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chaosmage  11mo ago (text post)   2206 thread views

Should lifetime prisoners be incentivized to kill themselves?

The death penalty has various serious problems and lifetime imprisonment is really really expensive.

I guess we should be happy every time someone so thoroughly bad we want them out of society forever (like a serial murderer) does us the favour of killing themselves. Nothing of value is lost, and the justice system saves money. Right?

It seems to me it logically follows that we should incentivize such suicides. Like: 5000 dollars to a person of your choice if you're dead within the first year of your lifetime sentence, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

It feels very wrong and is clearly outside the overton window. But is there any reason to expect this wouldn't be a net benefit?

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i am in general agree with Richard Hanania on this issue: the scope of automatic death penalty should be expanded and expedited, and trials shortened and fewer or no appeals.

How far expanded?

While I think we should be able to sentence some people to death, expanding the list of crimes is a perverse incentive.

Chen turns to his friend Wu Guang and asks “What’s the penalty for being late?”

“Death,” says Wu.

“And what’s the penalty for rebellion?”

“Death,” says Wu.

“Well then…” says Chen Sheng.

And thus began the famous Dazexiang Uprising, which caused thousands of deaths and helped usher in a period of instability and chaos that resulted in the fall of the Qin Dynasty three years later.

I’m saying the death penalty should be safe, legal, and rare.

When I see people arguing for expansion of the death penalty to (child) rapists, this is often my main concern- if the penalty is already death, it increases incentives to go ahead and kill the victim before they become a witness.

This proves too much and can be stretched until it precludes all punishment.

(Chemical) castration for child rapists is still on the table.

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