Life On U.S. Death Row Makes Inmates Want To Die

[Mark E. Smith]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Death row prisoners in the United States are saying they can't take it anymore and asking to die.

Behind the trend is the reality of their living conditions -- typically more than a decade of mind-numbing isolation under the specter of death with years of legal wrangling ending in dashed hopes and execution.

If serial killer Michael Ross is executed this week in Connecticut as planned, he will join more than a hundred "volunteers" who have waived appeals and hastened their deaths since capital punishment was reinstated a generation ago.

Tough-on-crime prison conditions and an ever-longer appeals process make dropping the legal fight attractive, experts say.

"The day-to-day experience becomes pretty unbearable," said Stuart Grassian, a psychiatrist who told a hearing in April that Ross' living conditions influenced his choice to die.

Of the 59 people executed in 2004, 10 had dropped appeals .

Of the 963 people executed in the last three decades, one in eight asked for their appeals to be dropped. But last year, the rate rose to one in six. In Florida alone, eight of the last 12 executions were people who ended their legal fight.

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5764133&cKey=1115577318000

The view from overseas ain't pretty ...

[Bluzmann57]

1. I am opposed to the death penalty but...

boo friggin' hoo toward these dirtiest of the dirt out there. Here in Iowa, we just had a piece of crap who raped and killed a little girl. The bastard was a previously convicted sex offender who had been let out. The Iowa Legislature debated the death penalty because of this useless bastard, turned it down, and will most likely debate it again when they reconvene. My point is, let the dirty so and so's live out their lives in solitary without any contact at all with the world. None. No magazines, newspapers, tv, radio, visitors, never let them leave their little cell. That would be worse than death and it is what they deserve.

[BlueJazz]

2. I understand your Rage but I still believe in treating everyone..

..with kindness and dignity..Even Sexual rapists and Murderers.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BlueJazz]

9. I fail to see what the action of giving you my address ....

would have to do with what we are talking about.

It's easy to want to punish those in our society that are monsters but society, in general, still sees the world as black and white.
A group of powerful people, who knowingly cause the actions that shorten the life of others are just as guilty of murder as the insane person who rapes and kills an innocent little girl.

The upper-management of companies like Enron that took the life-time savings of countless individuals are shortening the life of scores of folks. (ask any Doctor what losing your life earnings can do to your immune system, your body weakened by incredible stress).
If these Bastards went to court do you think the prosecutor would say: "These people have essentially shortened the life of 225,000 people by about 5 years each...therefore we charge them with 7000 counts of murder"
Of course not.. but to me...they are just as guilty of murder as the sick fuckers that raped and murder little children.
When we..as a society start treating ALL Murderers as Murderers than I'll entertain the thought of severe punishment for the above mention Monster.

[LiberallyInclined]

10. yeah...that makes sense-

if you can't get them all, don't get any.

with kindness and dignity for all...

yeah...that'll work.


puh-leeze. :eyes:

some of us have a REAL world to live in.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[saigon68]

28. see YA

[wmills551]

15. No one was complaining on the way up.

People who lost their entire life savings in Enron chose to keep their entire life savings in a volatile stock rather than diversify. They were not enjoying the ride when their net worth ran laps around their friends who were more conservative. So I feel sorry for them, but it is not like they had no responsibility. As for your comparison of the corrupt Enron executives to baby rapers; this is absurd posturing. Who would you rather have as a neighbor, who would you let babysit your kids? Lets not start confusing evil with run of the mill greed.

[NMDemDist2]

17. some companies only match 401's in the company stock

I'm not sure that is the case of Enron, but I believe it was at MCI

:shrug:

[DS1]

18. Bullshit, they were locked into those accounts, after being lied to

by the powers-that-were, as soon as they had their 401ks LOCKED the management sold out all of their shares, thus decreasing the value per share to less than 5% of what it was before they all cashed out.

[wmills551]

23. Enron stock

No employee was forced to put their portion of their 401-k in enron stock. Many did, and they went on a wild ride. Yes, greedy insiders cashed out first. This should not be compared to murder, that is my point.

[TheWatcher]

24. Sniff. Sniff.

I do beleive I smell something.

Well, at least you were resourceful enough to ge the little Yellow Star first.

[Psephos]

26. I smell something, too.

It's called suppression of a different point of view by the time-honored technique of an ad hominem insinuation.

I don't care for the smell at all.

This board has plenty of room for diverse opinions. Right?

Peace.

[wmills551]

31. Thanks

[wmills551]

29. You must have a 401-K

I just do not feel their pain like you do!

[saigon68]

27. ADIOS

Vaya Con Dios

[thecai]

22. The Innocent and Wrongfully Convicted

are among many inmates, too.

[Astrad]

4. So it's fair to say

you don't believe in redemption? You indicate you're only opposed to the death penalty because it isn't punishment enough. You divide the world into good and evil, clearly delineated. You know who else does this. Do you not think that all the policies presumably you oppose in the current administration stem from exactly this view? Their argument is that there is only one originary cause for the bad things that happen in this world and that is the existence of a fundamental 'evil'. If you reject this view (and the policies associated with it) than you enter a world where things have understandable causes and where beings don't act against their own interests unless there is a pre-existing, pathological condition that can or could have been dealt with. This is the essence of progressive politics; that it is possible to change such conditions in order to mitigate or even end injustice and horror. In that sense everyone is potentially redeemable (however remote the possibility might be) and many are implicated in the creation of the conditions that lead to 'evil' acts.

[Bluzmann57]

7. You ask if I don't believe in redemption

And the answer for sexual predators who rape and kill is a resounding NO! It would certainly be nice if we could persuade people not to be evil, but life is what it is. 99% of us know that it is wrong to rape and kill anyone, let alone children, but for those 1% who don't get it, there is no excuse or redemption. I will never back down on this issue. Please do not put the word evil in quotation marks when talking about the lowest of the low; such as child rapists and murderers. These people are indeed evil and are not redeemable. If you have a miracle cure, please share it with the rest of the world. We want to know.

[newyawker99]

16. Hi Astrad!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[LiberallyInclined]

5. I agree that life without parole should replace the death penalty-

BUT- lethal injection should be available upon demand.

[nine30]

8. Let death pentalty be purely "Voluntary"

The state should not administer death upon the inmate, but should provide the necessary cocktail of death in the inmate's room along with an 'instruction manual'. If the inmate wishes to end his/her life at any point he should be able pull out the syringe and give himself a lethal dose. But the STATE should never have to murder its own citizen

[sandnsea]

30. Don't lose your dignity

How we treat the worst among us isn't about them. It's about US. When we allow ourselves to treat someone with anything less than basic humaneness, WE lose our chunk of our human dignity. That is why we have to stop the death penalty and punitive incarceration.

There is no reason for anybody to be locked away in a hellhole for the rest of their days. As long as they are pemrmanently locked away, that ought to be enough.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. The view from here...

isn't so pretty either.

I get regular updates from the CCADP mentioned in the article, and one of the latest is that the state psychiatrist says that Ross is not suffering from "Death Row Syndrome" and is mentally competent to be executed.

Ross is a brutal serial killer and a poster boy for DP proponants, but the arguments over him, and others, being aware enough to be executed gets us into the theater of the absurd.

Of related interest are "sucide by cop" stories.

Makes you wonbder just how civilized we are, after all.

[thecai]

12. Despicable Prison Conditions...

... and inmate abuse/neglect adds to the problem. With over 20,000 innocent Americans wrongfully convicted each year in the U.S., we need to abolish the death-penalty. "Tough on crime" laws are ineffective, except to crowd prisons beyond capacity, and the death-penalty is not a deterrent as it was intended. Rehabilitation is ineffective being designed NOT to rehabilitate but to create repeat-offenders (recidivism). "Rehab" is a farce, a sales-pitch, simply to justify the need for more tax dollars.
Prisons are highly profitable to the government, so the gvt. prefers to keep them overfilled. DeathRow inmates generate the most money.

[wmills551]

14. Profit?

I do not understand how a prison generates profit for the government?

[Lars39]

19. The stockholders of the for-profit prisons are often those in position

of power in government. It used to be called 'conflict of interest', but that doesn't seem to exist anymore.

[thecai]

21. Many Own Stock In CCA

Corrections Corporation of America NYSE:CXW. Privatized prisons do not honor employment contracts, are poorly staffed, negligent, abusive, some prisons do not even provide fruit to inmates, claiming "Federal Standards do not require fruit". When inhumane, deplorable, despicable conditions become unbearable, inmates revolt, and stocks go down.
BOYCOTT CCA NYSE:CXW
Or inmate's families invest in stock in efforts to keep inmates safe.

[thecai]

20. Prison Profits

Each state charges $23,000.00-$50,000.00 per inmate, per year of tax-dollars. Inmates work inside the prison factories, supplying food to other prisons, as well as numerous other factory operations. (Basically, many jobs that have been shipped overseas also operate inside U.S. prisons). Inmates work full-time for slave wages, to pay restitution, court costs, crime-victims compensation, pay full-price for commissary (shampoo, deodorant, lotion, snacks, tv, radio, etc.), also pay for Dr. visits, the gym, classes or hobbies, EVERYTHING.
Click on any state, then go to "Prison Industries" links...
http://www.doc.wa.gov/general/links.htm

Prisons are one of the most profitable businesses in America. Hence, "no complaints" about incarcerating over 20,000 innocent and wrongfully convicted each year in America.
(The Dept. of Corrections and The U.S. Government do not profit from "not guilty" verdicts).

[TheWatcher]

25. Wow. There's that smell AGAIN.

[KissMyAsscroft]

13. Life in prison is worse than being killed.

It is also cheaper and takes the moral arguement out of the equation of whether the person will be later found innocent, like in Indiana. Throw in the statistics that it obviously doesn't deter crime and that it doesn't help grieving family members (it actually worsens it in a lot of cases) and it seems like a no-brainer to me.

Make the time solitary and harsh. If they beg for death, too damn bad.

Fuck em.

[Frederik]

32. The death penalty does not belong

in a civilized society. Most of the planet has realized this long ago, but a few laggards still remain, such as China, Japan, the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The idea that the state should have the right to kill people as "retribution" is deeply illiberal.

The death penalty is also unconstitutional, as it clearly constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" in the context of today's Western world.

In Europe, reinstating the death penalty is unthinkable, and if a member of the EU should do that, it would probably be excluded from the European Union.