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From: geb@cadre.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics
Subject: Re: Bastille mentality alive and well in USA
Message-ID: <98@cadre.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 2-Dec-84 09:10:36 EST
Article-I.D.: cadre.98
Posted: Sun Dec  2 09:10:36 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Dec-84 06:57:52 EST
References: <259@spp2.UUCP>, <1220@dciem.UUCP> <90@cadre.UUCP>, <2153@randvax.UUCP>
Organization: Decision Systems Lab., Univ. of Pgh.
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Xref: watmath net.flame:7060 net.politics:5989



The two posters who pointed out that my argument is false if
the acts of execution cause more people to commit murder
are correct, provided the fractional increase in the murder
rate due to the executions exceeds the decrease due to
recidivism.  Some data on recidivism is available, (not
being a sociologist, I am not aware of the proper references)
but due to complex psychological factors, I doubt if it
would be possible to find out for sure how many kill because
of executions.  I agree the death penalty only for killing 
police is improper, since why should police be valued above
ordinary citizens.  If anything, they go looking for trouble
by nature of their job, and are a little like soldiers, but
murder of an innocent is even more heinous.  It may well
attract suicides.  Certainly cross-cultural data is not
valid, since societies that ban the death penalty democratically
usually have less violent cultures by nature (not cause-and-effect),
while many countries with draconian death penalties for
crimes much more minor than murder (China, USSR) have very
low rates of murder (even if you don't wholly believe their
own statistics).  I suppose that I have to admit there
is no way to "prove" such sociological arguments statistically.
My "gut" feeling based on the fact that I have dealt with
psychopaths a lot in a professional capacity (MD), is that
there are a lot of people who will kill because they lack
any form of conscience whatsoever (Gary Gilmore is a good example,
and reading Mailer's book gives a good insight into what a
psychopath is like, I think).  Most psychopaths do not kill,
of course, and part of the reason is that there is a severe
punishment for it.  (I define psychopath as someone who lacks
a conscience, by the way).  But killing wouldn't "bother" them
if they could get away with it.  Most people who have a strong
conscience find it hard to believe that there exist people
without one, but it is amazing how many there are.  The smart
ones almost never become murderers but instead politicians, lawyers,
doctors, etc. and often get in trouble in other ways than murder.
But a psychopath doesn't learn to kill by seeing that society
approves of killing, he does it because he wants something that
he can get by killing (robbing a 7-11, for example), or because
he is just feeling mean and out of sorts.  Of course, he may
use murder as of form of suicide (a typical psychopathic thing to
do), whereas a non-psychopath will usually only kill themselves
(quite easy to do, if you really want to) unless especially
deranged, the psychopath often wants to take a few with him.
I have personally seen too many cases where a psychopath has
killed once, been let off on parole, and then killed again (often let off
again), and so I do favor the death penalty in these cases,
but respect the reasons why moral people do not.