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Show Death Arguments Don't Hold Wafer By J. Bauman Recently the Chronicle, the Tribune and the Deseret News have been swamped swamp-ed by numerous examples of propaganda defending the grand old tradition of capital cap-ital punishment. Let us examine some of the basic arguments arg-uments supporting capital punishment. One of the most common of these is the "he who kills and gets away lives to kill another day" school of thought. The proponents of this position always begin with the quite valid assumption that society so-ciety has a right to protect itself. So far, so good. Unfortunately, at this point the logic of the argument begins to de- velop tremors: it is further claimed that once a man has killed he will always be a killer, apt to ply his "nefarious hobby" on innocent people when ever possible. This seems highly unlikely to me. Can Be Cured Though I'll be the first to admit that : every soldier who pulls a trigger is twisted to some degree, I don't think i that he will necessarily continue to kill and maim in peacetime. A criminal, of : course, is not to be confused with a soldier. sold-ier. But the soldier and the criminal both . kill because of social pressures working upon them; just as the soldier can be "turned off" and brought back into normal norm-al society, a criminal can also be "turned off" by the right kind of psychological treatment and can also be returned to that society. According to Dr. A. L. Beeley, professor pro-fessor emeritus of sociology, no paroled l Utah murderer has ever repeated his i crime. It therefore seems likely that , with the right kind of rehabilition a con- v victed murderer can be brought back into contact with society. This is merely an assumption and could probably be debated. "In the cases where a killer can never be permitted to return to normalized relations," shout the death mongers, "he must be permanently perman-ently eliminated.". Making the questionable question-able supposition that there may be such cases, I agree such men should not be allowed to threaten the lives of others. But I am not forced into support of capital cap-ital punishment. This brings us to the second great argument in favor of capital punishment: The only effective way to "eliminate" an incorrigible menance to society is to put him to death. The simple-minded illogic of the argument has ripped apart at the seams by now, but it is enlightening to examine it anyway. I maintain that even if it were necessary to permanently keep a man from normal society which is at best unlikely it would be a fairly simple matter to give a man a non-parolable non-parolable life sentence. ' Cost Is Low "This is true," answer the good citizens of Utah, "but if you think I am going to pay all that tax money to keep a useless man alive the rest of his life you must think I'm crazy." Well now all what money? Mr. Williams, chief of the state's Parole and Probation Department, told me that the cost of incarceration (jailing) per prisoner was just under $1700 a year. Seventeen hundred dollars a year! The State Tax Commission sent out 350,000 individual income tax forms last year. Seventeen hundred dollars divided by three hundred fifty thousand tax payers works out to about $.0048. Rounded oil, this comes to half a cent a year pa-w payer. A man's life is cheap at m the price. So there goes the 'alltnai money" arguments. Deep Convictions Opponents of capital punishment w often depicted as "do-gooders" who J; thinkingly condemn any means w may take to protect itself, simply -W they are uncomfortable to the offe J This may be true in some cases, find itlargly unbelievable. I tmtf of those opposed to the deatt i sen have a bit more depth to theiroffl than that. Most of them reg ciety's duty to protect itself bW agree the only way this can certain cases is through the apP" of the death penality. cern itself with its own saiery - , of the protecting of f5 ( p consideration of broad conc oi tice. For its own "Stf not pervert its greatest ideals, m fall back into the primitive eye eye" biblical In a very broad sense ,., sponsible for the behavior of eacn members. . imoerfect So long as society is B largely unconcious there wu ties. The repair of these will never be effected by" & ing of individual offenders ,,i s be brought about by the r,, each of us that we are r r mf. our social order; it; ca n cW about by the rehabihtauon0 aland the elimination of the of his crime. |