Return Capital Punishment - ReCaP

I don't know about the UK. Here (USA), the prison population problem has a lot to do with a rigid insistence on sticking to failed drug policy, in spite of the clear evidence that it does not work. This is far from obvious. It might be more effective to improve education, and to find ways of creating better job opportunities for our youth.I don't have any ideological objections to capital punishment. But I do live in Illinois where, not too long ago, it turned out that more than half the people on death row were innocent. That gives one pause.At evcforum, we often deal with two different methods at getting at the truth. One of these is the scientific method, and the other is the method used by evangelical scholars.As our debates have demonstrated, the scientific method does very well even though fallible. The methods of evangelical scholarship seem highly error prone, and are aimed more at finding "proof" of preconceived notions than at getting at the truth. Unfortunaly the methodology used in criminal investigation looks far more like that of evangelical scholarship than that of science. It is inevitable that capital punishment will lead to state sponsored murder of innocent people. If you want capital punishment, you had better first reform the criminal justice system.

I haven't said that at all. Apologies if what I said seemed to imply that.

There have been cases where the investigation turned up evidence that could have exonerated the accused. The scientific method is to follow that evidence. If that had been done, these innocent people would not have been convicted. However, the investigators too often ignored evidence that did not fit their preconceived conclusion as to what happened.Proper use of the scientific method could indeed have avoided many of these problems.

This sounds naive. There isn't always DNA evidence available.I suggest you read about the Nicarico case:
Northwestern report
Innocence project report
criminology society
Eric Zorn (columnist)
DNA considered not relevantIt is a sordid story of a justice system driven by emotion and political ambition, and the blatant exclusion of critical evidence.

The problem is that our justice system isn't very good. If often is a matter of the police having a hunch, and then finding ways of construing the evidence to support that hunch.When the wrong person is executed, how do you propose to bring justice to that person's family?

I don't have any problem with that. I don't even expect the system to be perfect.The problem at present, is that the incentives are all wrong. There are very strong incentives for the prosecution to get a conviction. There are only quite weak incentives for them to convict the right person. And that's what needs to be fixed.

I think you are misreading Ben.I read Ben as saying that we live in an imperfect world, and our system of justice depends on imperfect human judgements. Therefore perfection is unachievable. The aim should be to have a very low rate of wrongful conviction, not an unachievable zero rate. I also read Ben as being concerned about wrongful convictions in cases of long prison sentences, not just in capital cases.I largely agree with Ben on this. The only way to completely eliminate conviction of innocent people is to shut down our justice system. But if we do that, it will be replaced by street justice, also resulting in punishment of innocent people.

I can't think of one.In particular, I agree with you that a long prison term ruins an innocent person's life just as surely as does the death penalty. We both see to be swimming against the current on that one.

Mandela is a remarkable man. Few would be able to do as well as he did in such circumstances.