The Death Penalty should be Abolished

Thank you with engaging with my arguments although I think that you need to provide some arguments against as well as rebutting my position. I will use this round to support my position by responding to your rebuttal. Clearly, the first main point of contention is the nature of prison. I'm finding it difficult to take you seriously when you argued that prison was "not even a bad place for prisoners". Now, I don't know what kind of prisons that you are talking about but to say that prison is not tough is completely laughable. As you even admitted, there is a risk of violence in prison and therefore there must be some element of toughness in prison. Furthermore, you are completely deprived of so much freedom. You seem to consider prison to be some kind of homogeneous institution that doesn't even punish prisoners. This is completely false. There is immense variation in prison and those convicted of especially horrible crimes would likely be in secure units which are even more tough and unpleasant places. Don't tell me prison is a nice place. It is not. Nobody leaves prison without a sense of happiness or relief. Prison is gruelling and tough. Prison is a tough punishment and therefore is suitable for dealing with horrible crimes. Secondly, you provided me with the response that says that it doesn't matter if a few innocent people die. I believe that if a civilised state kills innocent people then that is a serious offence that should concern everybody very much. Secondly, in order to justify a few innocents dying you have to show me that the benefits of the death penalty are so overwhelming that a few innocents dying are acceptable. You then provided a logically fallacious statistic that only 4.1% of convicts for murder are innocent. I'm not sure how that one is worked out. But surely there must be more since the reason they are convicts is that people think they are guilty so surely those that are innocent are not recorded? Furthermore, 4.1% is unacceptable and considering the incarceration rate of countries like the USA that is a lot of wrongly convicted people (many of whom are probably Black Americans). Furthermore, since the death penalty exists in many states that would mean a lot of those innocents would die. That is absolutely abhorrent and should make any advocate of the death penalty consider their beliefs especially considering that those convicts have families and loved ones too. Our criminal justice systems also do not improve necessarily year upon year. In the UK for instance, a scandal has emerged recently of evidence in rape and murder trials being withheld from the defence and thus resulting in some wrong convictions. In the USA, those people could now be dead. Also, the idea of us lying to families of wrongly executed people is completely immoral and hard to uphold. Next, you provided a very generalising and a verging on the racist argument against my assertion of racial bias in the prison system. I provided you with two accurate stats which suggest bias. Your response was that black people commit more crime. I find this idea of blackness causing more violent crimes completely ridiculous and offensive. There is no evidence that skin colour causes people to commit more violent crimes. It is true that black people are often caught up in more crime but this is to do with socio-economics and certainly not race. Also, considering the vast extent to which black people are more likely to be wrongly convicted literally proves that racism is a genuine cause of overrepresentation of oppressed groups on death row and in prison in general. Of course, the black community has crime problems but the criminal justice system has a race problems too undeniably so. As I explained last time, there are cases of jurors being openly racist during death penalty trials. Racism is a problem and the reality is that Black people face vast injustices which do lead, tragically, to them being murdered at greater rates by the state. Let's not let our racial problems manifest themselves in cases as serious as capital punishment. You then explain that prisoners of such crimes are a risk to others. This is absolutely true. However, we can control them to an extent. We can put them in solitary confinement and protect others instead of taking the lazy option and murdering them. While I argue that we should keep many people alive with the slight risk of them potentially killing others in prison, you argue that we should guarantee killing lots of people in the hope that some people may survive which could be achieved anyway. Your response just doesn't stack up. Also, thanks for admitting that being killed is more painful than life in prison. This reveals that my second argument against the death penalty still stands. Victims may or may not feel more satisfaction when the criminal dies but this is not always what we should base the DP on. You then made a very dubious claim that Japan having the death penalty means it has a lower homicide rate than SA. SA is a much poorer country with immense social and racial problems whereas Japan is richer and has a much more cohesive and safe society. These examples are utterly ridiculous to use to justify your argument of a deterrent. Also although some murderers may never feel sorrow, that doesn't mean that some do. Not everyone on death row is Hannibal Lecter and therefore there will be many who do feel remorse. We can spare their lives and give them the opportunity to apologise to the victim's family and make positive changes. I also believe that they should have opportunities to leave prison if they are no longer a threat and have served a sufficient punishment but obviously not in the cases of really evil criminals (although these are not the majority). Now onto the minor points of clash. Let me clarify my stance: I believe that human suffering in terms of painful suffering is universally wrong. However, causing suffering in order to alleviate more suffering is moral because ultimately less overall suffering would be endured and therefore fits under my stance. Also, I believe that prisoners should not physically suffer rather they should experience boredom and mental suffering within reason because this will actually allow them to change and become reformed people who have the chance to give to the world. My stance is not contradictory and still works. Next, I don't doubt that some families of criminals want them to die. But also many don't and especially considering some are wrongly convicted it makes more sense for the families to not have their loved-ones murdered by the state. Many, unsurprisingly, would rather have their child spend time in prison than be murdered in a painful way. Also, fetuses are absolutely not sentient human beings. This is a separate issue and that is my opinion so let's not bring it in. Apart from that, individuals can have the opportunity to reform. I believe that some will be let out after they have served their time and furthermore, progress can be made in prison. You can learn in prison, you can also confront the victim's family and you can lead a good life in prison. If you kill them, all this is completely extinguished. Moreover, fiery and often political stances and emotion do play a part in convictions. The religion of judges does have an impact on who dies. Furthermore, being sick in the head is often caused by the carrying out of violence just like violence in video games leads to violence in real life. This is still a cause of higher murder rates. And considering the plethora of states this study was done on it is far more reliable for instance certain states which have the death penalty are richer and yet still have higher murder rates. There is a tangible and real link between brutality from an authority leading towards ordinary citizens thinking its okay to be brutal in the same way a holy book encourages violence. I am also an atheist too by the way. Yes, in some cases it can be very extreme but racism exists in many cases and even if it is a minority, considering the severity of the punishment this matters greatly and our racism should not allow us to murder people. So in conclusion, I have shown that our criminal justice system has inherent flaws which still persist and that therefore innocent people die. I have also shown that many innocent people die and this is a serious moral problem for advocates of DP. I have also bolstered my stance that prisons are a real and tough alternative and that threats can be managed. I have further demonstrated that the majority of criminals on death row can change and should have that opportunity to benefit themselves and society and therefore we should not condemn them to a life whose only mantra was crime. Finally, I have supported my claim that brutality at a higher level perverts and corrupts society. For these reasons, my main arguments still stand strong whilst no opposition arguments have yet been made and therefore I continue to urge the voters to say yes to abolishing the DP. Taking a life when an innocent life has already been taking is not justice - it's revenge.