It's unfathomable to me too April. I've worked professionally in the legal field my entire career (running alongside my writing career) although my caveat is that I'm not in the criminal law field but rather, civil law, and I'm Scottish, where, thankfully capital punishment has been outlawed since the 1960's. I ill never understand the argument for capital punishment and I watched the debate on this particular execution with horror. It's both cruel and it's unusual and there are so many moral and ethical ramifications that we could discuss that this would more of an essay than a comment. Thank you so much for this knowledgeable and empathetic article.
- Perhaps this "experiment" wouldn't be necessary if other methods weren't being obstructed?
- Is life imprisonment more humane than the death penalty?
- Other prisoners also have to be protected and it's usually those on life sentences who are the most violent within prison for many reasons but undoubtedly because they feel they have nothing to lose.
Experimenting on people--especially in this way--should never be considered necessary. Rather, it should prompt us to re-evaluate this country's ideas of punishment and retribution. Decades of research has shown that the death penalty is not a deterrent and that states with capital punishment, have higher murder rates. Second, as I've also talked about in a previous post, capital trials, maintaining death row, the subsequent appeals, lawsuits from wrongful convictions, are all burdens on taxpayers and diverts funds that could otherwise be used to prevent crime and other public health issues.
It's an assumption that life-termers are desperate and have a death wish because they feel they have nothing to lose. We assume the worst of the worst are serving life terms or are on death row, but that is not at all the case. Yes, life imprisonment is more humane; even those without liberty and freedom have things they live for. We ought to spent this money on rehabilitating and educating the incarcerated instead forcing them to languish in a cage, because that's what makes a person be violent. It's easy to tell ourselves that criminals are nothing more than criminals, but I believe people are more than the worst thing they've ever done.
The bottom line is that it should never be necessary to experiment on human beings like this--it was cruel and unusual.
It's unfathomable to me too April. I've worked professionally in the legal field my entire career (running alongside my writing career) although my caveat is that I'm not in the criminal law field but rather, civil law, and I'm Scottish, where, thankfully capital punishment has been outlawed since the 1960's. I ill never understand the argument for capital punishment and I watched the debate on this particular execution with horror. It's both cruel and it's unusual and there are so many moral and ethical ramifications that we could discuss that this would more of an essay than a comment. Thank you so much for this knowledgeable and empathetic article.
A few thoughts:
- Perhaps this "experiment" wouldn't be necessary if other methods weren't being obstructed?
- Is life imprisonment more humane than the death penalty?
- Other prisoners also have to be protected and it's usually those on life sentences who are the most violent within prison for many reasons but undoubtedly because they feel they have nothing to lose.
Experimenting on people--especially in this way--should never be considered necessary. Rather, it should prompt us to re-evaluate this country's ideas of punishment and retribution. Decades of research has shown that the death penalty is not a deterrent and that states with capital punishment, have higher murder rates. Second, as I've also talked about in a previous post, capital trials, maintaining death row, the subsequent appeals, lawsuits from wrongful convictions, are all burdens on taxpayers and diverts funds that could otherwise be used to prevent crime and other public health issues.
It's an assumption that life-termers are desperate and have a death wish because they feel they have nothing to lose. We assume the worst of the worst are serving life terms or are on death row, but that is not at all the case. Yes, life imprisonment is more humane; even those without liberty and freedom have things they live for. We ought to spent this money on rehabilitating and educating the incarcerated instead forcing them to languish in a cage, because that's what makes a person be violent. It's easy to tell ourselves that criminals are nothing more than criminals, but I believe people are more than the worst thing they've ever done.
The bottom line is that it should never be necessary to experiment on human beings like this--it was cruel and unusual.