4-year-old girl beheaded in Taiwan knife attack

[the game]

Some people simply do not care about consequences, even if it's death penalty.

Agreed. Someone who is truly psychopathic likely has as much concern for their own life as they do for the people they hurt or kill.

[Deleted]

It's you that tried to attribute harshness of the justice system with crime rates. It doesn't have much to do with eachother. That there's countries which practices the death penalty and has lower crime rates than countries where there's a way too lenient stance on crime goes to show that it's not about how harsh the penalties are.

Would you mind proving that? Because numbers seem inconclusive for me. Harsh punishment is ineffective.

While my own opinions on this are just that, my own, I have to say that I've met quite a few criminals, former criminals and other outcasts, and every single one of them only ever wanted one thing: help.
Reducing poverty and segregation is a much better solution to crime than any punishment.

While a lot of people think that rehabilitation for criminals sounds like hippie bullshit, I've seen the actual criminals and those that commit crime, and I personally am very convinced that alienating them even more is NOT the solution.

Even prisoners in US prisons say that prison time only made them tougher and alienated them completely. They lose all ability to come back into society for a normal life. Give people the power to live honestly and many will take it.
Ofcourse there are actual bad people who will never change, but for those we have prisons.

[Deleted]

Would you mind proving that? Because numbers seem inconclusive for me. Harsh punishment is ineffective.

It's neither effective nor ineffective. Harsh penalties doesn't influence the crime rates that much, neither does lenient penalties. What can be affected is reoffending rates, if you have a lenient system focused on rehabilitation, which is different from crime rates. Sure, you'll get a somewhat lower crime rate if you can rehabilitate repeat offenders but a lenient or harsh system doesn't influence whether someone will commit a crime in the first place.

[Deleted]

No? I'm saying culture influences crime rates more than laws, you can have really lenient or harsh laws - it won't affect the rate of crime that much. A high trust society has low crime rates, a low trust society has higher crime rates. We had a low amount of crime even when we had the death penalty in Sweden in the 20th century.

These cultures you think about, consider how much poverty they have and how equal or not equal they might be.
Sure, some behavior is taught. That's why many substance abusers come from troubled families. To break such a cycle, criminals and substance abusers need completely new lives. Because if they stay with their old life, with their old friends, the circle cannot be broken.

[Deleted]

These cultures you think about, consider how much poverty they have and how equal or not equal they might be.
Sure, some behavior is taught. That's why many substance abusers come from troubled families. To break such a cycle, criminals and substance abusers need completely new lives. Because if they stay with their old life, with their old friends, the circle cannot be broken.

Poverty doesn't make you a criminal, you are ignoring all the other theories to favor one that you personally like because it's a simple explanation instead of wanting to understand the complexity in what makes someone commit a crime.

[Deleted]

It's neither effective nor ineffective. Harsh penalties doesn't influence the crime rates that much, neither does lenient penalties. What can be affected is reoffending rates, if you have a lenient system focused on rehabilitation, which is different from crime rates. Sure, you'll get a somewhat lower crime rate if you can rehabilitate repeat offenders but a lenient or harsh system doesn't influence whether someone will commit a crime in the first place.

Yes, I agree completely.

[HumbleDuck]

Not the little kids they strap bombs to and send in to die. Very few people actually want to kill themselves. Plenty want to kill OTHER people though.

Yea, my point was that pshycopaths are not necessarily afraid of being killed.

[Socialhealer]

"The suspect was detained at a police station, where a large angry crowd gathered. Officers attempted to escort him out of the building, still with blood splashed across his face, but several people rushed the suspect, eventually forcing police to take him back inside."

i would of left him to the angry crowd.

literally no-one loses, the crowd gets what it wants and justice is served.

[Deleted]

Poverty doesn't make you a criminal.

No, but it poverty makes people desperate and desperate people may break laws to get by. But poverty also means a lack of education and often lacking or completely missing infrastructure, all of which lead to crime.

There's plenty of poachers out there in the world and many of them are really poor people seeing a quick way to make a buncha money so their family can survive. But that does make them criminals in doing so.

- - - Updated - - -

Yea, my point was that pshycopaths are not necessarily afraid of being killed.

Ain't that the definition of a psychopath?

[The Penguin]

That has never, statistically, prevented crime. Public executions do nothing. People committing crimes don't care about the consequences in the first place or they feel they can never be apprehended, or, they don't even think there are consequences. Many of the most mentally-ill criminals believe themselves to be above the law and punishment.

Sounds like it's time for this particular one to find out that isn't the case then.

[Deleted]

No, but it poverty makes people desperate and desperate people may break laws to get by. But poverty also means a lack of education and often lacking or completely missing infrastructure, all of which lead to crime.

There's plenty of poachers out there in the world and many of them are really poor people seeing a quick way to make a buncha money so their family can survive. But that does make them criminals in doing so.

Mind you, what I write here is is specific to Sweden since we have a pretty extensive social welfare system so I can't speak for other countries, there is no reason to commit crime out of poverty in Sweden(Which has a lenient system that's supposed to be based on rehabilitation), we pay for peoples living costs if they end up in the shitter here, you get your apartment rent paid for, you get your food paid for, you get electricity paid for and so forth, and you get some money over to spend on other things, like leisure, every month, too.

It's entirely possible that the people who are poor and commit crime here, are dysfunctional in some way that makes them unable to function in a satisfactory way in society and as a result they end up in poverty and the dysfunctionality is what is leading them to do crime. That's the only possible explanation I can see for it, considering you're unlikely to ever be in a situation where you have to commit crime in Sweden to get by when we have such an extensive social welfare system.

We can see this dysfunctionality in drug addicts who are poor, they are more prone to committing crime than the other people in poverty. They're also less likely to get help from the state, because they refuse to adhere to the requirements to receive welfare(Attend rehab program to help you get rid of your drug addiction/be drug free).

[Darsithis]

Sounds like it's time for this particular one to find out that isn't the case then.

*sigh*

Again, as Endus pointed out, these people are psychopaths. They don't view consequences with the same trepidation that we do. They don't necessarily even view themselves as perpetrating the crime, or their actions as criminal. The threat of death does not deter them.

[The Penguin]

I understand that perfectly well. Drazail made a similar point a few pages back.

Send a message to other mentally ill people to keep their mind together? Don't you think if they could they wouldn't be called mentally ill?
The murderer should take medical treatment and be kept in till he is safe for the society. Then face his trial.

If that's possible, which I fervently doubt. But more often than not it's cheaper to just eliminate him and use the money to find out how to prevent his defect. The sad fact is we spend far too much money, and show too much leniency to the mentally ill. Now if there was and is a actual solution to solving and treating this person? Sure, I'm all for that. By all means make him well so he understands the gravity of his actions.

At the same time it feels morally bankrupt to give anyone clemency or a stay of execution (which a sane person assuredly would be sentenced to) because he was "mentally ill". He still has murdered a 4 year old and needs to answer for that.

It is because I feel that such a sick person probably has no treatment available to make the above thing plausible, that I believe a execution is the best way to proceed. It's not a matter of retribution, it's a matter of logic. I think that such an execution would send a message to society, that yes even the "insane" people will be judged (even if they think their executioner is say Barney the Dinosaur).

It also has a added bonus of a reduced budget as you are not spending the money needed to care for, feed, cloth, and incarcerate such a deranged individual, and because you are not paying those costs you are also not placing the burden and those expenses on the backs of the tax-payers who for the most part do not engage in such behavior to start.

[Phookah]

Trying to scare people with harsh consequences who's literal defining trait is not caring about the consequences of their actions?
This is some out of the box thinking, I like it /sarcasm

[SodiumChloride]

Essentially no study on the efficacy of the death penalty has demonstrated any reduction in crime rates. Largely because people don't commit crimes expecting to get caught. They think they'll get away with it, or they're acting in the heat of the moment and not considering consequences to begin with. Harsher punishments do not deter crime. This isn't a question; multiple studies have been done on the subject, and they confirm this. The few that don't have pretty conclusively been shown to have serious methodological flaws.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/disc...rrence-studies

A typical criminal knows there is a chance he/she will get caught. Everyone has a basic sense of self-preservation.

If someone goes through with a crime, they probably think the benefit is worth the cost & risk.

What harsh punishments do is increase the cost - while improvement in detective work increases the risk. Everyone has a threshold where the cost & risk vs. benefit analysis breaks down and they don't do it - except delusional psychopaths that don't really know what the fuck they are doing.

[Rudkobing]

That's horrible.

[Zcion999]

I noted the murderer has a history of mental illness. I'll probably get flack for saying this, but despite that fact, I feel he absolutely needs to be executed and preferably in a public fashion to send a message. There comes a point where some people are simply too sick in the head to be allowed a chance to rehabilitate. Beheading a 4 year old is one of those things.

Before reading this story I was absolutely certain in my "capital punishment is wrong, no exceptions"...

Now I'm not so sure of my position .. What the fuck is all I can say.

[Daedius]

Just execute him... don't give a damn if he's mentally ill, the world don't need crazies that kill kids. And one less of such dangerous individuals the better. No amount of deterrent would prevent such people committing such things...

[Dellis0991]

This just fucked my day up!

[Deleted]

Put the dog down and safe money.