GENIUS FORUMS

Angel Nieves Diaz had things to say in his 34 minutes between when he got his lethal injection and when he died today, including this:

"The state of Florida is committing a crime, because I am innocent. The death penalty is not only a form of vengeance, but also a cowardly act by humans. I'm sorry for what is happening to me and my family who have been put through this."

What do you think of the death penalty?

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Angel Nieves Diaz had things to say in his 34 minutes between when he got his lethal injection and when he died today, including this:

"The state of Florida is committing a crime, because I am innocent. The death penalty is not only a form of vengeance, but also a cowardly act by humans. I'm sorry for what is happening to me and my family who have been put through this."

What do you think of the death penalty?

34 minutes still conscious and able to speak? Jesus there's gotta be a better way. A surgeon can knock you out in under 20 seconds... why on earth not knock the guy out that fast and then kill him?

That said, I'm really not sure what to think of the death penalty. I mean, personally, if I was faced with the decision between dying and living in a cage for the rest of my natural life, I'm committing suicide. Just saying. At any rate, most of the 1st world doesn't have it anymore, and all of the 1st world has lower incarceration rates than we do, so I'd suggest that it isn't actually acheiving anything.

On the other hand, I once came up with a plan to lower expenses, and I'm admitting this thought got very little more time or attention than the 20 minutes it took me to walk from my classroom to my car, but what if we made it optional? As in, if you are given a life sentence, or a sentence longer than you can reasonably be expected to live, you have the option of committing suicide by state?

As in, if you are given a life sentence, or a sentence longer than you can reasonably be expected to live, you have the option of committing suicide by state?

That sounds like a very humane gesture.

For those who are truly guilty and not just found guilty, I figure the death penalty was letting them off too easy. Make them live long enough to actually pay off their debt to society.

As far as prison sentence length, I figure it should always be an open ended thing, and actually work to rehabilitate them. Don't let them out until they are likely to be good citizens, but once out, don't make them present a record to employers and such - once the debt is paid and the rehabilitation complete, there is no need for anyone to know their history.

If prison employees had enough compassion to have an intrinsic desire to help these people become functional citizens, this would be the optimal scenario, but there are so many people vulnerable to becoming abusers of power when given prisoners.

Teaching compassion woould have to be done for both the inmates and the staff, and that would have to be an ongoing process in each facility by someone who has a strong enough compassion to keep it ethical.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote: As far as prison sentence length, I figure it should always be an open ended thing, and actually work to rehabilitate them. Don't let them out until they are likely to be good citizens, but once out, don't make them present a record to employers and such - once the debt is paid and the rehabilitation complete, there is no need for anyone to know their history.

Well, my problem with that is that some people are really good at faking it. And there are some crimes I really don't want people to get out as soon as they can play nice with the review boards...

Yes, that's another challenge - being able to screen really well for the fakers. It would take some people who were really competent in predicting behavior.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Yes, that's another challenge - being able to screen really well for the fakers. It would take some people who were really competent in predicting behavior.

Well, unfortunately I don't really think they exist... I mean, even highly trained psychologists miss things a lot of times. I was diagnosed, undiagnosed, rediagnosed over a dozen times with everything from ADHD to schizophrenia. And I was willing to be honest with the shrinks...

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote: Don't let them out until they are likely to be good citizens, but once out, don't make them present a record to employers and such - once the debt is paid and the rehabilitation complete, there is no need for anyone to know their history.

It seems it's not actually easy to rehabilitate many criminals. I know someone who did volunteer work in prisons & he was surprised to find that many of the inmates had no understanding of ordinary cause & effect. Not anything fancy like 'all phenomena are caused' but something simple like 'I got arrested because I burglarized these houses & the police caught me'. Many genuinely believed it was 'bad luck' or 'the system' or 'racism' or any number of other things that had gotten them into prison rather than having any concept that their own behavior had contributed in any way.
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Katy wrote:

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Yes, that's another challenge - being able to screen really well for the fakers. It would take some people who were really competent in predicting behavior.

Well, unfortunately I don't really think they exist... I mean, even highly trained psychologists miss things a lot of times. I was diagnosed, undiagnosed, rediagnosed over a dozen times with everything from ADHD to schizophrenia. And I was willing to be honest with the shrinks...

With enough exposure the right person could, but that takes more talent than training, but it takes both, and of course it would still all be kind of iffy. Good judgement would have to take place - I mean, if someone killed someone else because they were ticked off, a couple of months of anger management isn't going to be enough. Plus a person would have to be gradually reintegrated into society after something like that. But just crime and punishment in general - there are degrees and gradients that optimally should be considered in how to retrain the person not to do that, or more accuratly, realign their moral compass.

Even something as "small" as shoplifting could take a year or two of retraining, but it ned not be so restrictive of a retraining structure as say, a rapist.

You were mentioning mental illnesses - I worked in a facility where often the first that the clients knew that they had a mental illness was when they got arrested for something. Put them on the right meds, and they were great people, but without their meds, and some of them were dangerous to society. They didn't need to be punished, just treated - and I felt perfectly safe alone with them in my office - even if no one else was around the building.

There is some overlap of criminal element and mental illness, and I used to think that someone had to have some kind of mental illness to commit a crime (do not take the inverse of that - as most mentally ill people are not criminals), but reality shows me that most criminals are actually just the products of bad training as humans. When they make mistakes, we as a society are left with the job of retraining them, as the parents, teachers, whoever were not able to do a proper job of it in the first place.

Shardrol wrote:

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote: Don't let them out until they are likely to be good citizens, but once out, don't make them present a record to employers and such - once the debt is paid and the rehabilitation complete, there is no need for anyone to know their history.

It seems it's not actually easy to rehabilitate many criminals. I know someone who did volunteer work in prisons & he was surprised to find that many of the inmates had no understanding of ordinary cause & effect. Not anything fancy like 'all phenomena are caused' but something simple like 'I got arrested because I burglarized these houses & the police caught me'. Many genuinely believed it was 'bad luck' or 'the system' or 'racism' or any number of other things that had gotten them into prison rather than having any concept that their own behavior had contributed in any way.

Yeah, the prisons are loaded with people with the lowest IQs. There's the other side of the bell curve. That is why we need to look at it as "training" rather than "teaching" if you get my drift.

Elizabeth:

You have this half romantic half fascistic idea that prisoners can be 'retrained' so that they will stop committing crimes & otherwise annoying decent people. Even if the 'retraining' involved torturing them until they gave the right answers on a multiple choice test or keeping them locked up until they could do a believable impersonation of a 'good citizen', there are those for whom it would never work.

There are no people who can reliably predict behavior of some individuals. Sociopaths fool both regular people & mental health professionals all the time. I get the feeling you don't actually understand rage, hatred or violence - how a person could come to act that way, what that feels like. Your comments on it sound like you're observing alien creatures from a very great distance.
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Shardrol wrote:Elizabeth:

You have this half romantic half fascistic idea that prisoners can be 'retrained' so that they will stop committing crimes & otherwise annoying decent people.

Obviously you did not get my drift. One can train a dog or other animal, but they can not let that animal run loose and expect it to remain trained. A trained animal only remains trained if, over the long term, the trainer continues to dole out reward for desired behavior and punishment for undesired behavior. Since most people are usually in the animal realm anyway, most people are going to require long-term supervision by trainers anyway. The long-term trainers (supervisors at work, a level of community intervention not currently in place, etc.) don't have to be especially skilled like the trainers at a training facility (dog obedience school like prison), but they do have to be in place.

This is quite different from

torturing them until they gave the right answers on a multiple choice test or keeping them locked up until they could do a believable impersonation of a 'good citizen'

and it is true that there are those for whom it would never work, but that is why the prison sentence length should always be an open ended thing. For those whom it would never work, they should never be let go.

And I acknowledge up one side and down the other that finding people who are even just really good at predicting behavior (perfect would be a ridiculous notion) would be quite a challenge.