After all, say there's a problem in a family. Suppose an adult son does something wrong, like murder. Would his own parents seek to kill him? Probably they would not. Yet if, say, these parents were in the jury of a court trying a stranger for murder, would they be more likely to support execution? I think so. In other words, supposing that these assumptions are realistic, people are more likely to kill or wish dead someone if that person has also committed the crime of being born to a different family. This strikes me as unjust.
And it seems to me that all too often, justice is almost indistinguishable from revenge. When people push for the death penalty or other harsh punishments, it's usually because they want to exact revenge on the offender, and they want to cause them suffering. This seems like it's incompatible with a truly civilized, just, and pleasant society. And frankly, I'm tired of seeing revenge in movies, books, games, and so on. It seems like killing someone who did someone harm is the dominant theme these days, to the point that there's actually a TV show called "Revenge". This has slowly gotten to me, not only because it's overdone and totally uncreative, but also because it seems at odds with civilized society.
Then there's the argument that there are better alternatives to the death penalty. Life imprisonment, for one. You're taking away a person's freedom and forcing them to live in captivity under the conditions of your choosing. Forever. That's quite a punishment. Exile was preferred to this in earlier times, when most people died near where they were born, community was everything, travel was tough, life was harsh, and successfully living in a foreign land was difficult. But with today's technology and globalization, exile would not be as bad, and in any case we'd now be worried about dumping some criminal on somebody else- or having them do the same to us.
I think that the best form of justice is that which repairs the damage done, and perhaps punishes the guilty party to dissuade them from doing it again. With theft, the property or, failing that, an equivalent amount of money should be returned, and the thief should apologize and perhaps do some service for the victim or society. Simply imprisoning the thief doesn't solve anything, especially considering the awful prisons in the US.
But restitution isn't possible in the case of murder. Nothing you do can bring back the dead. So then what? Just killing the killer after a fair trial and conviction solves little apart from maybe satisfying the bloodthirsty if understandable rage of the victim's kith and kin. Maybe paying for the funeral, working to make up for any loss of income to the family, and then performing a lifetime or a few decades of hard, useful service to the community and/or the victim's loved ones would be the most just option. But this would lay harsher penalties for killing a high-earning person than one who is unemployed, it's almost inconceivable that any service the murderer does could possibly compensate for lost income, there's not much in the way of useful community service that a convict could do for that long, the family would likely not want anything to do with the murderer of their loved one, and this system of community service could lead to states getting courts to hand out more murder convictions in order to supply a slave labor force; in fact, this is exactly what happened during Reconstruction.
So it seems like that's not much of an option. A long prison sentence might be better. But first, we'd have to clean up our prisons. As it now stands, they're hellish concentrations of criminals, where rape and murder run rampant, gangs are formed, and bad men often get worse. They're expensive, dangerous, and possibly counterproductive. I had an idea, possibly a naive one, for reform. In it, prisoners would start out with no amenities save the basics, bathrooms, and health care. No bed, no entertainment, no exercise. In order to earn these things, prisoners would have to do work within the prison, which would earn them money that was only valid tender within the prison. With it they could buy for themselves more and better things, like beds, magazines, books, cigarettes, beer, and other relatively inexpensive and basic things. This would show that honest work can lead to a better life. They could also do work like training dogs and planting their own gardens, which are useful, enjoyable things; dealing with dogs often cheers people up, and gardening would give them the satisfaction of seeing their work bear fruit. Punishments within the prison could include the confiscation of money and amenities. Those who commit rape and murder within the prison would be much more harshly punished.
Just my thoughts on the matter.
