Quote:
Originally Posted by thorny locust
Groups of people too small or otherwise without the resources to maintain prisons may sometimes have no choice, because there is a small percentage of people who just can't be let loose. But no modern country is in that position.
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That's my take on it as well. In a modern society, if we can afford to keep people locked up for life we can afford to keep a few extra ones locked up instead of killing them (even if it were streamlined to save money). I'm pretty sure that the number of people falsely executed, while kept deliberately obscure by the states who have a vested interest in not wanting to own up to any mistakes, is way higher than the number of people killed by death row inmates and death row escapees.
And studies suggest that there is no deterrence effect to having the death penalty, or possibly even a negative deterrence effect, although I'm skeptical of going that far, because executions are not public enough these days to introduce desensitization to the bloodthirsty masses.