Reply #80: Opposed...

[LeahMira]

We have certain obligations in regard to our handling of any convicted criminal.
1) We must protect the pubic
2) We must attempt to rehabilitate
3) We must make the consequences of conviction a reasonable deterrent to crime

I have no problem with point one. Isolating an individual in a prison protects the public.

I do have a problem with two and three, though.

Usually a person has committed crimes before the crime that gets him sentenced to death. Generally, though, there isn't much of an effort to rehabilitate. We seem to think that deprivation of freedom is sufficient incentive for someone to change his ways, but sometimes deprivation of freedom just makes for an angrier prisoner, particularly when that prisoner has no hope of his life being any better than it was before he committed his crime.

Finally, I don't think very many people stop to consider what might happen to them if they get caught committing a crime or that the possible consequences make them any less likely to go ahead and do whatever they are going to do. I think most criminals are already so bereft of any ties to anything or anyone else, except maybe their "gang," that they just don't much care.

I totally oppose capital punishment.

At one time Phil Donohue wanted to televise an execution because he thought that if we saw it, society would realize just how brutal the deliberate, ritualized killing of a human being really is. Surprisingly (to me), Sister Helen Prejean was one who supported that idea. Of course it didn't happen, but I wonder why states typically execute criminals around midnight or in the wee hours of the morning and limit the numbers of witnesses.