On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Pierre Lemieux wrote:
> Two other hypotheses:
>
> 1) Ordinary people forecast (not incorrectly, in my opinion) that the death
> penalty may, in the future, be imposed in matters where THEY might be
> caught -- like, say, drug trade or illegal gun ownership, or killing BATF
> cops in self-defense. Then, the DNA technology does not decrease, but
> increases, the probability of a peaceful individual being executed. This
> might be called the "Boston-Tea-Party" hypothesis.
>
> 2) People are not really in favor of the death penalty, except in extreme
> cases. (This may be related to the punishment-dilemma argument by Buchanan;
> call it the Punishment-Dilemma hypothesis.) And they believe (are they
> wrong?) that the DNA technology will actually increase the number of guilty
> people being executed, including moral borderline cases that they would not
> want to punish so severely.
I think these hypotheses are correct -- at least for some people. For
instance, I no longer believe in the death penalty because I don't think
the state should have a right to take the lives of its citizens. The very
justification of the idea implies that the crime was against the state,
not a person, which I disagree with. On the other hand, I must admitt
there are some crimes which are so henious that I'd like to off the
criminal myself.
Furthermore, I think Pierre is correct in guessing the death penality
could well be extended to other crimes. For instance, drug dealers/users
could be punished more harshly to futher the "war on drugs". Given the
number of people who have used drugs at some point in time, I doubt this
would be very popular, but it could be forced through in some places.
But I wander from economics...
Luke
