General Discussion

This is why I have no real objection to the death penalty, some crimes must be punished with as much severity as possible. There are many people in prison who are otherwise decent save for the instance of the crime they committed, or at the best have some redeemable qualities; for them rehabilitation is certainly a possibility. A petty thief might be redeemed into a productive member of our society.

But what of those that would rape, whom would kill, that would harm the innocent? I fully believe that there are people in this world that are broken beyond redemption. Those individuals might be broken by external forces in their lives; abusive parents for example; a few of them are simply born that way; a flaw in the mind or in the structure of the brain itself. Those are the people for whom there is no redemption on this earth. It isn't for their sake we have prisons or lethal injection; the point of executing murderers is to rid ourselves of them. Simply executing a killer won't deter murder from happening again, and since we all die in the end execution isn't that big of a punishment; no as I said execution is simply just to get rid of them for good. Life in prison without parole is very much along the same lines; 'throwing the key away' on an individual isn't to punish, it's to protect the rest of us from them.

A few 'broken' individuals might benefit from psychiatric treatment; in those instances long-term involuntary confinement in a medical institution would be the best course of action. Any act sentencing a criminal to execution or life in prison should go hand in hand with a psychiatric review.

However, not every broken individual is mentally ill to the point of them committing the crime against their will. Take for instance the recent case of the student raping and killing his teacher in the bathroom; a premeditated act of murder with an attempt to conceal the crime. Painful as it might be to consider, I would certainty consider him eligible for life imprisonment if not execution.