So the other day my friends and I had an interesting conversation addressing the rise of prison population and how the issue should be solved. Some of these ideas are not mine but of my friends, and I warn you right now if you have ethical issues DO NOT read this, these are highly controversial solutions and these are only ideas that were bounced around between five or six people.
The penalty for doing a crime has turned into community service or jail time. It seems that community service and jail does not deter enough criminals from committing crimes. We agreed that corporal punishment should once again be initiated, the whole, an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth. The argument consisted of this: when we are children our parents punished us by doing one of three things, sending us to our rooms, taking away a toy or a privilege, or spanking. Which one do you remember more? We all remembered the pain of getting our butts swatted and didn’t repeat the offense. When the punishment was being sent to our rooms or taking away a toy all we remembered was getting angry, throwing stuff around our rooms and possibly committing the offense more than once before getting it through our heads that it was wrong. We figured that if criminals knew that they would be harshly physically punished for committing a crime then they would probably not commit the crime.
What we came up with as punishment was: thievery-removal of a hand, just like in Aladdin, murder-death, multiple rape-castration, possession- burning of the palm. There were others but I don’t remember. Now, all of these punishments sound kind of brutal but that is the whole point. It’s an if you do this than this happens then you go to jail, not no matter what law you break you go to jail.
Now, this next idea is considered more of a joke rather than an actual solution. We also agreed that the needle and electrocution cost the tax payers too much. These people treated the world inhumanely so why should their death be humane, not that electrocution is pleasant. If price of execution is so high then we should look for a cheap and quick way of offing the death sentence prisoners. Well, it just so happens that in 1789 a machine nicknamed the National Razor was invented for quick, painless, cheap executions. The Guillotine. The only maintenance that would have to go into the guillotine would be blood clean up, a good clean up of the blade itself, and cremation of the body. There would be no expensive drugs, no doctors, and no sudden bursts of energy, nothing, just pulling a rope and then letting it go.
This idea we think is actually a good idea and think that we should start doing it. Prisoners are leeches; they suck the government for money and are provided with better living conditions than some people who haven’t committed crimes, it’s time that prisoners give back to the world, other than making license plates. Several prisoners have diseases like diabetes, AIDs and other things, test medicines on these people, do experiments and find cures. Of course, the prisoners would have to be able and willing to help because just experimenting on people without their knowledge is not only unethical but illegal as well. They would have to sign a document that they fully understand the risks involved etc. But really think about it, there are hundreds of thousands of potential medical research candidates locked behind bars, some of which feel guilty about what they have done, this could be their chance for penance, plus they are donating to a greater cause.
Experiment on Prisoners
By Dufarge - Posted on February 27th, 2008
I understand where you are coming from but I would still have to disagree with you. Yes I believe that the forms of corporal punishments you mentioned would straighten a lot of people really fast, but I am against corporal punishment, and the death penalty. I really think that by putting prisoners to work in the community to feed the homeless, and doing other volunteer work, reeducating them to show them they have potential, and giving them life skills to get a job when they get out of prison is a better solution.
Umm...how about this?
Rape - Castration
Child Molestation - Castration and hot poker inserted into anus. Slowly.
Define Possession, though. A lot of "drugs" are only "bad" because the government says so. And "because the government says so" is no reason to do (or not do, as the case may be) anything.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
My Creative Writing
To some extent I agree--especially for murderers and rapists---after an extensive and thorough re-investigation to prove without any doubt that the person is guilty. There are too many stories around about guilty people walking free while someone else dies in the chair, innocent.
However, Guillotine falls under cruel and unusual punishment. What many people don't know is that the blade failed to sever the neck and spinal column on the first time. People would have to be hit repeatedly to actually die---some accounts exist of people who walked away from their executions only to bleed out or die of an infection later. In that respect, the guillotine is a poor choice--whats wrong with the current methods of lethal injection or electric chair??
Hug a musician, they never get to dance.
I have had a ton of conversations with both "uneducated" and "educated" people regarding this very same subject. I agree with corporal punishment to an extent. I also agree with human rights. Herein lies the problem. Apparently when you took away the rights of the person that you murdered, you gained a whole new set of rights that are not allowed to be violated. It seems that your rights as a criminal super cede all others. I understand that there are people who have been found guilty and then 20 years later found not guilty. But in this day and age, when there is DNA evidence and the awesome forensics experts, it's becoming harder to deny your wrong doings. I say we go back to the eye for an eye. If you tortured and murdered some little girl just because you wanted to sex someone up. Then, dammit, you don't deserve the right to a peaceful lethal injection, or to spend the rest of your life at my cost eating free food and living rent free. You have a right to be slowly tortured and killed (just my opinion).
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Respectfully,
Adam
Punishment is a old and foolish way of correction. Try actually, hm, TALKING to people. We are not dogs, we are sentient beings, we don't need a simple punishment system, our needs are far more complex. Why do you not go out and rape people? Is it because you're afraid of punishment?
Most people in jail are NOT there for rape and murder. They're there for property offenses or drugs. Yeah, let's do medical experiments on that 18-year-old kid who got pissed at some guy and fucked up his car. Let's do medical experiments on the college girl who was selling pot to her friends.
I appreciate the intent of this post, especially based on the recent news of how many people are in jail today in the US. For starters, I am for capital punishment. Saying that, I too do not believe that I should have to suffer in a different manner than the victims of those in jail today (me=taxes, them=criminal offense). I also believe that capital offense should be the last resort. As a veteran, using deadly force is the last thing you want to do, but once you commit, DO IT. So... if you have capital punishment, use it... if not, then dont complain about how human or inhuman you are.
As to talking... hmmm... I believe that has been tried NUMEROUS TIMES... with certainly no evidence to support that it works. We wont change laws overnight, so if you have capital punishment and dont want it, then vote someone in who can help you, and vice-a-versa to the other side. Until then I'm all for putting the criminals to work paying for their own stay in that steel and concrete hotel we call a prison. Want to eat? Pay for it. Can't pay for it? Better work for it then!... either way, those of us who are not criminals are not another victim of both those in prison or our government's supposed duty in keeping them from re-entering society.
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"Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?” (Sun Tzu)