In the middle of my Christmas leftovers, I ran into the news that Suddam Hussein was executed. What a waste. Of all the things they could have done with Saddam, killing him off was probably one of the worst.
To quantify my statement I will say that I am against the death penalty. In my opinion, the government should not kill its own citizens. How can a government make laws criminalising the death of a person, and then turn around and say, "Oh, but we can do it"? For me, it shrieks of gross hypocrisy.
The advocate's of the death penalty always go one about the deterrent value of the act. At how it makes people less likely to murder if they knew that their own life might be forfeit. Well, the stats, as always, suggest otherwise. Using US data http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=169&scid=12, we find that the murder rate in US states that have the death penalty is higher than those that don’t sentence murderers to death.
If we apply this theory to Iraq, I don’t think there are a lot of Iraqi criminals out there going "Well I don’t want to end up like Saddam, so I better put the gas away and not kill a couple of hundred Kurds". If the Iraqi insurgency got their hands on poisonous gas, it would probably go straight into the so-called "Green Zone" where the Iraqi government is (not to mention the US embassy)
The only argument I have heard in a positive sense regarding the death penalty is the economic angle. That is costs millions of tax payers funds to keep prisoners in jail for life Indeed, in the US, according to Department of justice figures, it costs an average of $25,327 US to imprison someone for a year (2003 figures). This is in the Federal System, which we will say is roughly equivalent to the state based systems (According to Bueuru of justice figures) .So if someone was imprisoned for life, say 40 years, we are talking a fair bit of dosh. But even on death row, prisoners have an average of 12 years of imprisonment before they are put to death. California stats have each prisoner of death row costing $90,000 a year. So if we discount this, it is really only 28 extra years.
These figures are dwarfed by the court costs of a death penalty case. Indeed in a 2005 report, it was found that the state of California spent 250 million per execution over 20 years. http://www.deathpenalty.org/index.php?pid=cost&menu=1%22
That’s a lot of money to kill someone. I haven’t seen any figures for Saddam’s trial, but I’m sure it wasn’t cheap. So you have to ask the question, did the Iraqi people get their money’s worth?
I think not. Saddam is an icon to the Sunni minority, no doubt, but in jail he can not do any harm. Look at Colonel Noreiga. He is languishing in a Florida prison at the moment. No one thinks that when he is released (this year in fact), that he will go back to cause havoc in Panama. In fact Noreiga gave a fair bit of information regarding the drug trade to US Authorities. Who knows what valuable information went with Saddam to the grave? You want someone who knows where the bodies are buried? Who knows the informal tribal networks the Sunni insurgency is using? Saddam’s your man. If he knew he was facing a lifetime of jail, he would be handing over nuggets of valuable information for a packet of smokes.
I think right from the start, the Americans should not have given Saddam to the Iraqi authorities. They should have handed him right over to the International Criminal Court. He would have received as fair a trial is as possible and would be facing life imprisonment. But that is a little too worldly for the Yanks.
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Interesting topic- The Death Penalty!! Many people are for it and many people are against it. I for one, am for the Death Penalty in some circumstances.
Definition/s of Justice:
Encarta - "fairness: fairness or reasonableness, especially in the way people are treated or decisions are made".
Webster's English Dictionary - "the quality of being just, impartial, or fair".
Justice is the quality of being fair. So, what is fair? Is it fair that someone can take the life of another, but remain living themselves? If a person takes someone else’s life, why should they be allowed to live? They have taken the life, the dreams, the aspirations of another person. That person can no longer love, hate, cry, laugh, etc- at least not on Earth. And if this is taken away by another person, what gives them the right to be able to live their life after stopping/finishing another? Is that fair?
Some so called "Humans" loose their right to be called "Human Beings" when they commit serious crimes against another Human Being. Child rapists, child killers, grandmother killers, etc. Once these criminals commit these horrendous crimes they loose the right to be called "Human", and as such loose the right to live on our planet.
The so called "Justice System" should not be called "The Justice System", some of the sentences given to criminals are not "fair" especially for the victims and the victims friends and family.
When a person breaks the law, I believe they should receive at least double the punishment in return. For example- If they bash someone, they should receive two in return, one for the actual act and one because they are the perpetrators of that act. And as I stated above, if they take someone else's life it is not "fair" that they are able to live their life.
I agree the Death Penalty is not a deterrent in crime, but in some circumstances it is "Justice", especially for the victim/s and the friends and family of the victim/s.
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