Talk:Capital punishment debate

message: The presence of POV statements is not necessarily illegitimate here; the article is, after all, about a debate, which by very definition requires more than one point of view.  A more legitimate application of Wikipedia's POV rules would concern bias -- specifically whether one side of the debate is clearly emphasized at the expense of the other.  I think that's the case here; if the article considers a little more than a list of arguments against death.  However, I think that most of these issues are examined from both sides within the text.  At worst (and this is merely my interpretation), some parts of the article seems to be written from the perspective(s) of those clearly opposed to the death penalty but at least making an honest effort to present the other side.  However, for those who are concerned that arguments in favor of the death penalty are not given their proper due here, the obvious remedy would be to edit the article to include the arguments you think are missing.  If VALID arguments  -- meaning points that are commonly debated over regarding this issue  -- are brought up within the article, only to be deleted later on, then a complaint about biased editors would certainly be legitimate.  Minaker 11:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Bias vs. POV

message: I think the article should include picture of philosophers and sociologists that make the various arguments to liven the article up.
In legal section we could have the photo of Lady Justie, blind, holding sword and scale. In Human right argument section, we could have photo of "Universal Declaration of Human Right" document. For A Prior Argument, what about the face off between Pro and Anti Death Penalty Demonstraters, both of whom are implicitly and unknowningly basing their arument and sentiment to a prior position.  No idea what is a appropriate pic for utilitarian section. Possibly the portrait of Bentham, the father of untilitarianims, hence consequentialism. FWBOarticle
:: I'm not a big fan of the abstract concept pictures of Lady Justice. Human rights doc ok. Definately should have pictures of protestors. Every debate article needs pictures of protestors! Blue Leopard 12:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article needs pictures! 

message: I dig the wikireason sister project.  It would be cool if the edit wars could be segwayed to an actual debate on wikireason Mathiastck 08:22, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  i like the wikireason link 

message: I have alot of problems with this section because I do not think it expresses a NPOV.  First of all "common sense" is a very loaded and subjective term.  What is considered "common sense" to one person is inevitibly not to another.  Some could even view common sense as simply a collection of one's personal prejudices.  At the very least, this term should be eliminated or altered.  Calling it a common sense argument sidesteps the whole debate.  This section contains many assertions which are vague and sometimes have few sources.  Who exactly are the proponents of this argument?  
Whether punishements by the state work as a detterent is preciesly what is at issue here yet the supposed common sense arguement assumed "that punishments do work as a detterent and as a "general tendency, severe forms of punishment has a higher detterent effect."  Who aruges this?
"By common sense, most would agree that those who commit crimes of passion...distinguish the difference between simple armed robbery and robbery accompanied by murder." Who argued this?  These sentences just seem like a bunch of wild generalizations.
You also make a general claim about "utilitarian criteria" and that "result of death penalty must be greater than murders not comitted" Where did this forumla come from?
I want to suggest a complete revision of this entire section, or perhaps it's deletion.  Farbotron 19:57, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV problems in "Appeal to Common Sense" 

message: This article needs to be restructured.  First of all, the philosophy terms need to be removed since there is an attempt to put all the issues under those headings and makes it not only POV, but also artificial.  Second, the issues should be presented along the lines of what the main issues are in the debate such as deterrence, innocence, economics.  Having a section on "human rights" is not one of the issues. The issue is "morality," and opponents sites "human rights" as one of the reasons that it would be immoral, but it is not the reason for a section to be titled "human rights".  Look at amnesty international as a guide to the issues that they argue against the death penalty. Also look at prodeathpenalty.com as an example of issues to which the article should be structured. ED MD 20:25, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I basically agree, but I didn't want to be as harsh.  There does need to be a restructuring as alot of the opinions seem to be the author's own philosophical arguments.  Somtimes they make logical sense, but they need citations.  Perhaps there should be a separate page for philosophical debate about capital punishment?
 Farbotron 21:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This entire article is set up with a POV 

message: All states that use the death penalty use lethal injection. Data in the article is out of date. Blue Leopard 06:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lethal Injection 

message: I'm shocked that this article is so biased towards abolitionists. I'm surprised that no one has tried to change this. There are none, or very little arguments in this article the view of retentionists. This problem should be rectified immediately since it constitutes a clear breach of Wikipedia policy (that all articles should be objective).
I recommend that we should divide this article into two main sections: a section explaining the view of abolitionists and an another explaining that of retentionists. If needs be, then additional sections can be added to represent other views, such as that of differents faiths, etc.
I'm open to hear what others have to say and suggest.
GreatKing 12:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Spliting POVs into for and against is not considered as a good style of presentation. (Wikipedia:Criticism) We have gone through this process already where each become lists of for and against opinion with little coherence. The current format at least identify the issue involved, in which each topic has a summary of arguments. Vapour 15:53, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  One-sidedness of the article 

message: A debate requires 2 sides.  This is the various positions of those opposing the death penalty and not a debate. 
-Agreed, this article is absolutely biased and without merit.
I disagree. This article professes to talk about the debate and des not in any way say that it is the debate it's self 59.92.110.44 04:37, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This can Hardly be called a debate 

message: I did a report on capital punishment when I was college freshman.  In it, I stated that there have been cases where prisoners were actually tortured during the execution.  For example, during a lethal injection execution, the prisoner had to be stucked many times, because the executioners couldn't find a vein to inject the poison into, causing pain and stress to the prisoner.  Another case was when a malfunction in an electric chair occured, increasing the voltage to a higher level than what the electric chair was supposed to be set at; this caused agonizing pain to the prisoner that the prisoner's execution was considered by many to be 'cruel and unusual punishment.'  Shouldn't this be included in this article? SCGhosthunter1 16:57, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to add any properly sourced information you have. JCO312 01:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would avoid using the term torture because to quote from the torture article, torture is "Torture is the infliction of pain intended to break the will of the victim or victims." That isn't the case here. Blue Leopard 22:48, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Torture during Execution 

message: I just changed the content related to utilitarianism around. In the original, utilitarianism was not mentioned until the deterrence/economics section, suggesting that this is all that utilitarians care about. It was also implied that utilitarianism is unambiguously pro-death penalty. I moved utilitarianism to the ethics section, leaving references to it in the deterrence/economics section.--Catquas 02:24, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Utilitarianism

message: This is an interesting and detailed article.  Clearly there's been a lot of debate about whether or not the article is NPOV — I'm not going to address that here.  I just think that maybe we should consider whether this kind of article belongs on Wikipedia in the first place.  Should Wikipedia also have an article outlining (or attempting to outline) both sides of EVERY political debate?  I would say no.  There are countless political (and other) debates as complicated and heated as this one, and they don't all have this kind of page nor do they need it.  What is needed is, on the capital punishment page, simply a rather short summation (perhaps a couple of paragraphs) of the major arguments typically voiced for and against the death penalty.  Attempting to write a page like this one inevitably results in some sort of essay rather than a quality encyclopedia article.
I don't mean to disrespect all of the people who have put a lot of time into this article, but I felt I would be remiss not to bring this up.  I would be interested to hear what other people think. Dce7 00:21, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, I think some people seems to have mistaken idea of NPOV policy which is the core value of this site. Neutral point of view does not mean non presentation of POVs in wikipedia. It means that different viewpoint/opinion should be attributed correctly to the sources. Deleting some entry for being a POV is categorically incorrect application of the policy. There are literary ten of thousands of wikipedia articles about different and often opposing POVs. What is important is the attribution of POV. Entry about POV has never been a problem in this site. Please check other articles of this site, such as abortion or whaling. Lastly, wikipedia talk page is not supposed to be used as a discussion forum. We can debate about policy and guideline. The article and talk page isn't the place to "debate" the moral of death penalty. It is a place to "present" the dabate of death penalty by attributing different POVs. Vapour
This page probably should be deleted, unless a major overhaul is made. It seems that throughout its history, this page has either been hopelessly biased towards one side of the debate, or become bloated with impractical philosophical jargon. Either re-organize the page so that it presents both sides of the debate and the usual arguments of both sides, or delete it. 75.10.149.248 (talk) 22:11, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does this belong on Wikipedia? 

message: No offense to those who have been working on it, but it is almost unreadable. The overly long introduction makes no sense and is too full of jargon and legal and philosophical arguments that are not presented clearly for the average reader. The rest isn't much better, and almost all of it is unsourced. I know this idea has already been rejected arbitrarily, but a simple, point form presentation of the arguments on both sides (with sources!) is what the reader is going to want, not a college paper. Keep in mind that people come to Wikipedia for an overview, which they can expand upon if they choose. If any french speakers want to check out the french version of this topic, it is presented far more clearly. 
Stardog101 (talk) 00:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 100% agree.  I marked it for rewrite. SBPrakash (talk) 08:30, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: This page needs serious work

message: From Article: Discrimination
"It is argued that the poop of the person to be executed can affect the likelihood that they receive a death sentence."
...Since when?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.72.131.130 (talk) 02:42, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Poop?

message: What exactly is the purpose(s?) or goal(s?) of criminal punishment? Perhaps the argument can be reframed to fit which better fits the purpose/goal(s?) of the system.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.134.149.100 (talk) 06:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Purpose Of Criminal Punishment?

message: This article is not well-organized.
I've seen the other language articles, all but the japanese are short, but they seem better organized. The japanese version looks like it has the same problems as here.
Here is a proposal made from french and russian articles :
1 History of the debate (from roman times, through industrial revolutions to nowadays)
2 Effects & results of the capital punishment (= why people are talking about it)
3 Pros
4 Cons
In my humble opinion you cannot mix pros & cons. There are many reasons to support the DP, and many reasons to support other solutions, but you can't select the reasons of each that are opposite, since it represents only a tiny part of the pro/con argumentation. The big debate is already in the "effects" of the capital punishment, in the way they're seen or imagined by supporters/opponents. What's remaining cannot be split.
I'm not fluent in English, but if I can help... 82.240.207.81 (talk) 18:48, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revamp of this article (proposal) 

message: As with any good controversial issue page on Wikipedia, this one is full of vague statements and half assertions. There are at least a dozen times where I saw the phrasing "some argue" (Wikipedia:Weasel words#Examples), or something akin to it. We ought by all means to avoid this. Magog the Ogre (talk) 15:25, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weasel tag  

message: I have never seen so much unsourced text in any wikipedia article! Grundle2600 (talk) 02:11, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: I removed 15K of unsourced text

message: Chicago Tribune Grundle2600 (talk) 01:08, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Is "very likely" the same as a fact? Or more of a convenient rhetorical tool?
Thunderlippps (talk) 02:38, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  It seems very likely that a person who was executed in Texas is innocent.  

message: To my great surprise, the article does not cite at all the first, most famous and influential oponent of the Capital punishment, the Italian lawyer Cesare Beccaria, whose treaty "On Crimes and Punishment" provoked a violent response by Kant in his Metaphysik der Sitten (2.1.E.I., Acad. Ausg. VI. 335). Kant reproduces the argument correctly, but rejects as "sophistry". Wikipedia article on Cesare Beccaria says "In 1764 Beccaria published a brief but justly celebrated treatise Dei delitti e delle pene ("On Crimes and Punishments"), which marked the high point of the Milan Enlightenment. In it, Beccaria put forth the first arguments ever made against the death penalty", but does not reproduce them. Even in the article Dei delitti e delle pene Beccaria´s main argument is not reproduced correctly. 
What Beccaria really said, is that a contractual state, a lay state which considers itself to be based on any sort of "social contract", cannot have the right over the lives of its citizens. As the only purpose of this contract can be to save lives of the participants, the right to live is the only thing which the citizens have not abandoned to the sovereign. At the difference of earlier states, which deduced their legitimacy from a divine authority and were thus entitled even to execute people, a lay or contractual state is not. "Did any one ever give to others the right of taking away his life?" Beccaria, On Crimes, Ch. 29.
In my opinion, this is the most serious point in the whole debate. All the empirical "arguments" from opinion polls or penological research can be valid only if we agree that the society is entitled to decide over life and death of its members. 
--Sokoljan (talk) 10:22, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Beccaria and the Social contract 

message: I have rewritten the entire page.
-Grammatical errors corrected
-Reorganized headings for clarity
-Uncited material removed
-Some duplicate sources removed
-Citations requested everywhere
-Some improvement tags removed
Some things that still need to be done:
-Citations!
-Bias removed: I think the page now leans toward opposing the death penalty.
-The bullet point arguments should be expanded based on their specific citations
Please do not revert the page. I tried to keep as much as possible, and I have not removed any cited material.
TheGreatMrEff (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 17:35, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Bias doesn not seem to be removed. Its just a diatribe against the death penalty, maybe it would be easier to just change the name of the article to "arguments against the death penalty" because "debate" doesn't seem to belong there.
Thunderlippps (talk) 02:33, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Page Redone

message: There should be something in this article about prison violence. Apparently, just jailing criminals doesn't do much, as they still tend to distribute drugs and attack other inmates within the prison. Gang leaders still are able to communicate to their gangs outside of prison, making prison pretty much worthless. I think the death penalty would solve this, if it was used much more often and for other crimes other than murder.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.126.99.78 (talk) 16:56, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prison Violence 

message: There is no "debate" going on here! Its front loaded with anti-Death penalty arguments. Then the token pro-Death penalty paragraph seems to only be supported by the first few sentences before the rest of the paragraph argues against those first sentences. Its a joke. Just change this article to "Arguments against" and then move those few sentences supporting the Death penalty to another page and tag it as needing expansion. Lol @ "debate". Thunderlippps (talk) 02:51, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Separate the two arguments into two separate pages.

message: Full disclosure: I do not support the death penalty. Lets just get that there right now, i dont want to be deceptive here. I have a simple question, one which I have...sadly...not been able to get a meaningful response to. But this is something I really want to know because, well, I only know my opinion toward it.
I am wondering, if everyone who supports the death penalty has knowledge that yes, innocents can be killed for various reasons, even when they commit no crime, by the state. Im sure we can all agree on the factual basis of that assertion.
So would those who support the system continue to do so, if their own spouse, child, or loved one was being killed for a crime they did not commit? Assume all legal recourse has failed. Assume you KNOW that the verdict was wrong (for whatever reason, doesnt matter in this vacuum.) Would you still support and claim valid the system that allowed this to happen?
Im not looking for conjecture or attacks, I want to know in simplest terms: Would it still be okay? I tried really hard to make this as non-standoffish as I could, and hope responses can follow suit. (Sorry about my strange writing style -- have some rather large memory troubles, and it all kinda comes out in non-chronological order. I appreciate you keeping this in mind.) 74.128.56.194 (talk) 04:50, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I know it's been quite awhile since this was posted, but I'd like to respond. You seem to me to be confusing two very different issues: 1) is the death penalty justifiable in general and 2) is the death penalty justifiable in a particular instance. I can agree that the execution of someone who was wrongfully convicted is wrong without agreeing that the execution of someone who was rightfully convicted is wrong. I don't know of ANY death penalty supporter who believes that the system is without flaw or who does not believe that such flaws should be corrected. While the wrongful execution of a loved one would devastate me, I cannot see it as convincing me that execution is absolutely wrong. --Khajidha (talk) 01:35, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal Bias. 

message: Too much of the information in the article is concentrated about the debate in the United States when I think it should cover a worldwide view on the death penalty debate  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kjl87 (talk • contribs) 16:33, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, came here to say this.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.114.59.204 (talk) 18:26, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too US-Centralized 

message: I have the idea that the one use of death penalty is to get rid of a someone that is just too dangerous to be reasonably manageable. Some criminals are a death risk to all their surroundings, including guards and other inmates if imprisoned.
Is this view (death penalty as a way to protect innocents rather than just a deterrent) so uncommon that it isn't mentioned in the main article ?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.156.44.178 (talk) 16:13, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Getting rid of a danger 

message: The article clearly illustrates bias --from both sides of the argument--and posits fallacious arguments to prove its points. Someone needs to take ownership of this article and either re-write it from scratch or clean up the undocumented assertions & unsupported and/or illogical conclusions. Frankly, I feel the article's neutrality should be flagged.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.97.118.2 (talk) 03:26, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Bias from both sides

message: On first glance I am opposed to the undiscussed move from "..debate" to "..debate in the United States". The simpler term should be used and Amerocentrism is addressed by fixing the balance inside the article, not by retitling. If there are good international sources they should be balanced in, or if the US is basically the only place the debate exists then the longer title is redundant anyway. I may undo the move later if there is no other discussion. JJB 20:02, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I oppose it, since the article is solely about the discussion in the US. We have specialised articles for other subjects as well. "Capital punishment debate" would not be "the simpler term", it would simply be the incorrect term. Add some international content and then we can take up a move discussion again. Please undo your move. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:09, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

text: The USA-specific parts (the whole "Practical arguments" section, basically) could be merged to that article, but then the rest of the page should just be merged to the main article on the topic. This would also reflect the fact that there's not been any "capital punishment debate" at all for decades in most of the world, given the nearly-universal rejection of the measure. --Nemo 09:23, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Move discussion

message: NYT offers some updates and links a recent study. «This new report from the Committee on Law and Justice concludes that research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide rates is not useful in determining whether the death penalty increases, decreases, or has no effect on these rates. The key question is whether capital punishment is less or more effective as a deterrent than alternative punishments, such as a life sentence without the possibility of parole.» --Nemo 09:23, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: "America's Retreat From the Death Penalty"