[토픽] [11월25일] 2nd Debating Topic

[Jimmy,Jeong]

<참고 자료1>

[EDITORIAL]Hearing on death penalty

Religious and human rights organizations in the nation have long championed the abolition of capital punishment. But it is only a recent development that debate on the issue is quickly moving into the public domain. This change, though belated, should be welcome.
In late 2004, as many as 175 lawmakers endorsed a bill on abolishing capital punishment in favor of life imprisonment without parole. The National Human Rights Commission also recommended its abolition last year. But few follow-up measures were taken.
But a tectonic change came last month when the Ministry of Justice, hitherto one of the staunchest defenders of capital punishment, said it would seriously consider writing its own bill in favor of life imprisonment without parole or commutation. Now a National Assembly committee is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the issue tomorrow.
But pushing for legislation is much easier said than done, given substantial public opposition to the proposal to substitute life imprisonment without parole for capital punishment. According to a nationwide poll conducted on commission by a broadcasting company last month, 46.1 percent of the 625 respondents supported capital punishment, while 37.9 percent opposed it.
The public hearing to be held by the Legislation and Judiciary Committee should be part of a long and arduous process of building public consensus on the issue of abolishing capital punishment. The general public as well as activist groups should be encouraged to engage in lively discussions.
Advocates for capital punishment claim that potential criminals will be deterred from committing heinous crimes for fear of being executed. But their adversaries often cite such studies as one conducted for the United Nations, which concludes that "it is not prudent to accept the hypothesis that capital punishment deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment."
Restitution is another justification presented by those who insist on retaining capital punishment. In attacking this argument, their opponents make a moral or religious case that no one, be it an individual or a state, has the right to kill a person under any circumstances.
But one of the most serious problems with capital punishment is the possibility, no matter how remote, that a person may be executed for a crime he or she did not commit. One such case is the 1975 execution of eight dissidents, against whom the KCIA fabricated the charges of attempting to overthrow the government of South Korea on the orders of North Korea. It is awaiting retrial now. To overturn the case, however, will not completely undo the wrong already done.
This and other similar cases should do abolitionists much service when they try to make a convincing case against capital punishment. Another merit for them is that none of those condemned to capital punishment has been executed since December 1997. This fact will certainly help make it easier for Korea to renounce the death penalty in law as well as in practice.
Barring the unexpected, Korea will soon join the group of countries that are classified by Amnesty International as "abolitionist in practice." They are the countries that "retain the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions for the past 10 years or more."
It should not be too late if Korea should become abolitionist in law as well during the next couple of years. According to a recently updated report from Amnesty International, 86 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty, and another 11 countries have retained it only for exceptional crimes such as those committed in wartime.

<참고 자료 2>

[Gary S. Becker]Morality of capital punishment

The United States is often criticized for its refusal to abolish capital punishment. Many now claim that abolition of capital punishment is a precondition of a civilized criminal-law system. Nobel laureate Gary Becker disagrees.

European governments are adamantly opposed to capital punishment - the European Union bans it outright - and some Europeans consider its use in the United States barbaric. Indeed, many European intellectuals argue that not just capital punishment, but punishment in general, does not deter criminals.

But, whereas Europeans, with crime rates well below American rates for the past half-century, could long afford to be relatively "soft" on most crimes, they have seen their crime rates increase sharply during the past twenty years. By contrast, American rates have fallen, in part because of greater use of punishment.

This includes capital punishment. I support executing some people convicted of murder because - and only because - I believe that it deters other murders. If I did not believe that, I would oppose capital punishment, because revenge and other possible motives should not be a basis for public policy.

Serious empirical research on capital punishment in the United States began with a pioneering study by Isaac Ehrlich, published in 1975 in the American Economic Review. Some subsequent studies have sometimes found a much weaker deterrent effect, while others have found a much stronger effect. The available data are quite limited, however, so one should not base any conclusions solely on the econometric evidence.

Of course, public policy on any punishment cannot wait until the evidence is perfect. But, even with the limited quantitative evidence available, there are good reasons to believe that capital punishment deters.

Most people, and murderers in particular, fear death, especially when it follows swiftly and with considerable certainty following the commission of a murder. As David Hume put it in discussing suicide, "no man ever threw away life, while it was worth living. For such is our natural horror of death ..." Likewise, Schopenhauer believed that "as soon as the terrors of life reach a point at which they outweigh the terrors of death, a man will put an end to his life. But the terrors of death offer considerable resistance ..."

Opponents of capital punishment frequently proclaim that the state has no moral right to take anyone`s life, including that of the most reprehensible murderer. Yet that is absolutely the wrong conclusion for anyone who believes that capital punishment deters.

To see why, suppose that for each murderer executed (instead of, say, receiving life imprisonment), the number of murders is reduced by three, which is a much lower number than Ehrlich`s and some other estimates of the deterrent effect. This implies that for each murderer not executed, three innocent victims would die. In fact, the government would indirectly be "taking" many lives if it did not use capital punishment.

Saving three innocent lives for every person executed seems like a very attractive trade-off, and even two lives saved per execution seems like a persuasive benefit-cost ratio for capital punishment. Admittedly, however, the argument in favor of capital punishment becomes less clear-cut as the number of lives saved per execution falls. But, even if only one life were saved per execution, the tradeoff might still be desirable if the life saved is much better than the life taken, which would usually be the case.

Many people object to comparing the quality of the life spared and the life taken. Yet I do not see how to avoid such a comparison. Consider a career criminal who robs and kills a victim who led a decent life and left several children and a spouse behind. Suppose it would be possible to save the life of an innocent victim by executing such a criminal. To me it is obvious that saving such a victim`s life must count for more than taking the criminal`s life. Obviously, not all cases are so unambiguous, but a comparison of the qualities of individual lives must be part of any reasonable social policy.

This helps explain why capital punishment should be used only for murders, and not for lesser crimes. When the tradeoff is between taking lives and, say, reducing property theft, the case for milder punishments is far stronger. Although severe assaults, including some gruesome rapes, may approach some murders in severity, and might conceivably call for capital punishment, I do not support its use in these cases.

A powerful argument for reserving capital punishment for murders is "marginal deterrence." If assault were punished with execution, perpetrators would have an incentive to kill their victims to avoid discovery (which is a major reason why the severity of punishments more generally should be matched to the severity of crimes).

One complication is that capital punishment may make a murderer fight harder to avoid being captured, which could lead to more deaths. But, while marginal deterrence is important, I believe the resistance of murderers to being captured, possibly at the expense of their own lives, is really indirect evidence that criminals do fear capital punishment.

Of course, I worry about the risk of executing the innocent. My support for capital punishment would weaken greatly if the rate of killing innocent people were as large as that claimed by many. However, I believe that the appeal process in the United States offers enormous protection, not so much against wrongful conviction as against wrongful execution, so that there are very few, if any, documented cases of innocent people being killed. And this process has been strengthened enormously with the development of DNA identification.

Again, the debate about capital punishment is essentially a debate about deterrence (which may be reduced by lengthy appeals). I can understand that some people are skeptical about the evidence, although I believe they are wrong about both that and the common sense of the issue. It is very disturbing to take someone`s life, even a murderer`s life, but sometimes highly unpleasant actions are necessary to prevent even worse behavior that takes the lives of innocent victims.

The abolition of capital punishment(death penalty)  사형제도 폐지

Abolitionist 폐지론자                          Life imprisonment : 무기징역

To be sentenced to life imprisonment 무기징역 선고를 받다.

Parole 가석방                                To be paroled 가석방 되다

Commutation 감형

Ex) The person’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment

그는 사형에서 무기징역으로 감형되었다.

To hold a public hearing  공개 청문회를 열다

To commit crimes 범죄를 저지르다           To be executed 사형에 처해지다.

Restitution (손해)배상(금)                    To fabricate ~를 지어내다, 위조하다.

Amnesty International 국제 사면 위원회

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 Pro : I completely support capital punishment. First, the fact that the criminal remain alive would be just deepening the pain felt by the victims. Furthermore, it is only natural that an evil deed is punished.

Con: I am against capital punishment. First reason is that no matter how heinous the crime is, criminals are still human beings and every human being, good or bad, is entitled to certain rights. In addition, it is my opinion that instead of killing criminals, forcing them to spend the rest of their remaining lives in prison to atone for their crimes would be a much harsher punishment.

Pro : Although criminals are entitled to certain rights, I believe that the rights of the victims take precedence. Since their actions have not only ruined lives but have also harmed our society in general, I don't see why we should guarantee their rights. Moreover, because sentencing serves as a punishment for crimes, letting them continues their lives would only increase the tax burden felt by citizens. We would need to feed, house, and clothes them, which all require the hard-earned taxes honest people have paid.

Con : It's possible that heinous crimes may be the result of the criminal's natural evil tendencies. However, you cannot ignore the external social influences that forced a person to commit a crime. Capital punishment does little to educate criminals or save the victims. All it does is put all of the blame on the criminal himself. In fact, majority of the developed nations around the world has abolished capital punishment and it has been statistically proven that heinous crime rate has not significant increased as a result of these abolishments. 

1.What do you think of the capital punishment?

2.Did you remember brutal criminals 조두순, 강호순, 유영철? Do you think they are right to die? or Do

  you think they have a human right?

3.Would you like to share some story about the felonry? 

[Kevin7]

good~ it is a heavy topic

[Jake(Kai bird)]

이번 토픽츄저들은 모두 부지런한듯~ㅎㅎ

[james Heo]

형님 수고하셨습니다... 토론할때 원할한 진행을 위해 디베이팅 질문 몇개만 올려주실 수 있으세요??...

[Bill Lee]

허어.. 난 오늘이 월요일인 줄 알았네.. 이 사람들 넘 부지런다하다 ㅋㅋ

[Linzy]

이 사람들만 계속 시킬까요? ㅋ

[RayKIM]

↑ 이 사람들은 마이존 수욜모임의 정신에 위배됩니다.

[Jake(Kai bird)]

당일공지 당일토론 원칙?

[RayKIM]

당일공지 당일토론 -> 굳!!

[james Heo]

당신들때문에 내가 마이존에서 항의전화를 받는 거야... 빨리 올리라고