After several other threads have seen discussion about the death penalty (like here and here), I thought we should have one central place to discuss this obviously pressing issue. (I know we've had threads about it before a couple years ago but it seems like the debate is ready to resurface.)

The other thing that motivated me to post this is the attached article I recently got via e-mail, check it out below.

So, are you in favour of the death penalty, and why/why not?

Fry the bastards!

Fry them

Sure it costs more to execute someone than locking them up in prison, but at least that way they dont get released to continue their life of crime

Only good thing about some arab countrys, they make the bastards suffer

Not if you charge their family for the electricity used to fry em.

Fry them, its the right thing to do!

Only with a proper justice system / police force. Otherwise the wrong people get to bite the bullet most likely

Collateral damage...

Aren't the wrong/innocent people ALREADY suffering?!

Collateral damage could include me, so no thanks in that case.

You are right about that, but a death penalty is still in-effective if there isn't a proper crime squad or whatever to enforce it for them. Do I wanna be told that I raped / murdered / stole this/that/them and get my balls shot off for it? Not really.

I do however see you point about already suffering (which is not right either, I realise that).

Kill them

if they took a life they should stew in hell for the rest of eternity, why waste our money keeping the bastards alive by feeding him, gtiving him a bed.

TYake a life and your life will be taken

Fry the fuckers. As a tax payer, I would rather spend some extra cash getting a fucker taken out totally, than running the risk of the swine getting out after 5 - 10 years, and killing more people.

Fry them

provided that our justice system is sufficient enough to fry the right suspects and not innocent people...

but I would fry the murderous bastard thru and thru!

To the Minister or Health and Security or whatever their #$%^ title that said to hell with the unpatrotic citizens (for leaving the country due to crime)... it is you who should be shot! you can go $#^ yourself if you call me unpatrotic for wanting to leave. it is your incompentance and must suffer for it? I don't want some #$^@ shooting my family/friends for his cellphone, I'd rather leave than let your justice serve me!

Only if there is no doubt about there guilt should the death penalty be carried out

May god have mercy on them...but may the state nuke the living kak out of criminals!

I am pro death penalty, however, we need competent justice enforcers to make the death penalty a success!
It all starts at grass roots level -> Starting with the cops themselves and all the way up to the Minister of Safety and Security and then onto the president himself!

If we use the US as a example, despite their best efforts, dozens of innocent people have been executed!

Without proper structures in place in SA - thousands of law abiding citizens could be wrongly put to death and with the calibre of our current govt. ministers - that is a scary though indeed!!!!

I'll sit this vote out, if we had a justice system with zero corruption, i would have said fry them, but the innocent is already being killed in this country, the death penalty....... start fixing things from the bottom up, not the other way round.

well then it sohuld be LAW that if a criminal breaks into your property you have the right to defend/execute them at your descresion

Lol not much arguement >.> <.< <.> >.<

Put fear back into the criminals mind.

I can't believe this is a yes/no poll.

Shouldn't we just be agreeing on the method now...?

My personal favourite is still the electric chair. I things it has massive fear factor built in.

I like that one as well, but am more of an old schooler - death by public stoning sounds lekka to me.

Kill them, for these people death is the only punishment suitable

punishment should fit the crime


murder = death
rape = castration

How about this rather:

murder = death

rape = rape (by Bubba and his gang of professional soap-droppers)

I'll rather have hanging k thanks don't want to smell burning flesh from the electric chair

that would just make sociaty sick... I don't want to know that there's some bum chums waiting in jail who might get paroled soon...

Lethal injection!

Best method if you ask me

While it make you all feel like vigilantes, it has no positive effect on society, therefore I voted no.
Proof 1
Proof 2

edit: More stuff that proves that I am right. And some more.

o rly?

Oh, youknow, please don't tell me its a race thing...

There is also plenty of proof which shows it is a successful deterrent. Too lazy to search but checkout the old death penalty thread for pages and pages...

so what if he felt pain... he murdered someone else... didn't they feel pain?

Your 100% correct - but don't tell me it's humane. Also, tell me; what makes a judge/lawyer/executioner any different from the murderer?

The murderer started it

So the law finishes it...

The murderer is acting for his own gain, whatever that may be, whereas the judge/lawyer/executioner is acting on behalf of the community at large.

The murderer may also kill again, whereas the judge/lawyer/executioner are killing the murderer to prevent further crime.

I still vote 'Fry.'

I am in quite a fowl mood today so this comment may be effected due to my mood.

Can't we just put a whole bunch of them in a big hole and blow them up with a bomb or something? That way we give back to nature with some natural supplements....

So taking someones life if fine, as long as you do it for the 'community'?

btw: the exicutioner will kill again...

The executioner is removing dangerous psycho criminal scum from the community by killing the murderer, while the murderer is removing innocent people from the community.

The public is also not in danger of being killed at random by the executioner.

So if there is a bad corrupt man in the community its fine to be a vigilante and kill him, because you are protecting the community after all?

I think Rusty means that if the person has been convicted, not just any person in the community that is a little different... that could just be me though?



Renegades didn't say it was painless. He just said he thought it was the best method. Besides if a person is guilty as all hell, then so what if he feels some pain for the crimes he has committed? At least he wasn't cut 1000 times and left to bleed to death or something A LOT MORE painful....

Not exactly. A vigilante is someone who takes the law into their own hands; what I'm saying is that the law itself should deal with these criminals i.e. it should be law to have them executed, not to let the community do it themselves over and above the law.

If we let the community kill murderers then yes, I agree with the point that we'd be no better than the murderer himself, but I think a capital punishment system would result in less murderers being sent back to the streets (which is a good thing considering the astounding number of repeat offenders).

Fry em all!

An eye for an eye I think...

Also think it'd be better to sort out a proper government and police service 1st
cos after all... death is permanent.

Personally, I cant wait to leave this corrupt country. The day I do, there'll be a big on my face!...

Agreed

Just dont let the robbers and murderers get you on the way out....

This is a tough question...

On the one had, I feel that if someone cant respect the life of another human being, there should be no respect for his.

Trouble with this is tho, that our justice system itself is corrupt, so ur probably gonna end up with innocent people being executed for crimes comitted by others.

I am currently feeling 55% kill them all and 45% live and let live. How would you feel if u get the death sentence for something you did not do?

All murderers and rapist should fry once provin guilty in a court of law. You watch......I bet there would be a lot less murders and rapings if they started doin this.

That remains the main hurdle for the death penalty!!! After all once they have carried it out they can't bring uyou bakc if you were innocent.

But with life you can always get out,

So at the moment i believe that death should only be used when there is not even one shred of doubt on the subject

But to be honest life isn't very effective as they are never fully carried out and it costs our tax money to keep convicts alive, give them 3 squares a day etc.

For the people in the slums who starve they must be feeling awfully cheated as they haven't done anything wrong and yet no-o ne if feeding them. However we are feeding criminals

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

The death penalty can only work if there is undeniable evidence that the person is guilty, something we will struggle with in South Africa.

I forget about that quote - thanks for reminding me

On the whole i agree with Doom Horn

In SA, the 'right to life' of criminal scum is more important than the 'right to life' of the innocent victims.

Besides, we must remember that most criminals are the victims of socio-economic circumstances, as the government would have us believe.

If you were hungry you would also gang rape your victim and shoot her five times in the head after you have already stolen her cell phone, right? /sarcasm.