I lost some braincells reading this one

Thank you.

> no civilized country executes criminals, but in fact several developed democratic countries in Asia do, and to say they aren't civilized seems absurd.

If you're saying the first bit, you're saying that it's a disqualifier from the second.

And I'm saying that anybody who claims Japan, South Korea or even Singapore isn't civilized is being absurd. Their own country is almost certainly more dangerous than those, there are very few countries with lower intentional homicide rates than those three.

The US have the death penalty too, so implying that those countries have a low homicide rate because of it is quite far-fetched.

Not to mention at least in the US the death penalty is more expensive than a lifelong prison sentence, so it's simply not a good idea.

It is, perhaps, worth observing that one of the stories told about how English law pulled back from death-penalty-for-thievery was that if a thief had their life on the line already, they may as well murder too.

It's an interesting story, but the historical record of how English law changed is, I think, a bit more interesting. Kids in London would steal. They'd go on trial. A jury of Londoners would see what looked like a twelve-year-old in the docket and just flat-out refuse to find them guilty because they couldn't sleep with themselves thinking they'd sent some kid to the gallows. This pattern became such an issue that merchants petitioned the King to pull back the penalties because as the system was implemented, it was going to stop protecting their property from thievery.