girl4you2
Posts: 1259
Joined: 8/4/2005 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DesertRat If I found myself on death row and I were innocent, I would be appealing my little ASS off! You betcha. I'm proud to say that my home state, Michigan, banned the death penalty in 1847. So, is Michigan a more dangerous place because of all the murderers who ply their trade, unafraid of execution? Gee, not really. Is it a safer place because of the State's enlightened and utopian rehabilitation process? Hardly. It's just a typical American state with a typically American (high, in other words) crime rate, but without the death penalty. Bob our prison system concentrates on punishment, not rehabilitation (another characteristic of fundamentalism, by the way). we've got the highest incarceration rate in the world. prisons are big business, creating many jobs from construction to staffing. interesting that. the evidence shows that the death penalty is not a strong deterrant to murder and other capital crimes. the homicide rate in the u.s. is 5+ times greater than any european country, none of which allows the death penalty. the southern states carry out 80% of the executions but have a higher murder rate than any other region. texas has the most, twice that of wisconsin which was the first state to abolish the death penalty. there has never been any evidence that the death penalty reduces capital crimes, or that crimes increased when executions were banned. just as an example of how "just" the system can be at times, lena baker was a black woman held in service against her will and abused by a white man and in 1945 she was convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to death for the murder of this man. she was granted a full pardon after the case was thoroughly examined; this was 60 years after she had died in the electric chair. it can and does happen. predominantly, white victims and black "perpetrators" are the ones who are sentences to die. many are innocent. there are some horrific crimes committed by people, usually ones who are quite a bit "off." the death penalty never deterred them. as to you, Bob, you'd likely never receive a death penalty.
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maireann croí éadrom i bhfad. is maith an scáthán súil charad. is leor nod don eolach.
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