Evil or not!!! (Has nothing to doe with Sci/Fi or tv)
FX: I agree that the majority of murder cases right now is made up primarily of repeat offenders and/or people who kill for little to no real reason (i.e. over money). I was basically addressing the point and problem of escapees. What I meant was that your average murderer is not uncontrollably compulsive when it comes to killing. It’s not like they *have* to kill as part of their psychological makeup. So, in the rare case of a prison break, and in the rare case of it involving someone convicted of murder, the chance of the escapee putting many more lives in danger is slim. They wouldn’t desire to bring more attention to themselves by immediately killing again, and they are usually captured fairly quickly.
As for the cost issue, I brought that up mostly because it’s one of the points that I often had to deal with when explaining why I was against the death penalty. I would always end up dealing with someone who would say “Well, I don’t want to have to pay to keep some criminal behind bars his/her entire life.” It’s not the main reason why I’m against the death penalty (I just found this fact out recently, actually, and I’ve long been against the sentence). It is, however, a reason. And anyway, sometimes a person’s actions cause their value in my eyes to get reduced to a question of which is the most cost-effective way to keep this schmuck off the streets. At that point, I don’t care about his or her human dignity, and whether or not it deserves preserving, I just want them away from everyone else. If new evidence or new investigative techniques can lead to prove their innocence, then let them out.
Of course, there is the question of the overcrowding of America’s prisons. One aspect of which can be easily solved (and this may ruffle a few feathers as well): Let people who are guilty of “crimes” against themselves *out of prison*. There are people in prison right now on convictions of drug posession for personal use. Not even intent to distribute. Kids are facing “mandatory minimum” sentences of years to life because they happened to be carrying blotter acid, which gets weighed to determine their crime, and which includes the blotter used as a medium to carry the drug. It’s like if someone was carrying a joint in a lead box, and they get charged with carrying 300 lbs of marijuana. The drug war in this country has made criminals of thousands of people who have harmed no one but themselves (if even that). Instead of effective treatment (unless you live in Beverly Hills), people with the disease of addiction are put away in prisons, where they can get drugs easily. Unfortunately, the propaganda machine has worked too well in this country, and these things will probably never get reversed in my lifetime.
(off my soapbox now, I promise)
–Aleck