Death Penalty Support Declines

[Guest Paragon]

In these interesting times in which we live, it's not just gay marriage that has seen a sea change in public opinion. but also the death penalty. Today the NY Times editorializes on this, both lauding the demise of support and encouraging the U.S. Supreme Court to join the bandwagon:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/30/opinion/the-slow-demise-of-capital-punishment.html

I think that the issue of the death penalty overshadows pressing needs in prisons for reforms. I just could not imagine being in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, with virtually no human contact. Yet I doubt that there is any support for changing that until we get the death penalty out of the way and focus on these other issues. Who wants to be seen supporting criminals? Can someone tell me why these confinements are justified? Seriously, now.

[MsGuy]

Can someone tell me why these confinements are justified?

Some guys are really really dangerous to be around. Some will kill you with no warning; some will kill you for no particular reason; some will kill you because it's just a little bit more convenient to kill you than not kill you.

I have personally represented some of these guys and have reliable knowledge of others. I give you my word of honour, there are men in this world you don't want wandering around loose. (Women too, I would guess, but I have no direct knowledge or experience with any.)

A lot of those confinements are not justifiable, they're just casual brutality. Ignorant politicians pandering to people who don't really care and don't want to know the reality of prison life. It's not their brother, son, father right?

Still, what are we to do with the really dangerous guys, men too dangerous to be walking around loose in the general prison population?

[Guest Paragon]

Well, thanks for the reply. I appreciate your insight. I certainly don't know the solution to housing dangerous criminals, but I know I wouldn't want a 23 hour confinement each day in solitary. We don't spend enough on prisons, that seems clear as just about every major prison is overcrowded. Humane punishment is our goal, and we seem to have lost site of that. Prison guards have organized into powerful unions who have to be dealt with in making any changes. Right now, I don't see the country as having the will to change on prison care. But a few years ago I might not have predicted such low support for the death penalty.

Not directly related, but would you care to hazard a guess that some of these people you don't want walking around represent true evil? I've always wondered about that- whether someone is so bad as to be just plain evil. If so, perhaps I really shouldn't care how we treat them.

[lookin]

Glad to see the trend away from support for the death penalty. I've been against capital punishment since the first time I really thought about it. Even earlier, if you count those Sunday School lessons about 'Thou Shalt Not Kill'. I take it to heart - not just for others, but for myself. Whether the other person is a child in Afghanistan or an inmate on death row, I am not going to kill him, and I'm not going to ask my government to do it either. It doesn't have anything to do with who the other person is. It has to do with who I am.

That gut reaction aside, further thought over the years has led to a bunch of other reasons why I believe capital punishment is wrong.

Not least is a belief that most of those who land on death row are mentally ill. You don't have to be a shrink to suspect that Manson and Ramirez aren't playing with a full deck.

. . .

MsGuy has rubbed shoulders with others who should not be on the loose and I'll wager that they were likewise patently nuts.

I suspect the mental illness that lands these folks on death row has to do with empathy, specifically a lack thereof.

I believe some folks were just born without the cerebral wiring to ever feel concern for another living creature. They didn't ask to be born that way and we, as a society, were not able to identify them and prevent them from harming others. One might argue that they should have been locked away before they harmed others, rather than after, as it was only a matter of time before they caused misery and death. This is a tougher question than I can answer, but I am sure that killing a mental defective is not the way we want to go as a society. That said, until we can rewire the brains of these folks, it would be hard to justify ever letting them run loose among the general populace.

Other folks had their ability to empathize damaged by drugs or by those around them - parents, maybe, fellow gang members, or perhaps a platoon leader who told them it was OK to kill any Afghani who looked at them funny. I believe we promote a significant amount of mental illness in the military and it can manifest itself later in civilian life with deadly results. If an ex-soldier with severe PTSD ends up on death row, shouldn't those who helped inculcate it share much of the responsibility? I believe that many of those who developed normal empathic responses as children, but were damaged later, do have the ability to be made whole and returned to society.

Believe me, I don't have the answers to even these few questions and I know I don't have all the questions either. It does amaze me though that, with the billions of dollars we spend on death penalty cases each year, we spend so little time and money understanding the mental health part of the problem and which people we can help and how best to do it. It's pretty clear, though, that what we're doing now is more likely to exacerbate the problem than it is to solve it.

PS: Many thanks to MsGuy who reminds us that we don't have to be well informed in order to stake out a position.

[RA1]

lookin-

Are you saying that MsGuy isn't well informed? Without debating the death penalty or what we should do with "evil" people, let me remind everyone that in the US it is cheaper to house one until death with life imprisonment than it is to adjudicate the death penalty, whether ultimately carried through or not.

There are so many issues with imprisoning relatively victimless crimes (drug selling and using), prostitution and on and on that it has become much more than an moral issue or matter of law but an economic issue as well. I, for one, do not want convicted felons wandering among my daily life travels but I also want everyone to have enough chances to improve themselves. One question is what do we do with those who will not try to improve themselves? There are many other questions.

Best regards,

RA1

[lookin]

lookin-

Are you saying that MsGuy isn't well informed?

As a learned man once observed:

Quite the antithesis !

If you follow the link in my post above, you'll find it was MsGuy himself who self-deprecatingly observed, 'Being ill informed never stopped any of us from staking out a position before. Sure as hell never stopped me!

Personally, I consider him one of the most informed posters on this, or any, message board I've been privileged to infest. When he opines, I pay close attention.

[Guest Paragon]

The government is showing compassion, at least for one prisoner. Terrorist lawyer Lynne Stewart will get early release after having served only 4 years of her ten year sentence. Just 4 months ago she was deemed ineligible.

http://nypost.com/2013/12/31/feds-approve-release-of-dying-terror-convict-lynne-stewart/

When have you ever seen the government move so fast? And on NY Eve at that. The judge has already ordered the release of the lawyer- and within hours of the request. Sounds like it was all planned ahead of time. Now about those other sick prisoners, judge...hey, judge!

SORRY. THE COURTROOM IS CLOSED FOR THE HOLIDAYS

[Guest Paragon]

Not sure I think mental illness explains all crime, or even most of it. The fact is though that minor crimes receive little punishment anymore due to jail overcrowding. It takes either a serious, usually violent crime, or repeated crimes to get jailed these days.

And, if you are a bank or hedge fund executive, especially one who contributed to the economic collapse of 2008, you will probably get rewarded, not arrested.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/business/14prosecute.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.toobighasfailed.org/2013/05/23/7700-protesters/

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-wall-street-execs-werent-prosecuted-2013-1

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/23/untouchables-wall-street-prosecutions-obama

Even the judge isn't happy: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/13/financial-judge-idUSL2N0IX1B620131113

[Guest Paragon]

The same judge I mention above also criticized the death penalty: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/nyregion/02judge.html

[lookin]

Not sure I think mental illness explains all crime, or even most of it.

Didn't mean to imply that all criminals are mentally ill. I was referring to those on death row. Although they've cleared the bar of legal insanity, I think there's got to be something unhealthy in the brains of these folks. If so, killing them for something they were possibly born with doesn't seem right, and I'll offer it up as one more argument against the death penalty.

And thanks for starting this thread. Keeping the issue in play is very valuable.

[RA1]

lookin-

I knew what you were saying. I was just kidding you for agreeing with him.

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest Paragon]

The NY Times today looks at solitary confinement, a practice which is seemingly on the decline, at least for mentally ill patients. First there is an editorial:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/opinion/new-york-rethinks-solitary-confinement.html?hp&rref=opinion

And then a personal story of one man's night in solitary...the prison director's. It's chilling:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/opinion/my-night-in-solitary.html?hp&rref=opinion

[MsGuy]

From Paragon's 2nd link:

But Mr. Clements [a prison director] had barely begun his work when he was assassinated last March. In a tragic irony, he was murdered in his home by a gang member who had been recently released directly from Ad Seg. This former inmate murdered a pizza delivery person, allegedly for the purpose of wearing his uniform to lure Mr. Clements to open his front door. A few days later, the man was killed in a shootout with the Texas police after he had shot an officer during a traffic stop. Whatever solitary confinement did to that former inmate and murderer, it was not for the better.

The article cites this incident as a reason to cut back on Administrative Segregation (solitary confinement) but one could reasonably ask, I think, whether this guy was somebody one would want freely interacting with other inmates. I suspect that some of the more timid cons were much relieved to have him in Ad Seg.

I lean toward doing without the death penalty though I have to confess it is no longer something I get all that worked up over. And I am strongly in favor of releasing a substantial chunk of our prison population (just a guestimate but maybe half of the guys incarcerated in Mississippi have no business being there in the first place). But what are we to do about that residue of troublesome folks who are hell bent on doing damage to the persons and property of ordinary citizens?

I've always thought that the story of Jack Abbott, the guy who stabbed to death his young waiter 6 weeks after being released from prison at the noisy insistence of Norman Mailer and a number of other NY literati illustrated the issues involved in the criminal justice system rather well.

====

Damn, my "anchored" link doesn't work. Try this instead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abbott

Is there a clever person here who can tell me how to attach a link to the text of a post? I have tried my usual method of trying out every random thing I can think of for several months but so far, no joy.

[Guest Paragon]

They have shown that putting mentally ill people in lockdown is counterproductive. They have shown that putting people in 23 hour lockdown where they have nothing- books, paper, pen, tv, etc. is also counterproductive. SO, in what prison population do you put these folks? I'd suggest housing them among their same kind with perhaps more impediments to physically interacting. This protects the general population, yet allows these bad guys a chance at a humane imprisonment. The article you cite shows one man, who knows he is going to get out in 24 hours, yet even his experience chills. Imagine 20 years of that.

[lookin]

While I do think the death penalty should be done away with, it's not because I think the worst of these miscreants should live in freedom or even, necessarily, in comfort. It's entirely because of a strong belief that I am personally not entitled to decide that another human being should be killed. Simple as that. And I haven't yet met anyone else who convinced me that (s)he deserves that right either. Just because a judge or jury thinks they are entitled to kill another human doesn't mean that I agree with them. I don't. I'm open to hear from anyone who believes (s)he has the right to kill another person, but I'm gonna need some convincin'.

Once a convicted killer is in prison, I don't spend a lot of time worrying whether or not he's fat and happy. If he's already killed someone, I think he's lost the right to move freely in the company of other potential victims. Whether he killed because he's mentally ill, feels threatened, or is just plain nasty, he still needs to be kept away from other potential victims. Just as we are able to keep a man-eating tiger in perpetual confinement, so we should be able to keep a human killer in perpetual confinement. In both cases, I don't feel the need to make their lives miserable, but I would also put a very high barrier on premature release. If it cannot be proved that they're no longer a danger, and if they never get out, that would be OK with me.

It seems clear that figuring out how to protect society from dangerous animals, humans included, and how much rehabilitation is possible are worthwhile goals. And, as others have said, removing non-threatening inmates from our prison system would free up much-needed resources to work on these problems for the prisoners who remain.

Is there a clever person here who can tell me how to attach a link to the text of a post? I have tried my usual method of trying out every random thing I can think of for several months but so far, no joy.[/size]

Not me, that's for sure. Up till a few months ago, the way to do it was to (1) highlight the word you wanted to be a hot link, (2) click the link icon in the toolbar, (3) paste the URL you wanted to link to in the box that popped up, and (4) click OK. You'd then have a hot link that would open the page you wanted it to. But, starting a few months ago with one of the regular site 'upgrades', that process started working only intermittently. Sometimes the hot link would take me to the URL I pasted into the pop-up box, and sometimes the hot link would only take me back to the page I was posting on. Fingers crossed this glitch will be addressed in the forthcoming Upgrade No. 269.xvii.bt.42x rev. 7c.

[MsGuy]

Once a convicted killer is in prison, I don't spend a lot of time worrying whether or not he's fat and happy. If he's already killed someone, I think he's lost the right to move freely in the company of other potential victims.

Oddly enough, a sizable minority of convicted killers are one and done type criminals. A lot of quite ordinary folks get themselves into the wrong place at the wrong time and wind up killing somebody. Think bar fights that get out of hand and significant others with cheating hearts. Hell, sometimes you just give somebody a good smack and, oh shit, they go and die on you. What the Hell am I gonna do now?

As I see it, humans are big, dangerous animals. Most of us are quite capable of killing other human critters; otherwise armies & wars just wouldn't be practical.

Worse, we really aren't genetically programmed to live with large groups of strangers with no blood relationship to us. A huge chunk of human social effort boils down to building cultural constructs (remember how often you heard 'thou shall not kill' & 'ask before you take someone else's toys' back when you were a kid?) that trick our brains into reacting to strangers like they were blood relatives. Without a lot of social conditioning, most of us are more inclined genetically just to smack a stranger and take those shiny toys. Unless he looks to be bigger & meaner than us. Knowing bigger/meaner when we see it is part of the human genetic skill set.

====

PS Man-eating tigers usually wind up being shot.

====

PPS

[Guest Paragon]

The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment. Putting a man in a box with nothing at all to do and no human contact is, I think without any doubt, cruel and unusual punishment. Just because a man is convicted of a crime does not give us the right to treat him as badly as we choose. It's a shame that so many otherwise intelligent Americans couldn't careless what happens in our prisons.

[MsGuy]

Putting a man in a box with nothing at all to do and no human contact is, I think without any doubt, cruel and unusual punishment.

If I've got my history right, that's a fairly accurate description of the first penitentiaries. Small stone cell, cot, candle, thunder mug, solid door with peep hole. That's about it. No contact with other inmates. Little enough contact with the guards.

And, well, there was a bible. The whole idea was to keep the inmate focused on his transgressions and give him all the opportunity in the world to repent his evil ways. 24/7/365. Sort of a mad perverted version of a Trappist monastery (presuming anything could be more mad and perverted than a Trappist monastary in the first place).

Course that didn't work out so well. Probably as many of the penitents went crazy as found the light of Jesus (not mutually exclusive?) but it was all well intended so...