Some folks aren’t worth the bullet it takes to shoot them, and some folks ain’t worth arguing with. From Glen Filthie's blog
For what it is worth, when a prisoner is executed in Mainland China, the spent shell is meticulously picked up by a flunky and placed in a plastic bag. The bag and in invoice for the cost of the bullet is sent to the family of the now deceased prisoner. Failure to pay the cost of the bullet results in the loss of your job or you lose the privilege of living in the city.
Mainland China has mass executions when their jails become too full. They announce the event and haul the prisoners to a sports stadium. At that point, they execute fifty or a hundred prisoners by lining them up and shooing them in the back of the head. That frees up enough space in the jail for the next week's or month's haul of felons.
With a few obviously heinous exceptions, I don’t support capital punishment. I don’t like the idea of granting the judiciary and the state that much power to impose irreversible punishments. The tyranny that is China is a great example of what I oppose.
ReplyDeleteWhen my dad was in China during WWII the local police executed a man they had caught stealing from my father's barracks.
ReplyDeleteSame thing, a bullet in the back of the head in the town square. The man's family was not allowed to retrieve the body till they paid for the cartridge.
According to my father, the guy stole less than $5 and a GI watch.
Life is cheap over there. Watched a 10yr old boy get shot and killed in the PI for stealing a watch.
ReplyDeleteI am of two minds.
DeleteIncarcerating boatloads of people at $40k a year is a conceit that only rich nations can afford.
Given the population of petty thieves and the historic poverty of China I am not sure our mores and norms apply.
In the long run, I am not sure we can afford our current path of incarceration. I *heard* stories of cops who gave criminals "hickory shampoos" or tune-ups instead of sending them to prison. Much faster, cheaper and more of a deterrent to some criminals than three-hots-and-a-cot and more sex you could stand (aka, prison).
Cops no longer have that option given body-cams and everybody having a smartphone with video capability.
We are just going to have to muddle our way through, painful though it is.
The problem will sort itself out (painfully) as we become a non-rich nation beset with DA's that won't prosecute and politicians and judges that release violent felons.
DeletePeople will go the self-help route, and every crime will end up being punishable by the death penalty by the targeted victim. Shoot, shovel, and shutup. The percentage of unsolved homicides is already pretty high, when the combatants don'[t know each other.
Life sure is cheap elsewhere, but we need to make crime less profitable here. The problem is not with the death penalty as the gentle commenters above appear to imply. The problem is a combination of lack of due process, timely administration of the penalty so as to be a true deterrent, and proportionality. No civilized person wants a kid capped for stealing a watch. Perhaps not even cattle or horse thievery, for which a distant relative of mine was hanged. But many reasonable people can see the death penalty appropriate for heinous crimes like child rape, for which currently it cannot be administered. If due process is granted efficiently and effectively, say 5 years (or whatever term less than the current indefinite) it serves as a highly effective deterrent without the drain on public resources detractors love to point to. Lex Talionis may not be ideal, but it sure makes the miscreants think twice when they know it’s a potential near term reality.
ReplyDelete"Mainland China has mass executions when their jails become too full"
ReplyDeleteWhat is your source for this? I don't doubt the Chinese authorities are capable of it, but I actually know Chinese who are in prison, and I've never heard of this kind of thing.