And I would feel safer knowing that there is no chance of myself, or someone I love dying for a crime we didn't commit. Ergo, I disagree with the death penalty.

Just wondering when was the last time someone rich got the death penalty?

As for freeloaders in the system - I for one don't think that prisoners should get any luxuries in prison. Basic healthcare, hygiene, food, shelter etc. When will we put them to good use? Surely some of them can contribute back to society...

They do, many prisons manufacture goods (the old cliche of prisoners stamping license plates isnt a lie) and a lot also work to help support the prison they are stuck in, saving taxpayers money from doing it instead.

Well since you asked:

1) I have serious doubts in your competence as a soothsayer

2) Your spinning in this thread (with that post even) is approaching the level of certain conservative-minded former members.

But they can't do that from solitary...

I wasn't referring to dangerous criminals.

So we pay for them while the other inmates help pay for themselves..

Are you having the same conversation as the rest of us?

Prisons are not self supporting.. they never have been... Well, maybe 2 or 3 exceptions...

The rest of the costs are paid for by the taxpayers...
So that would mean that the non-solitary-confined prisoners would be helping to pay for the cost of them being there, while those in solitary confinement would be being paid for by the taxpayers....

Where did you get lost at???

Yet you stated that they are the ones that placed themselves in that position. You cannot in one paragraph state that it is a tragedy and yet place the blame directly on them. It is in no way bordering on insult. Nor was it meant as an insult. Let us not stray from the topic by talking about insults where there were none.

""Coming from the high-holy DF moderator I would expect more""

Why is it that when I am trying to do nothing but have a nice debate and converse with someone they have to bring in the fact that I am a Moderator for no reason but to have a stab at me?? And NO do not answer that it is completely rhetorical and only meant to maybe end that crossroad of conversation.

Easily. Sooner or later someone will come into thier environment or they will come into an environment themselves which will allow them to repeat thier original offense. If they know that they will be spending the rest of thier lives in solitary what reason have they for caring about consequences from repeating the crime of murder??

Solitary would only be effective IF it was truly solitary and no guards every had any contact with them in any way. Both of us know this is not true. I do not nor will not acquiesce to your PoV that guards are placing themselves in that situation and so we have to live with those consequences. I would rather we make those guards lives easier by killing murderers and not allowing them to repeat thier offense.

You still have yet to offer a solution. I have now asked several times.

The chances of anyone being falsely tried and convicted of murder are slim and getting slimmer as technology advances. Once again let me "spin" my wheels. What solution do you offer that would NOT place ANYONE in the path of a killer.

24,000$ a year is the average amount of money it takes to house and feed ONE prisoner. That is taking into consideration the "support" that prisoners give.

Once again you add nothing to the debate at hand with your vague post. Try adding to the conversation instead of detracting from it with incomprehensible posts.

An interesting sidenote---

from--

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cp.htm

Among inmates under sentence of death and with available criminal histories:
-- nearly 2 in 3 had a prior felony conviction
-- about 1 in 12 had a prior homicide conviction.

Also in 2003 we were down for the third year in a row in the number of inmates on death row.

Here aer some studies which were done about Capital Punishment--

The problem is that the question of Capital Punishment treads upon moral highground. Common sense is often very uncommon in the face of morality.

I agree with you thefr0g on moral grounds. In a moral world we would not murder another for murdering someone. We would take our time and figure out why they did what they did and attempt to use that knowledge to prevent further murders.
Setting morals to the side however we can easily see that this solution does not decrease the over all amount of murders committed. Common sense dictates that the only way to be completely assured someone does not commit murder again in ANY fashion is to sanction thier deaths. Not only have you stopped them from committing another murder you have sent a message to any future murderers--" If you commit a murder you resign your own life to the same fate."

Except for the fact that, occasionally, one or 2 times a year, you kill someone who didn't deserve it. Necessary sacrifice, I guess.

You keep asking me to ensure 100% that the murderers never kill again. I don't know why. I never claimed that would be the case. There are high-risk jobs in this world. I enjoy eating Alaskan King Crab, you realize the number of fishermen that die every year so that I can eat it? This does not give me pause, because THEY TOOK THE JOB. They saw a job, calculated the rewards to the risk, and decided it was worth it. We need people in this world to do the dangerous jobs so that the rest of the world can rest easy. It is a prison guard's job to GUARD PRISONERS. It is a prison guard's job to make sure the prisoners don't kill. The guard is in harms way, yes. But so is a cop, so is a construction worker, so is a fireman, so is a 7-11 worker. I don't see you weeping for all the cops. There are laws we could implement that would GREATLY increase the safety of cops, but they would put the public at risk of having their rights infringed upon by the state, which is exactly the same problem with the death penalty.

As for your previous comment, saying I had a callous disregard for the lives of the guards was an insult, and you damn well know it. I dont want anybody to die at their job, but I recognize that dangerous jobs are necessary to keep our society moving. If somebody makes the choice to put themselves in danger, it is nowhere near the tragedy of someone who was put there for no reason at all.

Picture it as the difference between an on-duty cop being pushed off the roof of a building by a criminal. And a 12 year old boy being thrown off the roof by a criminal. Yes, both are horrible and we all wish we could stop them from happening. But at least the cop had training, he was up there by choice, he had a chance to defend himself. The boy is an innocent victim that could do nothing.

Are you certain about this statistic? I know there are cases of executions where the convict insisted until death that they were innocent, and there are people who continue to work on proving them innocent after they have died. However, I don't recall that any executed criminal in at least the past 25 years has been ultimately determined to be innocent of the crime they were executed for. If such cases exist, do you recall any one of the executed people's name and where it occurred?