Year and method of last executions in Europe

[Indus Pakistan]

That's a pretty big assumption to make.

Okay. In case these have some gem that I might have missed over the decades and with respect to you - your a good poster I will go through them when I get time and get back to you.

 

[Nilgiri]

I am surprised that you guys guillotined somebody as recent as 1977. Frankly the act of killing a human being is savage in it's very nature ~ irrespective of what the subject has done. The act of doing so relegates society to the same level as the criminal. The very urge to kill is primeval. If somebody hurt my girls I would be prepared to kill them in a instant. But that would not make it right. It would be my primeval instinct unleashed.

A society should represent the highest aspirations of the human conditon and not it's base primaval instincts. In other words arguably any country that has death penalty is by definition not worth placing on the pedestal we call civilization.

I don't expect airheads to understand any of this of course ...

@Vergennes

As I told @Joe Shearer I am also quite against capital punishment (when a country has the adequate facilities/process for life imprisonment and thus very little chance of security threat by escape etc) for number of reasons:

1. Direct surface moral argument: https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/coas...ardcore-terrorists.444495/page-3#post-8582052 i.e humans cannot give back a life...so we should never take one away (if our own life is not in danger anymore). Add to this history is too replete with innocents that have been condemned to death for crimes they never committed (however exceedingly rare it becomes for a process, we have to remember such process is relative not absolute.....and even one innocent dieing on account of it is one too many)

2. Harsher penalty of continued life argument: I'd rather people live with their crime (away from anywhere they can do harm to others), execution is an easy way out for them...esp as they never get to quite grow older and more alone (as a lingering punishment) and the effect that has on their psyche of having done a crime. This is quite the dark psychological place actually....that hangman noose will never quite burn onto their soul. They also can discover their personal redemption in a few cases which I think is important (but that gets into religious/deeper moral territory for most people, so much longer maybe futile discussion)

3. Fiscal argument: Financially its more expensive to execute than imprison for life. That whole argument that life imprisonment of a worthless life costs the taxpayer more money than a simple quick execution...is (largely for most civilised countries that have the requisite checks and balances before taking a life...should they have that as a punishment) not founded on facts if you do the math of the appeals process (and all the lawyer + judicial hours that takes up) for those facing capital punishment.

Its just better imo in the end to just do away with capital punishment and use the savings (in the moral and financial sphere) to improve the security of the prison system and the sanctity of the judicial one.

All that said though, I cannot put myself into the shoes of a family that has lost a loved one to a murderer etc...and what is the proper answer to give to them when you say the murderer gets to live rest of his life, room and board given...."just" his freedom gone......but their loved one will never return to them again. What can you really say to them when they want to give an eye for an eye?...for even just that small respite of justice they can give in response to such tragedy? There is no easy answer. It is also part of why for majority of my life I was in favour of capital punishment, only relatively recently did I actually sit down and work out all the arguments and logic to their deepest levels to come to what will likely be my final position on it (though not by some massive degree...I do sympathise with a lot of the arguments on the other side too).

@jbgt90 @VCheng

 

[VCheng]

As I told @Joe Shearer I am also quite against capital punishment (when a country has the adequate facilities/process for life imprisonment and thus very little chance of security threat by escape etc) for number of reasons:

1. Direct surface moral argument: https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/coas...ardcore-terrorists.444495/page-3#post-8582052 i.e humans cannot give back a life...so we should never take one away (if our own life is not in danger anymore). Add to this history is too replete with innocents that have been condemned to death for crimes they never committed (however exceedingly rare it becomes for a process, we have to remember such process is relative not absolute.....and even one innocent dieing on account of it is one too many)

2. Harsher penalty of continued life argument: I'd rather people live with their crime (away from anywhere they can do harm to others), execution is an easy way out for them...esp as they never get to quite grow older and more alone (as a lingering punishment) and the effect that has on their psyche of having done a crime. This is quite the dark psychological place actually....that hangman noose will never quite burn onto their soul. They also can discover their personal redemption in a few cases which I think is important (but that gets into religious/deeper moral territory for most people, so much longer maybe futile discussion)

3. Fiscal argument: Financially its more expensive to execute than imprison for life. That whole argument that life imprisonment of a worthless life costs the taxpayer more money than a simple quick execution...is (largely for most civilised countries that have the requisite checks and balances before taking a life...should they have that as a punishment) not founded on facts if you do the math of the appeals process (and all the lawyer + judicial hours that takes up) for those facing capital punishment.

Its just better imo in the end to just do away with capital punishment and use the savings (in the moral and financial sphere) to improve the security of the prison system and the sanctity of the judicial one.

All that said though, I cannot put myself into the shoes of a family that has lost a loved one to a murderer etc...and what is the proper answer to give to them when you say the murderer gets to live rest of his life, room and board given...."just" his freedom gone......but their loved one will never return to them again. What can you really say to them when they want to give an eye for an eye?...for even just that small respite of justice they can give in response to such tragedy? There is no easy answer. It is also part of why for majority of my life I was in favour of capital punishment, only relatively recently did I actually sit down and work out all the arguments and logic to their deepest levels to come to what will likely be my final position on it (though not by some massive degree...I do sympathise with a lot of the arguments on the other side too).

@jbgt90 @VCheng

That is a complex issue, capital punishment. Let us start with the need for punishment: is it a need for societal revenge, or is rehabilitation of a criminal that is the goal. What is the value of capital punishment as a deterrence? I would therefore argue for capital punishment only in exceptional circumstances with multiple layers of safeguards.

 

[Nilgiri]

Let us start with the need for punishment: is it a need for societal revenge, or is rehabilitation of a criminal that is the goal.

I would also add disciplining (as much as society sees the adequacy/scale) of the individual by society (given a certain social contract we are all part of has been broken)...the exact mix (along with other 2 elements) depends on the nature of the crime.

Rehab again I would say is the ultimate goal for all cases, but just for some (extreme crimes involving intent based erasure of other lives without proper justification) I would say the societal counter revenge+discipline weigh lot more heavily as a default burden on the individual (given the security threat to society at large and the need to isolate said individual in some way) that only much later the individual could prove some redemption/closure on. In my opinion ....a human lifetime is not long enough for it in conclusive way (for release back into society) for such crimes....and it enters realm of afterlife. One can look at improving/relaxing conditions within the prison system for such individuals as they perceptibly improve....by some process that should be debated and refined.

What is the value of capital punishment as a deterrence?

I don't think there is one to be honest (in a moral society at least)...life imprisonment is really pretty extreme deterrence...no need to take yet another life and dirty more hands at a certain risk of helping evil (unless you do not have the requisite economic means as a society to ensure adequate isolation of the individual...and have to factor a somewhat appreciable escape rate versus false positive rate etc...normally found in formative/unstable societies)

They put you in here for life....that's exactly what they take away from you. The part that counts anyway. - Red

I would therefore argue for capital punishment only in exceptional circumstances with multiple layers of safeguards.

I would just do away with it altogether. Who decides the exceptional circumstances and the safeguards?...the cut off points etc? Are we to play God? One innocent (and there have been too many already) slipping through the cracks (and its just a matter of time no matter how good the system is) is one too many.

In the end I have faith in divine justice for the soul (given we cannot look into someones true heart and nature at the requisite detail and level to judge on it)....thus everything I argue is based on the best knowledge and action we have w.r.t safety of larger society that do not engage in such extreme crimes.