Death Penalty in Sweden

[Protean]

Benefits:

• Less tax payer dollars to keep someone alive for years on end. Shelter, food, electricity, facilities, all cost money.
• Guarantee that dirt bag who deserved the death penalty will never kill, rob, rape, etc ever again because they can't, they are dead.
• Give families peace of mind knowing that justice was served if they had their loved ones murdered by the scum who was put to death

I could keep going, but is this enough?

Justice means someone is brought before a court. Vengeance is the word you're looking for.

[Deleted]

With Sweden's jail system basically putting prisoners up in a luxury apartment, I would think that its beyond disgusting to allow a murderer such luxury.

Prisoners have to work in prison. A free person with a low-paid job in Sweden can realistically achieve more then a one room with kitchenette with IKEA furniture, a game console and membership in a sports club. Both the prisoner and the free person have access to free health care and education.

What you should really think about is why your countrys low-paid job make Swedich prison a luxury apartment......

[kail]

Yes. The numbers they presented do not reflect reality. Similar to how much the pentagon and hospitals says everything costs when they are doing line items. The hospital says the procedure costs $10,000, but then you notice they are charging you $500 for the bandage, and an equally absurd price for everything else you quickly realize that the $10,000 doesn't reflect reality. Furthermore your insurance will say, "yeah, it's a '$10,000' procedure, but our agreed price that we are paying is $2,000", which furthers the point that a lot of pork-barreling is going on.

I'm baffled by the naivety of most of the folks here that think any one in the U.S. Government give you accurate dollar for dollar bottom line costs. You can bury your head in the sand and pretend the Gov only gives us accurate info all the time, but it's been a long time proven and verified practice, by anyone involved in gov accounting, that they don't.

Ok then, do you have a better source or outlook on what the actual costs of an average DP are? Or should I and others simply take your word for it? It's not only the government that states the costs of the DP vs life sentence, there are also Case Studies done that flat out measure the number of court dates a DP uses.

It's downright a fact that the DP is costing far more than LWOP. Could the costs be cheaper? Maybe. If lawyers work for cheaper pay or downright volunteer but that's simply unrealistic expectations.

A quote from the linked research paper that pretty much summarizes the whole thing (because few here like to read):

Our findings are unequivocal: Colorado’s death penalty imposes tremendous costs on taxpayers and its benefits are, at best, speculative, and more likely illusory.

[MuLLvaD3n]

Not to nitpick, cause the US do have more homicides than a lot of europe per capita, but you might want to check that math again. That table is using the term "Americas" which includes south america as well as countries like mexico which have quite a lot of problems with the cartels.

Gah I'm sorry, I fucked that one up. Kinda killed my argument even though my point still stands. Took away the original post. Damn it... I just read "America".

[Noradin]

1. Because it costs less then keeping someone incarcerated for 50 years.
2. No chance of recidive.

Imagine someone being out for your family in Europe. He kills your mom. Then gets 12 years. Released at 8 for good behaviour. All the while he sits in a comfortable room with television, a computer, etc. YOU pay for with tax money costing around 35k a year. Then he's released and he kills your children. Then dissapears and is nowhere to be found sipping Pina Colada's at some beach. That's what our justice system facilitates.

Now imagine that guy was put to death, given there was plenty of evidence he actually did it.

You have such an active imagination you should write a book not waste your talent for dreaming up unlikely scenarios on these forums!

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Personally to me it is first and foremost justice followed by deterrence, and I'd say that death is a pretty big deterrence to someone who may contemplating murder. People need to be scared of committing crimes because of the consequences, and I don't think it gets much more scary than the death penalty.

Yes, you'd say that, but science has proved you wrong... deterence never really works against crimes like murder.

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No country in Europe has the death penalty (except BelaRussia) and that says all you need to know about Europeans views on the matter.

Fixed that for you.
Russia does not have the death penalty, they are a member of the Council of Europe.
Belarussia is that country right next to it that almost nobody knows or cares about much.

[Rotted]

Simply because no one has a right to take another's life, even if someone has done it.

And as others have said, even now, we have people inside which are innocent. We can rarely have a 100% certainty straight away / in the trail.

Also, while I'm against, and against revenge, this is slightly contradictive of what I've said, but from what we gather the dp is quite painless and relatively quick, that to me is getting off easy. They should be left in their cells to rot, 3x3 one small window with basic adequate food and water for what is required to keep the human body functioning. One or two hours (if that) a day outside in a courtyard for interaction with other prioners to keep their mental health some what stable. None of this luxury bs of having an allowance, access to the Internet, TVs, gyms, visitation rights.

[Noradin]

That's a fabricated BS percentage. If they knew they were innocent they wouldn't be on death row. If they don't know they are innocent, then what orifice are they pulling that number out of?

The same way you can make a very good estimate about the absolute number of spelling and grammar mistakes in a book without ever finding all of them as long as you have two proofreaders who made a list of the errors they found? It is called "science", more specifically "mathematics". You know, the ususal way you get reliable numbers for reliable studies.

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Agreed.

It worries me that Americans always come down to killing... at the end of every 'discussion' all they want to do is kill people. And im sure its something to do with their version of Christianity.

Here is Europe we just dont have those views. And if we do its a minority.

It has nothing to do with Chritianity, both the ten comandments and the guy "Chritianity" is named for made their stance on killing perfectly clear: DO NOT DO IT.

[Krille]

The 30-something number is totally made up too. Googled for 5 seconds and found an article (2010) stating that 20% of Swedes were pro death penalty if the crime was murder.

[Noradin]

As a Swede I fully support the death penalty as long as the convicted person without a single doubt is the perpetrator of whatever crime they are charged with.
Sentence to be carried out pretty much immediately and not dragged out and costing a lot of money for 30-60 years.

So... never?

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And the biggest reason it cost that much is because of the length they spend locked up and all the appeals they are able to throw while imprisoned.

That is to make sure there is no doubt.

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I don't believe anyone said the death penalty was for deterrence.

Then you shoud (re)read this thread.
Here is one example found in just a few secs:

I suppose it depends on how you view prison. Do you see it as rehabilitation? Justice? Deterrence?
Personally to me it is first and foremost justice followed by deterrence, and I'd say that death is a pretty big deterrence to someone who may contemplating murder. People need to be scared of committing crimes because of the consequences, and I don't think it gets much more scary than the death penalty

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OK, let me try. "Everything I make up is not fabricated"

In essence you said, "the sky is green and this is true because you are against it".

You seem to have a problem with reading and understanding texts written in the English language.

[unbound]

I was reading about the history of the death penalty in different parts of the world, and I noticed that the death penalty in Sweden was abolished in 1910.

According to a 2006 study, 36% of all Swedes still support the death penalty.

My question is, why wouldn't someone support the death penalty especially if the person in question committed atrocious crimes like murder and rape and such?

With Sweden's jail system basically putting prisoners up in a luxury apartment, I would think that its beyond disgusting to allow a murderer such luxury.

General question: Do you support the death penalty?

There are two major problems with the death penalty.

1) You are never completely certain if you have the right person. In the US alone, over 150 people who were on death row (i.e. they were going to be executed) were found to be innocent since 1973. That means a judge and jury thought they absolutely had the right person, but later evidence proved their innocence. At least 20 of those cases were due to DNA proving their evidence.

That doesn't mean that all the innocent people were found. We have, in all likelihood, executed many innocent people in the past, and even today. In the US, many prosecutors fight against using DNA evidence because they don't want the public to know that the system screwed up in the first place.

To put that in perspective, there have been less than 1,500 executions in the US since 1973. This means that over 10% of who we were going to execute were found to be innocent. When you are talking life and death, that is a terrible record. And, again, those are just the people we happen to know were innocent...almost certainly, some of the less than 1,500 people executed were absolutely innocent. It is entirely likely that 20% of people on death row are actually innocent.

This is the truth of the real world. The real world is not like the detective shows on TV. The world is not black and white despite how many people would like to think it is.

2) There is no gain in using the death penalty. It doesn't deter crime (it never has - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ter-criminals/ ), and only serves to satisfy a bloodlust or vengeance which is are not healthy feelings to be nurtured in a population. It provides pleasure to many spectators, and no one in their right mind should be encouraging such feelings over the killing of another human being.


There are a lot of other arguments against the death penalty, but those are the two big ones in my mind.

The biggest question that comes to my mind on this subject is "Why?". Why the interest in killing someone? An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Lock them up...perhaps until they die if necessary. If they are found innocent later, they can be released...thus, simply jailing gives us the possibility of addressing a mistake. Capital punishment gives us no such opportunity.

[Noradin]

Europe has never had any say or referendum on a death penalty. For quite a lot of countries it was abolished as a requirement for EU membership.

And all of those were dictatorships? Curious, I thought one other prerequisite of joining the EU beside not having a death penalty was being a democracy...

Just as a hint for you to help you understand European languages better: "democratic" is not synonymous with "decided by referendum".

[TwistedSkull]

Short. No i do not. Inhuman acts shouldn't be answered with inhuman acts...

[Shadowferal]

Inhumans can be killed without remorse, regret or anger.

[kail]

Inhumans can be killed without remorse, regret or anger.

Funny as it's usually done because of anger.

[Shadowferal]

Funny as it's usually done because of anger.

*nods*
But typically without remorse or regret.

No one loses any sleep when someone bites it that truly deserves it anyway.

[AeneasBK]

No one loses any sleep when someone bites it that truly deserves it anyway.

Whatever helps you sleep at night really.

[Deleted]

Whatever helps you sleep at night really.

I can only sleep properly if I know my justice system wastes a lot of money in unnecessary killing that provide very little to society.

[May90]

The death penalty itself is fine. The "you can't be 100% sure" complaint is a smokescreen, because you can't be 100% in any human endeavor. You can ruin someone's life just as permanently by incarcerating them, and even death penalty opponents are perfectly fine with that.

All you can do is be honest about it and try your goddamnedest to get it right, which the current set of multi-layer mandatory appeals and people blindly fighting against the thing regardless of circumstances takes the pressure off.

A society that is allowed to collectively kill its members, for whatever reason, is fine - how? Also, how does it make it better than those who, they claim, "deserve" to die? If a person murdered someone, and you (society) murdered that person in turn, then shouldn't you be murdered too now, for consistency?