While I agree my idea isn't realistic, since it goes against many people's judgement and emotional reactions, I think it's at least slightly more plausable than that. It's hard to add the justification of "ridding our communities of criminals" if you just let them loose.
Plus I think it would keep the people who survived in line more efficiently.
I'm approaching this from a philosophical/theoretical perspective more than a practical one, so those sort of justifications don't really hold much weight with me in the context of this conversation. "Ridding our communities of criminals" is an appeal to emotion in itself. If you draw an arbitrary distinction between "criminals" and "non criminals" then anyone who's exceeded the speed limit falls under the "criminal" category.
I agree that threatening death for any behavior that is not state-approved is a way to keep people "in line more efficiently," but personally I'm not fond enough of collectivism to want to kill off individualism.
Okay, under that logic let me clarify;
Expedited death penalty for life sentance crimes or the equivalent of life sentance crimes which would not include speeding (I kind of thought that went without saying, though). This would in fact make communities safer and more inclined to stay in line all while culling the unsavory types who decided to rape, murder, and pillage and whatnot.
I doubt that would impact individuality much. People wouldn't be killed for things like smoking weed or displaying some lovely graffiti in the subway.
Yes, they're generally either for drug trafficking or repeat offenders. And if someone is old enough when sentenced and the sentence is long enough, "xyz years" can more or less be considered life in prison.
I do think prisons are overcrowded but living in a society where getting arrested for selling drugs multiple times can lead to life imprisonment, I think that a better solution would be to look at the laws themselves rather than killing the prisoners. I'd start talking about how the war on drugs leads to violent crime over territory and funding terrorists and cartels, but at this point I'd rather not (:
I wasn't clear in my OP. I was really thinking about violent offenders and crimes such as premeditated murder (no necessity of self defence), serial rapists and pedophiles. What I call the sick dog crimes. Cruelty and sadism for the fun of it.
Agree, society doesn't understand or manage mental illness and too many people who have them are on the streets or in the prison system.
I think that capital punishment seems archaic and barbaric, and am in favor of lifetime imprisonment instead
Yeah, I've always thought this way too for the most part, but I am starting to shift. As I clarified in another post, I really was thinking about CP for extreme violent offenders not just run of the mill thugs. Otherwise I'd be dead now. lol
I think the death penalty honours human dignity in a way by treating the perp. as a free moral actor able to control his/her own destiny for good or for ill. It does not treat him/her as an animal with no moral sense.