[Porsche-O-Phile]

OK, not defending this mamby-pamby coddling of convicted violent criminals, but let me just make a quick counterpoint here to play devil's advocate and see what you guys think:

Throughout the course of human history in other societies and during different time periods, very violent, public and horrendous methods of punishment have been used - we had public lynchings, drawing and quartering, torture on the rack, burnings at the stake, impalements, etc. Some really horriffic methods of potential punishment for those convicted of crimes. Yet, people STILL committed the crimes. There were still murders, rapes, incestual relations, etc.

Wouldn't this tend to indicate that the method of punishment is NOT the deterrant that everyone seems to think it would be? I mean, what does it accomplish other than satisfying simple blood lust and primal vengeance?



For the record, one of my best friends was murdered during the course of a robbery at the restaurant where he was working eleven years ago this past summer. The robbers/killers shot him because Scott (my friend) was "in the wrong place at the wrong time" and could possibly have implicated them in the robbery. They did not receive the death penalty but lengthy prison sentences, which they are still serving. So please reserve the comments about "if it happened to you, you'd want to rip off so-and-so's head and ***** down their neck" - I did think that for a while, but in desire to have a serious discussion, I also think that in retrospect if these two HAD gotten the death penalty, I doubt it would make me feel much better. Obviously his family got it worse, but I still have been touched by evil criminal behavior in a bad way and am not just a sideline observer to this process. . .