20% is a lot. All the families that were hurt by a terrorist attack, or even some attack, can have some relief by revenge. It makes sense.

Seems unlikely to me that 20% of the population were connected to a terrorist attack by someone who would be executed.

Even if, I don't see how seeing one of the perpetrators getting killed many years later would give relief.

I also believe eternal prison is a bigger punishment than execution.

Not by the same one that is going to be executed.

He spent his life in prison, now he would be executed live, everyone would see how he's going to die, and for him at least, it's very disrespecting.

It's not necessarily just about wanting to see someone executed. Which is worse:

- Executing people in a way that makes us not have to think about it as a society, or only think about it in passing

- Executing people in our faces, so we have to think about it

Personally I find the first option gross. "Out of sight, out of mind"--you know what I mean?

I agree. I don’t want to watch it, I’d rather have no death penalty, but if the government for and by the people is okay with killing citizens then perhaps we should be facing that, not turning our backs.

Perhaps we could then rally behind getting rid of death penalty. Or at the very least, ensure we aren’t botching every other one.

Well, the sanest option is to not have the death penalty at all. Anything else is trying to make the problem work.

The sanest option is not to commit capital crimes.

Is this just an argument to plead insanity? I wonder why this rarely works.

You can already plan to and strangle your kids and half the US will decide either you had no choice in the matter or your husband did it.

You were downvoted but you're right, live by the sword and take the risk to die by it. If you don't like the odds - and let's all hope the judicial system is efficient enough to make those odds really unfavourable - it is easy to avoid them by not committing capital crimes.

He/she isn't right, though. Capital punishment, at its core, is an emotional rather than logical response to a criminal offense.

It serves no purpose in preventing future crimes. First, because you've already caught the criminal, the proposed alternate sentence of life imprisonment without chance for parole already handles preventing that individual from committing further offenses. And second, it's been proven repeatedly that ratcheting up punishment as some sort of deterrent doesn't work because most people committing crimes either believe they're going to get away with it or aren't in a frame of mind to care about any penalties (e.g., crimes of passion).

It also fails to be an efficient way of dealing with a caught criminal. The combination of incarceration time, resources spent on appeals, and the cost of the actual execution methods makes death row inmates more expensive than lifers. We actually pay more to put people to death than we would jailing them for the rest of their lives.

Instead, people fight so hard to keep capital punishment around because it scratches the itch for vengeance.

> He/she isn't right

Just FYI, Philip is a "he" name.

> And second, it's been proven repeatedly that ratcheting up punishment as some sort of deterrent doesn't work

Who proved that? Have you lived in a high trust society that punishes crimes, or do you not think they exist?

Your point seems to be that people don't believe they will be punished. Everywhere I've been people did know they would be punished, severely. Organized theft in Singapore if you're a male younger than 50 could get you caned. Perhaps you're arguing that public punishment would help raise their awareness?

The point isn't that people don't believe the punishment applies. It's that they don't significantly factor the consequence into their actions. They may be overwhelmed by emotion, they may think they can get away with it, or they may be under the influence. Moreover, is capital punishment that much more of a deterrent than life imprisonment?

This is just a bizarre non-sequitor. Do you think that people are opposed to the death penalty because they’re worried that they personally will get executed?

Thanks. Commenting the same logic but on the individual is definitely a downvote risk! Why have normal expectations of people when you can have extraordinary expectations of the state, and want other people to pay for it?

There are many people in these threads that state that they don't like capital punishment (OK?), add zero supporting arguments, and aggressively downvote anyone who supports the death penalty.

Yes. I personally don't like the death penalty, but I wouldn't downvote it.

The sanest option is not to have capital crimes, that way nobody can commit them.

Making it public will invite the deviants who derive pleasure from the audience. Look up historical behaviours of crowds in some of the last public executions in France.

If this were livestreamed you'd have just insanely grotesque stuff like livestream commentators narrating and reacting to the footage while polymarket ads play over it, making memes and remixes of it like what happened with the Charlie Kirk assassination clips. It's all sick IMO.

Good, maybe that will cause the >50% who support capital punishment to reevaluate their stance. Or at least the 30% cowards who support it but don’t want to watch.

Palmer Luckey had an ... interesting perspective on it. I was against it before, and I'm still against it, but his point was that the killing of a citizen is one of the largest possible flexes that a state can exercise, and to prevent against its abuse it should probably be more visible to more people

I think that there is likely _enough_ visibility in the case of the classic execution, which is only done after the fifth amendment has been thoroughly exercised and appeals process fully depleted, and (ironically) not nearly enough visibility in the exercise of state power done by drone strikes and such, and so I take his point and appreciate it for what it is, which predominately is that I hadn't thought about it in that way before -- I still oppose the idea, but perhaps less strongly than before now that I know that bloodlust isn't the only viable interest (tho still a tremendous worry to me)

Except the execution wasn't being presented as a somber recognition of the brutalism of the death penalty, but a celebration of vengeance.

I’m not American and I don’t support the death penalty.

That said…

If you’re going to do this, it absolutely should be a public event. If This is what a society does, the society have to own that imho. Anyone supporting it should be required to watch one first.

How can it be ok to do it but only secretly in a dark corner and not let anyone see?

Everyone who is for the death penalty should be legally obligated to watch every single execution.

1. Practically speaking, what's the intended effect, given that executions nowadays are pretty sanitized anyways? Lethal injection is basically equivalent to some guy going under anesthesia.

2. Do you actually believe in the implied principle of "if you support [x] you must watch every [x]", or are you just using it a cudgel against people you hate? Would it be fair game for anti-abortion groups to demand "if you support abortion you must watch every abortion"?

> Lethal injection is basically equivalent to some guy going under anesthesia.

The “safe” dose of midazolam used for anesthesia is orders of magnitude smaller than the dose commonly used in lethal injection.

> Would it be fair game for anti-abortion groups to demand "if you support abortion you must watch every abortion"?

This was actually a tactic used by anti-abortion groups back when Roe was settled law.

While we are at it, Can we have all non-vegetarians watch all the slaughter houses?

Many if not all of us would be okay. Not to mention that many people have some experience of killing animals for food anyway.

I killed chickens and fishes, but truly, hearing cows cry when their calves are taken away is still heartbreaking. Also seeing the pig moms trying to move to be able to see her children once in her life is extremely uncomfortable.

My philosophy is that I only eat meat I would personally be able to kill, which means chicken, ducks and fishes (probably game too). I still avoid battery chicken though.

I think killing animals for food is really quite different from the industrialized animal farming that we have today.

That’s why do it, though.

I’ve worked on a slaughter floor before, and while it’s certainly not an enjoyable experience I can say with all honesty that a great deal is done to minimize suffering.

seems fair. As a meat eater I am for it

If we do this, Abortion proponenets are going to have a lot of watching to do.

I'd like to see the rape gangs in the UK executed. As there were multiple, similar cases ran by different groups, I think it would deter the next group of rape gangs.

If the death penalty deterred anyone, there only would have been a single death penalty ever (or only one for every sort of crime).

Have you been to Singapore recently?

In this case, organized rape was effectively unpoliced for some time to avoid "community tensions" with police saying the children involved "were slags". The message should be sent that organized crime will now be prosecuted.

It's not that simple. To my knowledge, this problem goes back to the 1980s at least, and back then it wasn't Asian gangs. The excuses were the same. Social workers believed the under-age girls were entitled to a love life. Police thought they were slags. Nobody actually cared about them. Nobody did anything.

The ethnicity of the more recent perpetrators just provided another excuse. It wasn't the root cause of the inaction.

This seems like the "you can't flip the switch" meme.

Yes, it really is that simple. I can leave my laptop unattended in an unlocked coworking space in Singapore because people know they'll be punished if they rob me. It's marvellous.

I haven't heard of a similar case of organized mass rape in the UK before this, so it's surprising to read you comment, but if you have sources add them here. Like many of the UKs (and Europes) problems, the issue isn't ethnicity, but rather Islam, which explicitly permits sexual slavery.

Deterrence is not binary.