, that deterrence might be better
achieved by putting those taxpayer monies into effective crime reduction measures.<

E, I don't want to deflect the thrust of your argument, but I want to add a little semantic clarification. Deterrence by its nature is an application of terror to prevent a certain behavior. Our nuclear deterrent is intended to scare our enemies into laying off their own big red buttons. In the case of the death penalty, it's a case of "this could happen to me - so maybe I won't commit this crime". Effective crime reduction measures - civilized ones, anyway - aren't deterrents because they do not seek abstinence through plain ol reptilian fear. Instead, they seek to provide some affirmative alternative to criminal bevavior. (Although the "effective" part is an invitation to tap a keg and palaver.) Thus I humbly propose the term "diversion" in place of "deterrent".