[ExI] META: Re: free-will, determinism, crime and punishment

[Eugen Leitl]

I don't see what this thread has to do with extropy.

On Wed, Aug 22, 2007 at 03:48:04PM +0000, aiguy at comcast.net wrote:
> 
>    Since most prisoners attempt to plea bargain by testifying against
>    their accomplices or confessing to other unsolved crimes to avoid the
>    death sentence even though they know they will get a life sentence.
>    Also because most prisoners will run the appeals process aas far as it
>    will go, this indicates that prison life is preferrable to them over
>    death.
> 
> 
> 
>    In many cases though a mandatory death sentence could be counter
>    productive.  For instance if rapists knew that the death sentence was
>    waiting for them then they may choose to murder their victims
>    afterwards to prevent them from testifying against them.
> 
> 
> 
>    As it is now the vast majority of rapists do not murder their victims
>    making it easier for them to be caught and prevent them from repeating
>    the crime.
> 
> 
> 
>    Also I have read that the reason for murder reduction rates is due
>    primarily to improved medical care and trauma centers where more
>    people who would have died in the past are now being treated more
>    quickly and effectively and being saved.   To get a real statistic
>    attempted murders should be added to actual murder before we can
>    conclude that we are really making any progress on violent crime.
> 
> 
> 
>    It would be interesting to see if the states with the highest murder
>    rates also have the least trauma units and lesser effective hospitals
>    in these type of incidents.
> 
> 
> 
>    In the case of police bringing in shot up gang members I can just hear
>    the emergency room doctors thinking let's save the state the cost of a
>    trial.
> 
> 
> 
>      -------------- Original message --------------
>      From: gts <gts_2000 at yahoo.com>
>      > On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:36:02 -0400, Lee Corbin wrote:
>      >
>      > > I admit to being confused on this point as well. Speaking of
>      > > deterrence alone, which consequence of conviction is more
>      > > to be feared: death or a life sentence?
>      >
>      > Curiously, states that impose the death penalty have higher
>      homicide rates
>      > than those that don't. And the differences are quite large.
>      >
>      > The total number of yearly executions rose over the last ten
>      years.
>      > Although this increase in executions correlated with a decreased
>      national
>      > homicide rate, suggesting a possible deterrence effect, it's also
>      true
>      > that during this time the gap between the murder rate in death
>      penalty
>      > states and non-de! ath pen alty states grew progressively larger.
>      By 2005 the
>      > murder rate was a whopping 46% higher in death penalty states
>      than in non
>      > death penalty states!
>      >
>      > This is based on FBI statistics. See this page for some
>      interesting data,
>      > charts and graphs...
>      >
>      > See
>      http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/php/article.php?scid=12&did=168
>      >
>      > -gts
>      >
>      >
>      > _______________________________________________
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-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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