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Comment by jmyeet | Hacker News Reader

This is our staunch "ally" in the Middle East (along with Israel of course). Saudi Arabia is presently conducting a genocide in Yemen with US-manufactured and supplied weapons. Their autocratic leader approved the operation to kill a Saudi-citizen and US resident journalist in Turkey. It also funds madrasses that promote extremism because it deflects away the attention of their general populace from the unpopular monarchy to the West in general and the United States in particular.

Pervasive use of the death penalty is obviously an issue but far from their biggest sin. Execution as a form of punishment is pretty much completely pointless.

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I just want to point out there are several aspects to punishment. We often speak of rehabilitation and deterrence, but there is also denunciation, incapacitation, and retribution (the most maligned of the five.)

Execution isn't very good at deterrence and obviously is antithetical to rehabilitation. However execution happens to be exceptionally effective at incapacitation; a criminal cannot re-offend if he's dead. And of course, much of the public support for execution is also motivated by retribution.

On the topic of retribution, I want to be clear that I don't support the death penalty, but nevertheless I think a bit of retribution in the justice system plays a roll in suppressing vigilantism. If the government doesn't pay at least a little lip service to retribution, I think you'll have more people taking matters into their own hands.

At least in the US, retribution isn't officially part of the criminal justice system. You see why it's problematic when you look at how it creeps into the system anyway. The death penalty is disproportionately applied to minories and exoneration of death row inmates by new DNA evidence also disproportionately skews towards minorities (meaning they were false convictions to begin with).

Whether it's officially part of the system or not, the public's desire to see retribution is definitely on the minds of American legislators when they write laws. Thirst for retribution also plays a roll in the public tolerating abusive police and poor conditions in prisons (which are arguably manifestations of vigilantism.)

But yes, I oppose the death penalty, particularly in America, because I don't trust the government to get it right.

The problem with incapacitation is that it's final, and no justice system is without flaws or perfect.

Innocent people have been put to death before.

Incapacitation isn't synonymous with execution. Imprisonment is a weaker form of incapacitation without that finality. A murderer locked up in prison can't harm the general public (though other prisoners and prison staff may still be at risk.)

Yup. In the extreme e.g. someone kills 3 of my family members and only gets a year in prison? Maybe I should just kill them myself and get 6 months in prison.

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