It would benefit society MUCH more to come up with preventative measures as opposed to the reactive measures we are used to today in the justice system. Somebody commits a crime and we just react... In a world of make-believe we can just react to the crime and place people in jail and act as though no more crime will be committed. In reality if we just keep reacting then the problem will not fade as clearly evidenced across every spec of history.

There isn't much in the way of incorporating preventative measures into general society, unfortunately, mainly due to how unobserved that avenue has been along with how stuck we are in our current concept of justice.

The death sentence doesn't get rid of crime; it instead kills of the very brain that needs to be researched on to further understand, as absolute as possible, the 'why' of such occurrence that led to the penalty in the first place. To focus effort where effort is most needed, not just most practical, is to progress towards the beneficial.

In theory: Yes. In practice: No. There are lots of people out there too far gone and simply a drain on society, but with the fallibility and even higher expenses of death row I can't endorse it in the real world.

Basically, a prison system has five goals: retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, restoration, and rehabilitation. The US system focuses almost exclusively on the first three. That means that if someone commits a crime, we want that person locked up for long enough for us to feel like they got what they deserved. However, it also means that when they get out, what they are leaving with is ten, twenty plus years of being locked up with other criminals away from society and often mistreated. That plays a part in why we see such high recidivism rates. Some studies even suggest that prison actually increases the likelihood of committing another crime, not decreases it in the USA.

Other systems, notably the Norwegian system, feel that while punishment is important as a deterrent, the overall goal is to reduce crime and working to help prisoners gain professional and social skills does that more successfully than working to punish them. And it works. Norway has some of the lowest recidivism rates in the world as well as low crime rates and they accomplish this with prisons which are some of the nicest in the world.

As this is a change in whole philosophy, the death sentence largely contradicts these ideals. As such, when you have an individual in Norway like Anders Breivik who killed 77 people, you see sentencing which reflects this change. He received the maximum sentence in Norwegian prisons: 21 years. Not death. Now, that isn't to say he will only do 21 years in prison. In all likelihood, he will never leave. However, this system largely eschews things like "mandatory minimums" in favor of evaluation of whether it is safe for an individual to reenter society.

By shifting to a rehabilitation-based system, I believe we will be able to reduce recidivism rates, reduce crime, reduce the prison population and make sure that those who are likely to commit another crime stay in the system instead of letting them go when we feel that they have been punished enough. That does mean that we as a society need to move away from our ideals of vengeance because while it may feel good for us to say "yeah, let that guy rot", it doesn't actually do us much good. You can see this change in the reaction to the sentencing that Breivik received by the people of Norway and by the families of his victims. There were few complaints from Norway, but a lot from the United States.

I don't think it is possible to move to such a system and influence social mores with the death penalty in place.

What a weird poll. First, everybody voted no. Then, people started voting 'yes', and the votes were perfectly split. After that, the two 'no' options took the lead again. Then suddenly, the vast majority was 'yes'. And now, everyone decided to start voting 'no' again, but no one votes for the second 'no' anymore.

Really weird poll.

If I didn´t think we should have a just and fair society, I would likely be for the death penatly. But since I believe everyone deserves to be equally judged and aquitted if they are found guilty (even if years have passed since the original sentence) I am against the death penalty.

Absolutely. Frankly we should do it out of convenience like abortions.

Kill anybody that is a burden on society.

I don't believe in free will at all, so punishment as a means of getting vengeance is meaningless to me. The only use of punishment is to prevent crimes from happening, both as a deterrent to would-be criminals and as a way to rehabilitate criminals after the fact.

Given that statistics show that the death penalty (and the general "vengeance"-view on punishment) is ineffective in reducing crime, how can people support it? Do they support more crime? Probably not, but it's not a very thought-through stance.

Only for things like genocide, terrorism or crimes against humanity in general (you can't really rehabilitate these people). The option should be there but only to be used in last resort.

No, especially since it takes decades of prison time before they even get executed.

I'm not "Christian" or Republican, so no I don't support heinous punishment for heinous crimes.