I honestly find the idea of spending decades of my life in a prison facing daily verbal and physical abuse from guards and inmates to be far more terrifying than death.
No, you can't un-execute somebody, but you can't give someone years of their life back, either.
I remember reading that some prisoners get upset when they are not given a death penalty, but instead life without parole. The reason why is that there are lots of high quality lawyers that will work pro bono on your case if you are on death row, but if you are just another lifer then nobody wants to know you.
If I was poor, innocent and convicted of murder I would want to be given a death sentence for exactly this reason. Crazy system.
So is the US sentencing system, which dishes out decades in prison to irresponsible teenagers and non-violent drug offenders, effectively ensuring they can never re-integrate to society.
In most of the world, sentences are measured in months, and it takes something on the level of murder to end up behind bars for over a decade.
In Denmark we have a bunch of problems with prisons costing too much. So much, in fact, that people from other countries comes to Denmark to get caught doing a crime. Or homeless people walk into a bank and use the "Pointy finger in pocket" tactic to go to jail through the winter.
We do, however, do a very good job at getting people into the "right" prison. We put hardened criminals into jails with other hardened criminals, which has many restrictions on your daily life, while keeping teenagers who just fucked up big time in prisons that are much less violent, and also keep the restrictions to a minimum. We even allow some of them to go out and to work together with normal employees at the end of their sentences.
We let everyone get an education or start an education while inside, too.
It costs a lot while the individuals are "locked up" but I'm very certain that it's doing a good job, at least compared to other systems, such as the US one.
We do fuck up, though, putting hardened criminals into low security prisons, which lets them escape. I also don't like having people coming from other countries come to Denmark to take an education in a Danish jail, paid for by my tax money. But I think that is the lesser of the two evils.
Compensation can never truly compensate somebody for lost time though. No billions of dollars could give you back your 20s, or whatever decade you lost due to wrongful imprisonment.
I fear that if executions were abolished in America, too many people would brush off their hands, declare the system well reformed, and not give further reform more thought. Execution is problematic because of wrongful convictions, not the other way around. I think too many people frame it as "wrongful conviction is problematic because of execution". Abolishing execution does not solve the problem, it merely marginally lessens the impact of the problem.
I might not get hacker news in prison, but I would probably get some books that I would enjoy even more. Prison can be really bad, but on average I think it is far better than death.
I agree that prison is better then death, but I do not think being in prison is like being in comfortable room happily reading books whole day.
You are subject to prison rules and have to live in society of other prisoners and guards. You can loose your reading privileges for some petty reason and I'm not sure how big prison library is. It is not like they would be determined to make you happy or at least leave you alone - the atmosphere can get very poisonous.
Most people that have been in prison do not report about it as about pleasant places where they learned a lot from books. They usually report it being very bad place and learning some street smarts (which I would happily pass).
I would agree with you. I've heard plenty of people say the death penalty would be preferred over life in prison, but I'll bet when faced with that choice, most people would choose life. It's just how we're wired.
Dunno about in the US, but at least here in the UK the Government has stopped allowing people to send prisoners books full stop as part of their campaign to get tough on prisoners.
The government's argument is that prisoners can still use prison libraries or buy books from approved suppliers using their earnings from work tasks. However, libraries are often very limited in the choice they offer, access can be arbitrarily restricted, and their earnings (average £9.60 in 2008 [1]) are likely to be insufficient for book purchases after paying for more essential items.
I agree that this is cruel. It's part of an effort by the government to make prison appear tougher to appeal to its core (right-wing) supporters.
I think there's (pychological?) research suggesting that the prospect of life in prison is a stronger crime deterrent than the death penalty (and hence that it makes sense for countries not to have the death penalty for preventative reasons). I haven't seen that research myself though, I'd welcome pointers. But it would match your sentiment.
Prison has three purposes. These are deterrent, rehabilitation, and protection of public.
In the UK, it has been recognised that the deterrent part of prison is actually quite weak. It is not effective for crimes of the moment, where the perpetrator is not thinking clearly. It is also not very effective for career criminals, because the proportion of crimes that are actually caught, prosecuted, convicted, and attract a sufficient sentence is quite low, and many criminals do not believe they will be caught. It is also not effective for those who commit crimes out of desperation, for instance to fuel a drug habit.
That leaves rehabilitation and protection of public. Truly dangerous criminals are sentenced to life for the protection of public.
In terms of rehabilitation, officials regularly promise that this aspect will be made more effective, but there are very few prison schemes that actually improve the long-term behaviour of a criminal. Likewise, drug treatment often takes longer than the prison sentence that the typical drug user is given. The magistrate's blog at http://magistratesblog.blogspot.co.uk/ has regular grumblings about this. In the UK, some prisoners are effectively sentenced to prison for a certain time, but must show that they have attended a treatment programme before being released. There was some trouble recently when some prisoners complained that they had not been given the opportunity during their fixed sentence to attend such a programme.
So, of the three effects of prison, deterrence in the UK is seen as the least useful.
Do you have references about the deterrence aspect or the relative usefulness? Are these public beliefs or scientific analyses or projections?
The UK seems to have some odd relation to crime. Ubiquitous surveillance and fencing of just about anything (schools etc.) seem to hint that crime is believed to be everywhere or expected, daily TV broadcasts of police-vs-crime shows seem to indicate or enforce a public (morbid?) fascination for it. Perhaps it's a belief thing (similar to religions?) where one feels the need to feed oneself cues that one belongs to the positive part of society and not to the criminals so as not to feel bad? I don't know whether I'm understanding things right, but I'm also not confident that in such a setting public opinion about these matters represents truth.
(I'm a Swiss guy living in the UK, and comparing to Canada and my home country.)
The chances of getting it wrong are never 0 and it's impossible to undo or make reparations if you get it wrong.