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by simonh
1888 days ago
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I think the state legitimately reserves for itself the right to resort to lethal force. National defence and effective policing can require violence when necessary. The key issue for me is necessity. It is not necessary to execute criminals, even murderers. I do have sympathy for the view that murderers deserve death, maybe many of them do, but then you get into drawing lines between cases that deserve death and ones that don't. Is the evidence in this case good enough to kill, but this one the evidence is only good enough to incarcerate. It politicises the judicial and criminal justice system. So I oppose the death penalty not because it's barbaric or morally wrong per se, but because it introduces moral hazard that compromises the system. We can see this in the US where prosecutors fight tooth and nail to preserve convictions and ensure convicts get executed largely in order to protect the system of executions from the embarrassment of death row inmates getting exonerated. Defending the system becomes more important than serving justice. As a Brit I think politicisation is the thing that concerns me most about the US justice system. Elected prosecutors, elected judges, the politicisation of executions I described above. I don't know what it's like in other countries, but comparatively speaking all that just isn't a thing over here at all. Political debate on criminal justice is focused on laws and the administration of policing. That's really about it. It's not like we don't have miscarriages of justice, our system is far from perfect but it's mainly sees as being independent and professionalised. |
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