Could thay just ecscape.

I can’t disagree with you, especially about the abuse under privatized prisons.

Let’s be clear. They can NEVER make amends. Period.

And, though I am not a Christian, let us also remember that the point of the “eye for an eye” was a limitation so that it is an injunction not to take a life for an eye, rather than a dictate to take an equal amount.

Having said that, it is a very treacherous and slippery slope that we are discussing. Thus why I would only entertain the discussion, not fully commit to it, without severe and unbreakable protections. It is ripe for abuse and coercion. It is a valid theory. I am not convinced it could be implemented.

I am also not in favor of any sort of labor out of the prisons as we have already seen that abused under the older system as well as the modern. In most states, but I ma most familiar with those here in Florida, there has been a push to privatize the prisons, and turn them in to money makers. The next step is to turn the prisoners literally into a captive labor force. Turning the LWOPs in to an unlimited labor force, even if supposedly voluntary is not something I would ever support.

@Just Torch – excellent suggestion! If the convict really want to make amends, feel true remorse and wanted to give back, it is a fine option. I was considering the cost of housing a prisoner long-term vs. letting him opt out, especially opt out of a life of daily degradation and nightly sodomy games (prison-for-profit perhaps being the worst offender.)

I’m sure there are other ideas for ways LWOPs can contribute beyond simple old-South road gangs and making license plates. Rebuilding infrastructure? Should I trust my car to the man who wears the stripes, not the star? I guess more to the point, what else could we find for them of some social value that did NOT require them to leave the walls… But I like your answer.

David, I actually would completely support that, as that would be a final act of freedom and mercy. However, if we are considering ALL the possibilities, I would also entertain a system whereby a condemned could give a revokable consent to be used as “human guinea pig” thereby actually CONTRIBUTING to society rather than JUST being penalized or removed from society.

While I have agreed with every thing else I have read, I have a third alternative – a condemned person’s right to choose – if sentenced to life without possibility, the convict should have the option to ask for a painless, humane death, to be carried out that same day or ASAP (it’s the convict’s choice, so there are no appeal issues involved..)

But in this world of polarized binary choice, I have to agree – no death penalty.

I believe that ALL INTERACTION of incarcerated people and their jailers should be recorded and monitored, by video and audio recoding. In ALL instances of such, interruptions perpetrated against these “official” records will be researched by an unaffiliated- outside investigator and any individual(s) investigated and found to have been involved with the interruption of said recordings should be HELD to be personally liable and punished monetarily and physically, to a degree commensurate with the severity of the consequence of the interruption, even to the point of discharge from employment, incarceration within the facility at which they worked, or other facility without exception. In public-common areas of these facilities, 24 hr public viewing via online and/or PUBLIC ACCESS TV CHANNELS should be made available FOR ALL who desire to select a particular “cell” entrance or common area to see/monitor via these means. Lastly, GET THE PRIVATE JAILERS OUT of the business of generating PRIVATE REVENUE, for crimes alleged against “THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF…”, for profit and fun. These private corporations should be barred from such morally shameful and corrupting activity, and have their charters revoked and assets distributed to the “PUBLIC” benefit.

Liz (posted 22 days ago), you sparked the following thoughts in my mind:
It seems to me that many times, for many years, from many penal systems throughout the country, news has broken and continues to break, from a trickle to what may now be perceived as a flood, of publicized cases of prisoners, having spent enormous portions of their lives locked in cages, and in too many instances, isolated from essential contact with other human beings (the California “SHU” system would be an example) for excessively long periods of time, and even on “DEATH ROW”, only to subsequently be exonerated of the crime for which they were accused and convicted, as a result of the dogged pursuit of the truth, or a confession of the actual guilty party, or the recanting of coerced witness testimony-under less antagonistic environs, new-exculpatory DNA evidence-revealing the convicted reasonably couldn’t logically/possibly be the perpetrator of the deed for which convicted and sentenced,or calls from the masses and representatives and lovers of justice (even from around the world-as in the case of Troy Anthony Davis of Georgia, USA) for a re-investigation of a particular case as a result of new developments identified and scrutinized and publicizing improprieties in a particular case, and so many other reasons for abolition of the inhumane “DEATH PENALTY”. Yes, our “injustice” system is in serious-extreme disrepair, is of ill repute (so many adjudged innocents at Guantanamo yet- still locked in!) and demands review and reform at all levels. Honestly, no one can legitimately claim our current legal system as it has been practiced till now, is an impartial and “just” one, when it will sentence a shoplifter to life in prison and then turn-around and use that blinder across her eyes in order to contribute to the “hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil, SEE-NO-EVIL” monkey business when it comes to the massive scale of criminal actions of the captains of “ENTERTAINMENT/INDUSTRY/FINANCE and high places within a tainted GOVERNMENT”, which are truly deserving of the title and legal prosecution as “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY”, but instead are allowed to “get away with it” by the guardians of this fixed/rigged morally barren and politically institutionalized system of injustice.

Personally, I am less concerned with the cost. I am willing to justify any expense in the name of justice. The innocence project has documented and freed a number of persons who thankfully were not executed before the project was able to have their convictions overturned.

We’ll never know how many innocents have been killed, because the vast majority of the time, once they’re killed, no one continues any investigations. There are very few examples to the contrary.

It is a very thorny and complicated issue, and I don’t claim to have the answer. :-/ I just know that I firmly believe that the conditions in which we keep prisoners sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole is a far more cruel sentence than to kill them outright. The death of mercy at that point, seems much more kind. I know there have been cases where convicts have begged NOT to be sentenced to life because they too felt it was more cruel.

I agree with Just Torch and need to review (1) costs of life in prison versus the appeal process associated with the Death Penalty, and (2) how many cases are on file where the death penalty has been applied to innocent people. I am sure these cases are few and far between, but the consequences are enormous with respect to the fairness of our Justice system.

I am not exactly pro-death penalty. My problem though is that I find the sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole to be even more cruel than the death penalty.