I don't know much but I'll rant anyway
I've watched a bit of covereage of the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams, the man who started the Crips and was punished w/ the death penalty in CA early this am. I realized while watching coverage of this that I don't have a position on the death penalty. I feel like the death penalty is a topic in HS that we would've debated - similar to abortion or other debate exercises Mr. Christopher would attempt to lead so we could "learn" to debate.
On a bit of a side note, while I'm sure he did horrible things and because of the gang he started loads of people died, he had to be a quite convincing and determined leader to "found" a gang and have it as "successful" and "popular" as the Crips. It's sort of like leadership skills and power gone wrong (like with Lord Voldemort). I mean everbody has heard of the Crips - I'm sure my mom has and maybe my grandma might even know?
I don't think I really care if coinvicted bad guys are executed or not. An NPR debate confirmed that the lifetime cost for prision is about $2M and the cost for execution is usually about $2M but can be more. Does it really matter which way they're punished? I guess I'd be against the death penalty just a bit because I think people could've been wrongly declared guilty and now DNA evidence clears them so if we kill them we can't free them. But really, I don't really have a stance.
Is it bad that my first thought was ooh, remember that priest who molested kids in Boston got put in jail and then the other prisioners killed him? That's better than life in prision OR execution. I'm a bad person?
4 Comments:
I'm against the death penalty and I'll give you my reasons since we tend to think the same:
-Studies say it doesn't deter violent crimes; the person assumes they won't get caught, so consequences don't matter
-It costs at least as much as imprisoning someone for life
-I think the govt. should take the "high road" if you will; it's a smidge hypocritical to expect people stick by that whole Thou shall not kill thing if the govt. doesn't
-The DNA thing, clearly, or any other type of mistake
-While the death penalty sounds horrible to you and me, I think it's an easy out for the worst types of killers - I think they'd rather die than spend many years in jail - this is pure conjecture, though
Anyhow, I just wrote a lot. I'm not as hardcore anti-DP as this makes me sound, just have many little reasons
PS - I've thought about this so much because I did do a paper on it in HS. Probably the only reason I've thought about it so much.
I, too, followed this execution from a distance. I'm not going to go into my stance on the death penalty but I do think that the much needed reference to "He-who-must-not-be-named" was a brilliant touch! Excellent job!
Thanks Della!
Here's something I'll put in comments but not in my main blog - I've joked about referring to my future husband as "He-who-CAN-not-be-named" because I don't know who he is. I think it's funny but think that people would find it creepy/scary/sad.
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