[transplant99]

Originally Posted by driveway

It has nothing to do with compensation. Compensation is simply vengeance, which is an undesirable (and deeply un-Christian) ideal. Punishment for crime is based on 2 considerations 1) deterrence and 2) prevention of re-occurrence.

It has been demonstrated throughout history that the death penalty does absolutely nothing to address the first concern. Nowhere has capital punishment been an effective deterrent. It does prevent re-occurrence, but since there are other ways to address that concern which do not result in taking a human life they trump the death penalty.

Capital punishment is vengeful, lazy, serves no purpose, does nothing to deter crime, and is no more unnecessary murder. It is vile and disgusting and I am so very, very glad that we have managed to rid ourselves of it here in Canada and I look forward to the day when the rest of the world is able to follow suit.

Simply untrue.

At least five federal prison officers have been killed since December 1982, and the inmates in at least three of the incidents were already serving life sentences for murder. For example, in the federal government's maximum security institution in Marion, Illinois, two experienced correctional officers were murdered in separate incidents on October 22, 1983. Officer Clutts died in an unprovoked, vicious assault when stabbed approximately 40 times with a homemade knife by inmate Thomas Silverstein. At the time, Silverstein was being supervised by three correctional officers. Silverstein had already murdered three inmates while in federal custody, for which he received three life sentences.

While it is impossible to determine precisely how many innocent lives the execution of convicted murderers has saved, the available data suggest that the number is not insignificant. Of the roughly 52,000 state prison inmates serving time for murder in 1984, an estimated 810 had previously been convicted of murder and had killed 821 persons following those convictions. Execution each of these inmates following their initial murder conviction would have saved 821 innocent lives.

http://www.dpinfo.com/dpwhy.htm

Again, not necessarily a proponent of the death penalty but there most certainly is a reason and a purpose for it.