Moans and groans abound in the West about the hidden numbers behind China’s death penalties.
I’m often baffled how anyone who claims to be a caring person could fight to keep murderers, drug dealers, child molesters and rapists from getting a swift death penalty.
The Death Penalty Information Center says that when the Constitution was written, the time between sentencing and execution could be measured in days or weeks (as it is in China today).
Today, the typical death row inmate in America spends a decade awaiting execution. Some have been on death row for over 20 years. In California, keeping him or her alive that long would cost about one million and that does not include court costs. The only ones who win are the lawyers.
I read a post at error bank.com that offers concerns about the death penalty.
One issue raised was of innocent people found guilty in court then years or decades later, he or she is found innocent but by then it is too late. However, I’m sure more criminal types are executed than innocent victims. Many times, the so-called innocent victim was also a career criminal with a long arrest record.
As for the cost, Amnesty USA, while arguing against the death penalty, makes a case to return to the time of the U.S. Founding Fathers.
Amnesty said that in Kansas the cost of a death penalty case was 70% higher than the cost of comparable non-death penalty cases.
However, Amnesty doesn’t mention that it costs more because of all the appeals that drag cases out for years.
The median cost for a death penalty case in Kansas was $1.26 million.
In Maryland, a death penalty case costs 3 times as much as Kansas, and in California, it costs $11.5 million for each case.
K.D. Koratsky touched on this topic in Living With Evolution. On page 182, he says this of career criminals, “Over time, by consistently eliminating those who could not get along with others, populations were eventually left largely with the genes that promoted non-kin biocultural coevolution. … nations with the strict codes of law enforced by strong state apparatuses (like China) tended to prosper over others, all else being equal.”
Although a few innocents might die, China may be getting it right be ridding its population of serious criminal types who reproduce leading to more violent crimes by his or her progeny.
Murder of “innocent” people is cruel and inhuman!
Rape is cruel and inhuman!
Child molesters are cruel and inhuman!
Selling hard, illegal drugs for profit is cruel and inhuman!
Destroying lives for profit is also cruel and inhuman!
See Cultural Differences and China’s Changing Legal System
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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