Hacker News Reader

Comment by GuiA | Hacker News Reader

So, question- if you actively support putting people behind bars with the intent of seeing them die there, why not just kill them right away? If the intent is for them to not cause any harm to society, then that'll get the job done while saving money for society and making them suffer for a shorter period of time.

Unless the goal is to make them suffer for their entire life as punishment; in which case, why not just torture them? That seems like it would be more efficient.

I'm legitimately curious as to why one would support prison if one does not believe that society should aspire to transform criminals into better, law abiding citizens.

View on HN

Personally, I would support hanging them high instead of putting them in prison for life... except I do hold certain relevant beliefs about the future of humanity. I think there's a decent chance that before this century is out, us humans will have mastery over our brains (which may or may not be the same gooey brains we've always had), and I think it would be tragic if we put even a bad man to death instead of imprisoning him for several decades then fixing his brain when the technology comes along. If prisons become too costly for the rest of us to support or if it's going to take a lot longer for the tech, then mass cryogenic suspensions would be better than straight up executions, and for free people cryonics would be better than dying of old age... Of course if I thought humans will never gain mastery over the brain, then sure, why not have executions for those with life sentences, who ideally are those where "education" and rehabilitation are impossible due to the way their brains are?

> then fixing his brain when the technology comes along.

This is not an improvement over killing him.

Everyone supports reforming criminals. However we don't have any system that can achieve that reliably.

I find three strikes to be to strict. But if they've proven unwilling or unable to reform it's preposterous to let them out of prison.

Countries like Sweden and Norway have much better results than the USA regards reforming prisoners, you think?

Killing someone actually ends up costing more than imprisoning them for life (Just an FYI). I do however agree with your point about what the goal of prison should be.

If our powers that be decided that the death penalty should be done in a cost-effective way, I'm sure they'd find a solution :)

It's less the cost of death vs life imprisonment, more the cost of appeals. Death is permanent, the appeals process is thorough (tragically, not thorough enough) in an effort to ensure that only those who are guilty are killed. Doesn't work very well, thus the moratorium and banning of it in some states when their leaders finally acknowledged the severity of the situation.

I'm legitimately curious as to why one would support prison if one does not believe that society should aspire to transform criminals into better, law abiding citizens.

Deterrence. Not that trying to reform criminals is a bad idea, but it's not the only goal of the system.

Well, my points about torture and death penalty hold for deterrence. One could even argue that they'd be even more efficient, especially if performed publicly!

It's very difficult to release an executed man if new evidence shows he's innocent after all.

This is a nicety that might ring hollow to someone who spent the time between turning 22 and turning 60 in jail, only to finally be released on evidence that the prosecutor framed him. In the same way that you can't resurrect the wrongfully executed, you can't restore the vitality, family, or place in the world that the innocent guy would have had.

I don't find the death penalty especially sui generis for that reason.

Do you have any price quotes re: execution vs life sentence to support your assertion that money are to be saved?

why not just kill them right away?

Because evidence might come up later that proves them innocent. Because killing someone deprives them of all of the rest of their life, whereas life imprisonment offers them some fraction of it.

I actually do think there are some people we should just hang-- after due process, of course-- but definitely not everyone who has a long sentence.

Also, a "life" sentence usually just means 20 years in the US, for whatever reason.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com