are you in for or against the death penalty

[Stavros]

The estimated cost per year for a lifer in the UK is around £40,000 whereas for the same year, 2008 in the US the maximum for someone 'closely guarded' was $32, 547; I think in Australia in the late 80s it was $A40,000. Not sure how these are worked out, presumably its not just the individual cost of food, but a computation of the total cost of the prison divided by one life sentence. In addition the length of stay varies from one state to another in Australia and the US, as well as different countries. Another difference in cost is whether or not the prisoner has special needs -those on whole life tariffs need medical care when they get older, may have special dietary needs, and so on. I read somewhere the US as a whole spends more on prisons than it does on education (excluding privately-funded universities and presumably schools).

[Stavros]

Yvonne the thread is about punishment, not the crime. You can think of any number of truly gruesome situations, and situations in which people react as events happen, murder as a form of self-defence is different from a pre-meditated, planned event but the end result, someone dies, is what generates the trial, and as I suggested earlier, it is because circumstances now matter that there are different grades of murder -in the case of war, because Christians ought to be pacificists, there was a prohibition on warfare until St Augustine came up with the concept/excuse of a 'Just War'....the issue facing soldiers tends to be moral as legally most states and some -but not all -international law allows soldiers to kill with impunity- I think this is a different thread; it is the response to the crime that this thread is concerned with.

[russtafa]

it costs 79 thousand a year to keep someone in prison

[Prospero]

I'm opposed to the death penalty on three grounds.

- the risk of putting any innocent person to death is simply not acceptable, far too many sad examples over the years.

- any country which professes to be Christian or to uphold Christian values should not revert to the Old Testament stance of "an eye for an eye". That is revenge, not justice.

- I find the concept of judicial murder every bit as repulsive as the crime of murder itself.

Robert said it eloquently. I fully endorse this.

[Faldur]

Robert said it eloquently. I fully endorse this.

Well I would disagree with anyone who says capitol punishment is not a Christian value. You can find as many quotes and verses supporting it as opposing.

Ref:
Mat. 15:3-4
Mark 7:8-11
Rev. 13:10
1 Tim. 1:8-9
Rom. 13:4
Rev. 16:5-6
Rev. 11:5
Rev. 13:10

To me it comes down to the level of proof. The bar has to be set so high before the decision is made to take someones life.

[trish]

The concept of 'an for an eye' was not meant as a literal act, but proportionality, to 'balance' out a crime

One has to keep in mind that this "law" was written by a society that stoned women for adultery. Although "an eye for an eye" could be and was extended metaphorically it could be and was also taken literally by the justice givers of the time.

Any sort of retribution (from vandalism to murder) carried out by individuals, families, tribes and clans can lead to an "endless cycle" of escalating crimes. This is not an argument against capital punishment but merely an argument that the punishments need to be decided by and carried out by a body to whom all parties have ceded jurisdiction.

Trish, I asked you if you think Freedom is more important than Life...

I'm not sure where you're going with this. If a murderer values his life more than his freedom, then imprisonment falls short of restoring the balance. If the murderer values freedom more than life, then imprisonment goes too far. Imprisonment restores balance only if the murder[er] values his life and his freedom equally. Life for a life seems to work better, if balance is were the only concern.

the difference between Justice and Revenge is that one is considered to be a balanced assessment of disputed claims, often by a disinterested third party, where revenge is retaliation and usually considered an emotional, even an irrational act -as when someone takes revenge on another without first confirming that the victim was responsible-

I noticed you use the word "usually" here (italics are mine). I used a similar[] qualification when claiming justice is sometimes revenge. The main concern of both is to re-establish a balance, to make things even in so far as it is possible. In my mind the difference between the two, when there is a difference, is whether or not the attempted balancing act is done by a body to whom most (hopefully all) of the involved parties have ceded jurisdiction.

Others have used the phrase, "state sanctioned murder" to argue against capital punishment. This is an example of question begging. It is an attempt to define capital punishment as murder without providing any argument for why anyone should accept such a definition.

More pertinent, is that taking another life causes great trauma

I think I will grant this argument. The larger point, I assume, being that capital punishment brutalizes society. I think this is probably right (though I've seen no research on it) and insofar as brutalization is undesirable, the argument seems to work. (Of course we want to be very careful here. Are first shooter video games less brutalizing to society as a whole than the sanction of capital punishment?)

The burden of proof in murder trials is of critical importance

And of course we've agreed on this one from the beginning of the thread.

As I said before, a theorem requires only one proof. Just because I object to some arguments against capital punishment, it doesn't follow that I'm for capital punishment. For me, any one of these last two are sufficient to bar the practice.

[trish]

Matthew 15:3-10 is what my mom would call a doosey. Capital punishment for not honoring your parents. It seems to me some ancient king, fearful of being usurped by his sons, had his scribes put that one in the mouth of God. And in Matthew 15:3-4 we have Jesus sanctimoniously calling the Pharisees hypocrites for not following this ancient (even by Christ's standards) commandment. Jesus by the way preached the Golden Rule, turn the other cheek etc. etc. So who's the hypocrite? So much for the Biblical argument for or against.

P.S. But here's another interpretation that saves Christ's reputation. The Pharisees were generally unaccepting of Christ's teachings, saying they followed the written word of God, which at the time was the Old Testament. Far from endorsing capital punishment for not honoring your parents, Jesus was merely pointing out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who claimed to subscribe to the Old Testament and at the same time ignored this particular commandment. I'm not a bible scholar (nor do I care to be) so perhaps someone else can say whether this interpretation holds water.

I don't have the time or the inclination to dispense with all of Faldur's biblical references. But if any one of them indisputably condones capital punishment then it throws the entire New Testament into disrepute by introducing a contradiction to the passages where it very clearly prescribes against killing and violence. On the other hand, if all of them are disputable, then they're all ... disputable.

[russtafa]

so what is to be done with repeat violent offenders? i am all for putting them out the middle of nowhere and leaving them there and in Australia we have a lot of the middle of nowhere

[trish]

Do what the Church does to repeat offeders, have them confess their sins, mumble some incantation and absolve them.

[Faldur]

I don't have the time or the inclination to dispense with all of Faldur's biblical references... Trish, Lets get one thing perfectly clear.. You can find as many quotes and verses supporting it as opposing.. Faldur, I think my statement spoke for itself, I did not say the bible supported the death penalty, I stated you can find as many supporting arguments as opposing. When Jesus stated in Rev 13:10, "He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.", I think you can consider this as a supporting statement.

To make a hand-waving statement "The Golden Rule!", (or another on the hit parade is "the greatest commandment" in Mathew), is a display of ignorance of who Jesus was. I encourage you to read about Jesus's involvement in battle of Jericho.

I disagree that religion belongs anywhere in the debate of "Caesar's laws". It is a choice if you make it a moral guide in your decision process. But at the end of the day its man's decision to make, yes or no.