Originally Posted by theburningbush

The idea being generally that a person isnt beyond repair, that there is hope for everyone. There are standards that should be met but the goal should be the biggest dream you can dream if its not why bother. All of everything we do is based on hope/faith tear down one small piece and the whole thing starts to crack.

Regardless. Can anyone demonstrate that a correlation between the death penalty and violent crime exists. A quick search yields alot of information demonstrating that murder rates are higher in death penalty states. Unfortunatly that is meaningless. I wonder if violent crime goes up or down when the death penalty is removed from a county oh well. Can anyone supply said info, or is this a heart to heart debate?