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From: mark@uf-csv.UUCP (mark fishman [fac])
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics
Subject: Re: Bastille mentality alive and well in USA
Message-ID: <139@uf-csv.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Nov-84 16:01:29 EST
Article-I.D.: uf-csv.139
Posted: Wed Nov 28 16:01:29 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Dec-84 19:39:02 EST
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Organization: Univ of Fla, Computer and Information Science
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Not to put too fine a point on it, if there are n-1 murderers at large
(defined to be people who've demonstrated the capacity for murder)
rather than n, then your probability of being done in by one of them
is *ipso facto* reduced.  Even stipulating (which you would, but I
don't), that capital punishment has an absolutely non-existent
deterrent effect.  
     This is the ONE issue on which I remain conservative.  It strikes
me that criminal justice needs to be seen in the light of quality
control standards:  type I versus type II errors.  Currently, so few
violent humans are caught by the sieve, that your chances of being
murdered or otherwise harmed by one of them are MANY ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE
greater than your chances of being harmed by judicial pursuit for a crime
you didn't commit.  *Ideally*, the aggregate harm deriving from these
two sources should be minimized.  Currently, the harm is so enormous
from the one source, that to carp on philosophical abstractions in 
respect of the other is itself destructive.  Now, this isn't to say
that I don't think society is in need of massive reform to reduce both
the economic need and the ingrained propensity to do violence, but
this won't happen in our lifetimes.  For practical reasons, then, to
reduce my statistical exposure to harm (and yours), I would support
capital punishment (and would also tighten up on the jusdicial system),
much as I detest the concept in the abstract, morally.