As context as to why I feel this way... I know for a fact there are things far worse than death, and have ultimately come rather close to conquering this fear of the unknown trip everyone will make at the end of their life. In my opinion, now that I have found a passion and reason to live, a life without meaning or purpose is a life that isn't worth living, as I know the feeling and would not wish to go back to that. I'd go as far to say that if I knew I'd get Life without Parole for something I knew I did, I'd take my life in an instant, because once you're behind bars it will be a lot more difficult. Life in general will be a lot more difficult. I know that humanity has a reason to favor punishment over rehabilitation, but a lifelong sentence without any possibility of being able to do what you want is the equivalence of a lifelong sustained torture.
I know everyone is different: for many, dying alone is seen as the worst possible way to die, while for me it would be a blissful moment of contemplation and looking back at all of the great things I've done during my time alive. For many, extending life beyond its expiration date, to the point of being a vegetable is a noble cause, while I see it as a perpetual nightmare. Finally, I know that for many, forcing others to live their entire life behind bars without any possibility of parole with prevention against suicide as preferential over just letting them die.
I think that it should be a choice: if a prisoner wants to die because they have nothing to look forward to and want to end it all, I say let them. If they want to live behind bars for all eternity, I also say let them. I see forcing one or the other as cruel and unusual punishment. Change My View.
Edit: /u/twig_and_berries_ changed my view in that I now acknowledge that there are extreme outliers that I believe the Death Penalty may have to be made for, and that there are some new questions that I need to contemplate on w.r.t how they would be handled, i.e. w.r.t removing the right to change your death sentence to a life without parole and deciding who has the right to make such a call.
Location: USA
State: Yes
With the death penalty, there's a finality to it. Your punishment is over the instant it begins. Even in botched cases, the suffering lasts no longer than a few minutes.
Life imprisonment, particularly in spartan US prisons, brings day after day of soul crushing monotony and boredom. Death is merely the end that awaits you after years of living without the freedom to do much as choose your next meal. By the time it comes, it may even be a welcome escape.
Note that this is not an endorsement of capital punishment per se. That issue is much more complex, and involves dealing with problems like wrongful conviction and other miscarriages of justice that can't be ameliorated once the accused has been executed. This is strictly a comparison of two forms of criminal punishment.
For the sake of discussion let’s ignore the tiny valid argument of “what about those who are later proved innocent” and evaluate this for the overwhelming positive effect it would reap. It’s simply ludicrous that we’re allocating such massive amounts of wealth towards feeding and housing individuals who have been found guilty of such crimes. It’s entirely normal for even those on death row to die of old age. Imprisoning someone for life serves absolutely no practical purpose, and contributes completely negatively to society, outside of the job created just to monitor said individual.
Additionally, we’re not talking the expensive lethal injection. You commit the crime; you do no time. Take em out back and shoot them. 24hrs max to say goodbye if need be.
Death is the easy way out in my mind. I can't imagine just... spending the rest of your life in a prison cell. Knowing you will never leave. Having NOTHING to work towards nowhere to go, surrounded by some of the scariest and biggest guys around. I'd rather die than be sent to prison for the rest of my life. Getting the death penalty is way better in my eyes. (For the criminal) because they have no decision to make. It is made against their will, but having to choose between living every night in a cold dark prison, having absolutely no hope of ever doing anything ever again or choosing death isn't an easy decision for people to make.
I (F24) am partially estranged from my narcissistic mother (F58). My mother was verbally, physically and mentally abusive throughout my childhood, and I have tried to limit contact with her as much as possible over the past year to preserve my mental health. Extant circumstances and Indian family structures mean that I occasionally still have to share a house with her, during which time I am polite but distant. The way you'd treat a roommate you don't know particularly well, I guess. She's tried to reconcile several times, and I have rebuffed her every time.
My grandmother on my mother's side died today, and I'm flying out to her funeral tomorrow. My mother has already called me several times, distraught. It's particularly horrible since my grandmother's death was completely avoidable and my mother (a doctor) was actually put in the position of having to administer CPR, right before my grandmother died in an ambulance en route to a hospital with appropriate medical supplies.
My mother is understandably shattered, and she is looking to me for comfort and support. I think I'd have to be a monster to deny her this at this difficult time, but I'm not sure how I'll be able to clearly demarcate that while I'm willing to be her shoulder to cry on in this instance, this does not signify some type of long-term reconciliation. I do not want the structure of my relationship with my mother to revert to the unequal power imbalance it was before.
Any and all advice is much appreciated!
EDIT: I do not advocate the death penalty. It took a while to edit this and I forgot to remove it.
I will not lie. This is an issue I feel strongly about. I honestly believe anyone who rapes a child should be given a life sentence at minimum with no chance of parole, nothing less.
A child robbed of their innocence, their consent, their trust, their self image, their childhood in one of the most painful, barbaric and brutal ways possible, and for what? I read an account on a subreddit a while back about someone who was brutally raped when they were around five years old. I had never felt so disgusted and horrified in my life. Reading about the Catholic Church incidents is one thing. Reading about this in detail is something else entirely. A child's life is changed forever. It'll be next to impossible to be fully rid of an event so traumatizing and as they grow, they might take to drugs, self-harm or even suicide as a coping mechanism. They will never have a second chance.
And now, Alabama has passed what is for all intends and purposes, an anti-abortions bill, because a group of geniuses believe a clump of cells without a functioning nervous system is more important than a woman's choice as to whether she wishes to offer her body to care for something growing INSIDE her. I don't think it needs to be discussed how much worse this will be. I am aware the probability of this occurring is low, but frequency should not be a matter for such a topic.
Long story short, I don't believe someone so depraved they would prioritize a brief urge of theirs over the life and development of a person so innocent, defenceless and young, should be given a "second" chance. They can kill children, except that they don't.
Also, I must say that those who rape adults deserve a far greater punishment than what's given today, but those who would dare do it to children are depraved in a much greater sense.
I'll do my best not to turn this into a giant wall of text. In the story I'm working on, magic exists, but it's exceedingly rare and only a few dozen people in the world can actually use it (mostly just simple spells like casting lights and healing minor wounds). However, with enough power/experience someone COULD theoretically bring someone back from the dead.
And that's where I'm running into a pickle here. One of my main characters has to die, it's a central plot point I have to get to. However, they also have to come back to life (also essential). And not just temporarily, or as some spirit or ghost. They've got to be flesh and blood again.
Well at first it seems simple enough; find someone with enough magic to get the job done, bam, problem solved. But what worries me is that doing so totally takes away the threat of permanence of death. I've been racking my brain trying to think of some way to get dead character back to life, but at the same time it can't just be an easy, "get out of death" card whenever its convenient. There has to be some sort of trade-off in return for this character coming back to life.
I'd appreciate any input you good folks might have. And I'm not looking to blatantly steal ideas, maybe just a push in the right direction to get me thinking the right way.
Thanks!
Without dark there is no light
Without bad there is no good
Etc.
Hi,
Would it be possible for someone to translate "Without me and within me is death assured, but within you I am life most pure." into Latin?
The context of the phrase is that it is a riddle where the answer is "water." I plan to use this in a DnD campaign with some friends.
Thank you very much!
I mean that those in such plea bargains are often told that life without parole is the only other possible sentence or might plead guilty in direct exchange for it even if life with parole or a non-life sentence is a possibility. They are also pleading guilty to avoid the possibility of a conviction and if so possibility of a death sentence - that is, a mere possibility of a possibility, and the death will merely occur after many appeals if it does.
First hand experience: I have a cousin that was a meth addict for years. Got sober, stayed sober for ~6 years. Got divorced, went on a meth bender and murdered his drug dealer, the dealers pregnant wife, and a neighbor. Now I’m aware that hey, he killed another bad guy, but what about the child, and the neighbor? My cousin was a pretty good guy when he was sober, but something that evil that ends up just getting life without parole is ridiculous.
Let’s take a look at this and break it down.
-
How many prisoners are life without parole in the US? A. As of 2012 from a quick google there are ~50,000
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How much money is spent per year per 1 inmate. A. Roughly 45,000$
Now that’s about 2.25 billion PER YEAR housing life without parolees.
By making it an automatic death Penalty when getting life without parole it would (hypothetically) deter more heinous crimes from being committed and eventually lessening the amount of inmates.
This was all a family debate recently when my cousin got brought up and everyone was in disbelief about my opinion because my usual frame of mind being more optimistic.
I’m 100% up for discussion, this post isn’t meant to trigger anyone. I would love for feed back or arguments against my opinion, thanks!
I don't know if its just me, but it looks funny when a fire wizard has a wand with a giant snowflake on it, or when a death wizard wearing black and white is golding a bright green staff.
Keeping people in prison is expensive, and no one wants to live the rest of their life in a cell, so why not just give these people the death penalty? Isn’t it a lot cheaper to just do away with human garbage we don’t need anymore rather than using our tax dollars to keep them alive?
My thoughts:
- If they're innocent, the good guys on the outside have much more time to exonerate them
- If they're guilty and unrepentant, they'll live so ridiculously long that life in prison becomes much worse than death
- If they're guilty and "repentant", that much time in prison might make them into a better person by the time they finally get out
- If their crimes are the result of a pathological mental disorder (e.g. psychopathy + sexual sadism), biologists and neuroscientists have much more time to find the cure and cure them
