It does not make sense to NOT support the death penalty but to support life in prison. Essentially, they do the same thing and mean the same thing. However, one costs more and still poses reasonable threat to society. The point of jail is to take people out of society. However, the idea is that their behavior can be corrected. It has to support the notion that people can change and within time, the person's may effectively be placed back into society.
Under certain circumstances, the law and the majority think that a person's crime and/or behavior is so horrible that it the person can never be rehabilitated. The answer, then, is to eliminate the person from society. The death penalty is the only response that really does this. The moral argument to support life in prison is weak as well. It's naive. It's uses arguments such as "people should not be killed," or for murder for example, "if killing is bad, how can the government justify killing people in return?" Life in prison to me is a mother that tells on her son but then begs her husband to stop whipping the child.
Last edited by Justsomeguy; 01-20-2005 at 08:55 PM..
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