While I don't necessarily approve of the conclusion, there are many important points that people seem to underestimate. (Briefly, before discussing them, I suspect that what currently makes death penalty so expensive is all the legal processes around it, so if we replaced all death penalty with life sentence in prison, we would spend more money on the prisoners, but less money on the lawyers, potentially saving money on the net.)
The key part is: While the truly horrible people are few, they cause vastly disproportional damage, plus all kinds of secondary damage (the population living in fear, not trusting each other, spending more money on security, or just not trying many projects because of the perceived risk). Eliminating these people from the streets might change the situation dramatically, possibly in ways that many of us can't even imagine. It could change a low-trust society into a high-trust society, with various positive impacts on mental health and economy.
I have also seen similar dynamics in other situations. For example, in school, there is often one child in a classroom that constantly keeps disrupting lessons, frustrating the teachers and reducing the learning opportu...
We accept that innocent people die due to our actions all the time, and making a special exception here is an isolated demand for rigour.
This is also true for life imprisonment, actually. We'll be sentencing some innocent people to life imprisonment. And although perhaps some of them will be exonerated, it's a statistical certainty that not all of them will be, and a statistical certainty that therefore we will destroy some innocent people's lives piecemeal. But we're okay with that, or at least it doesn't get the ire that the death penalty does.
In fact, this is a general problem with all public policies. Anything you do that affects a large number of people is going to statistically kill a number of innocents, unless it's the absolute optimal policy. You can't avoid killing innocents whether you have executions or not.
"0.12% of the population (the most persistent offenders) accounted for 20% of violent crime convictions" https://inquisitivebird.xyz/p/when-few-do-great-harm
I think the US has too much punishment as it is, with very high incarceration rate and prison conditions sometimes approaching torture (prison rape, supermax isolation).
I'd rather give serial criminals some kind of surveillance collars that would detect reoffending and notify the police. I think a lot of such people can be "cured" by high certainty of being caught, not by severity of punishment. There'd need to be laws to prevent discrimination against people with collars, though.
Have we considered cryopreservation as an alternative solution? It could protect society from dangerous offenders without resorting to irreversible execution, while potentially costing less than long-term incarceration. If medical and rehabilitative technologies advance, this would also preserve the possibility of future reform. Worth exploring as a middle ground that addresses both societal safety and moral concerns.
My paraphrase of Gandalf: "Many that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do the next best thing, and deal out death in judgement to the many that live who deserve it."
I'm a bit conflicted on the subject of death penalty. I do agree with the view some solution is needed for incorrigible cases where you just don't want that person out in general society. But I honestly don't know if killing them versus imprisoning them for life is more or less humane. In terms of steelmanning the case I think one might explore this avenue. Which is the cruelest punishment?
But I would also say one needs to consider alternatives to either prison or death. Historically it was not unheard of to exile criminals to near impossible to escape locations -- Australia possibly being a best example.
> Imprisoning someone for one year in the USA costs in the order of 100,000 dollars
There surely must be some way to decrease that by *at least* a factor of 4 or so, possibly by an order of magnitude, if we wanted to? (The poverty line for a 8-person household in the contiguous US in 2025 is $54,150.) Surely that might involve treating prisoners in rather questionable ways, but still way less questionable than f---ing killing them, IMO.
Another objection I have is that [waaay too many things are considered crimes that shouldn't be](https://archive.org/details/threefeloniesday0000silv) -- what fraction of people in prison are there for reasons comparable to any of your examples?
Some conclusions should be drawn from existing countries which use the death penalty well, example Singapore. Low crime is great!
In a sufficiently wealthy society we would never kill anyone for their crimes.
In a sufficiently wealthy society, there're far fewer forgivable/tolerable crimes. I'm opposed to the death penalty in current US situation, mostly for knowledge and incentive reasons (too easy to abuse, too hard to be sure). All of the arguments shift in weight by a lot if the situation changes. If the equilibrium shifts significantly so that there are fewer economic reasons for crimes, and fewer economic reasons not to investigate very deeply, and fewer economic reasons not to have good advice and oversight, there may well be a place for it.
I have major disagreements with the arguments of this post (with the understanding that it is a steelman), but I do want to say that it has made me moderately update towards the suitability of the death penalty as a punishment, from a purely utilitarian perspective (though it has not tipped the scale). It has also showcased interesting and important figures, so thank you for that.
Deterrence and recidivism
At that point killing 3 million criminals to save the lives of 2.4 million
How many of those 2.4 million were murdered by recidivists? Even if we assume th...
While I find your analysis mostly correct, I'd be strongly against weakening norms against killing people through legal institutions.
I believe this would increase the value of lawfare, as instead of lengthy drawn out jail time where an enemy could pull a reversal they are simply dead.
This would worry me at the political, ideological and private levels
But yes, some innocent people will be killed.
The important question to ask is "how many innocent people" are worth killing to achieve an end? A 2014 study estimated that 4% of death row inmates would be exonerated, had they remained under sentence of death indefinitely, which means the real proportion of innocent people getting executed is higher than 4% and we don't know how much higher.
If death sentences are expanded, then the fraction of innocent people getting executed would increase to well over 4%. I feel that that's too high, especially if 1% of ...
1But executions are frequently bungled.
This isn't particularly high on my list of concerns, but there is a reason most suicide victims use a gunshot to the head if they can. It is the simplest, most reliable, and quickest way of killing someone. But it blows brains all over the wall, which makes people feel squeamish.
So instead we inject people with a lethal combination of drugs which can take hours to work, if it works at all, often leaving them in agonising pain the whole way. The solution is to just use the gun.
Like you, Nazi Germany needed to execute large numbers of mostly nonviolent people too. They originally used bullets, which seemed cheap, but that method ultimately caused psychological trauma for the people doing the mass executions. That was psychologically unsustainable for the Nazis, including the SS, so they switched to gas chambers, instead, which provided psychological comfort for their employees. I recommend you learn from their mistake and just start with the gas chambers.
The important question to ask is “how many innocent people” are worth killing to achieve an end? A 2014 study estimated that 4% of death row inmates would be exonerated, had they remained under sentence of death indefinitely,
"Exonerated" doesn't usually mean "innocent", it typically means "is guilty of something slightly lesser".
If you only execute repeat offenders the fraction of "completely" innocent people executed goes way down.
The idea of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and then being executed gives me pause.
The idea of being framed for shop lifting, framed for shop lifting again, wrongfully convicted of a violent crime and then being at the wrong place at the wrong time is ridiculous.
What do you think about exiling them to a zone where extreme criminals have to fend for themselves such as they did with Australia?
Epistemic status: this is an attempt to steelman the case for the death penalty
...
I do not believe in vengeance or justice. I do however believe in fixing problems. And it's clear the only way to fix this problem is to put such people in positions where they cannot do anyone any harm.
Some people have complained that, when their opponents "steelman" their position, in practice it can mean they steelman a particular argument that is not their main argument. This struck me as a remarkably explicit and self-aware example of that.
I don't know what the sol...
But what you're probably not aware of is that 0.8% of the US population ends up dieing due to intentional homicide
That is an insane statistic. According to a bit of googling this indeed seems plausible, but would still be interested in your source if you can provide it.
If you are a cold hearted utilitarian, the answer is no, we should not massively increase the death penalty, because it will worsen the diplomatic situation, increase racial hostilities, and move the Overton window on "killing vile people," such that assassinations, coups and other instability would feel less shocking and be more likely to succeed.
If you are a normal human, the answer is also no, because people don't deserve to die. A child who is unlucky enough to be born with bad genes or brain connections, does not deserve to be later executed when he g...
I'm curious about the purpose of this post. I think I understand the concept of steelmanning, but I’m struggling to see the specific goal here.
The post doesn’t address countries with low crime rates that don’t use the death penalty, and just seems to double down on executing vast number of criminals rather than any number of other possible options to reduce crime. Also speculating here but I imagine the impacts on social cohesion and flow on effects from ease of executions (political prisoners etc) would make the cure worse than the disease.
Is exclud...
What you describe is the system of justice we had back 250 years ago. The whole reason for the formalistic procedures involving a jury and Judge and all these rights given to the accused were because if he was convicted then he was most likely looking at a quick public hanging. The State has to prove guilt beyond any and all reasonable doubt because there's no going back once the guy's head rolls off the chopping block. Over time however, punishments got more lenient, judges became way softer, and due to the way the appeals process and appellate courts wor...
Wait, the case for extreme costs seems to include both the crime, and the price of the reaction. If the expected cost of deterrence (that is the sum of individualized deterrence), is much greater then the expected actual harm from the crime, that seems like a market inefficiency. That is, insuring everybody against the harm, is cheaper than preventing it. (this seems like a bad policy, but it is the approach taken towards credit fraud)
That is, in this model most of the costs come from social (not market) reactions to crime. (because you cannot ...
We would obviously have to significantly streamline the process, such that people are executed within 6 months of being caught or so.
This is one of the biggest hurdles, IMO. How do you significantly streamline the process without destroying due process? In the US, this would require a complete overhaul of the criminal justice system to be feasible.
Similar disclaimer: don't assume these are my opinions. I'm merely advocating for a devil.
If we're going for efficiency, I feel like we can get most of the safety gains with tamer measures. For example, you could cut off a petty thief's hand, or castrate a rapist. The actual procedure would be about as expensive as execution, but if a mistake was made there is still a living person to pay reparations to. I think you could also make the argument that this is less cruel than imprisoning someone for years—after all, people have a "right to life, liberty, and ...
Followed By: The case for corporal punishment
Epistemic status: this is an attempt to steelman the case for the death penalty rather than produce a balanced analysis, or even accurately represent my views (the case is presented as stronger than I actually feel).
In a sufficiently wealthy society we would never kill anyone for their crimes. We are not a sufficiently wealthy society.
There are those people whose freedom imposes such high costs on society that society should not suffer to have them free.
A murderer or rapist not only ruins the lives of their victims, not only causes immense suffering to their victims' families, but frightens people into staying indoors at night, or only going out in groups.
A shoplifter might only steal a few hundred dollars of goods, but they force shops to close or lock up all items, causing significant hassle to everyone in the area.
A bicycle thief steals a bicycle worth 5000 dollars, but as a result nobody in the area cycles to the train station, and parking within 5 minutes of the station becomes impossible.
A robber traumatizes the family he's robbed, but also forces everyone into an expensive attempt to have more security than their neighbours.
A wife beater causes misery for their wife, but also makes it far riskier for people to enter relationships.
I know a fraudster who was imprisoned in the USA for 9 years. Once released he betrothed someone in Canada, borrowed a huge sum of money from her brother, and fled to the UK. There he set up a small trading fund and defrauded a Czech company out of millions of euros. He offered to invest his local synagogue's money, then ran off to Manchester. This man has left a trail of misery and destruction behind him, and shows no sign of stopping no matter how many times he's caught.
A small number of people are responsible for the vast majority of petty crimes. Someone who has been arrested 3 times is extremely likely to be arrested again.
I do not believe in vengeance or justice. I do however believe in fixing problems. And it's clear the only way to fix this problem is to put such people in positions where they cannot do anyone any harm.
A sufficiently wealthy society would imprison those people in good conditions for the rest of their life. We are not a sufficiently wealthy society.
Imprisoning someone for one year in the USA costs in the order of 100,000 dollars. Scott Alexander estimated that making a real dent in crime rates would require incarcerating a low single digits percentage of the population. Each extra percentage locked up costs the government some 300 billion dollars, 4% of the combined State+Federal budget, and far too high a price to pay to give criminals a marginally positive quality of life.
Nor is it a price we are prepared to pay. With prisons full, judges err on the side of letting criminals go free, so police officers don't bother catching them in the first place.
A swift death penalty for violent crimes or repeated petty crimes would quickly remove the worst offenders from society. It would save the government billions, and encourage police officers to do their job which is actually the most cost effective way of preventing crime.
Objections
But what about mistakes?
Firstly, you obviously should not impose the death penalty if it's not at all clear who did the crime. Amanda Knox and possibly even OJ Simpson should probably be incarcerated instead of killed, but these are a tiny percentage of actual cases. In the vast majority of crimes we know exactly who did it, and the trial is just necessary bureaucracy we have to go through.
But yes, some innocent people will be killed. Just like some innocent people are killed by police shootings, and numerous innocent people are killed by the US Army, murderers who were let free, and mistaken medical diagnosis. We accept that innocent people die due to our actions all the time, and making a special exception here is an isolated demand for rigour.
But the death penalty doesn't prevent crime!
There is some debate about whether the threat of the death penalty discourages people from committing a crime. There is no debate that dead people commit fewer crimes, which is the purpose of the death penalty here.
Besides those studies are comparing a high chance of life imprisonment Vs a high chance of life imprisonment plus a small chance of maybe being killed 20 years down the line. I am extremely sceptical that when comparing a high chance of being caught and then released a few weeks later with a slap on the wrists Vs being caught and then swiftly executed we wouldn't see large changes in behaviour.
But the death penalty isn't cheaper than incarceration!
Yes, if you wait 20 years and go through umpteen rounds of court cases to finally elaborately kill a small percentage of the people you originally started the process with it's not going to save you any money. We would obviously have to significantly streamline the process, such that people are executed within 6 months of being caught or so.
But executions are frequently bungled.
This isn't particularly high on my list of concerns, but there is a reason most suicide victims use a gunshot to the head if they can. It is the simplest, most reliable, and quickest way of killing someone. But it blows brains all over the wall, which makes people feel squeamish.
So instead we inject people with a lethal combination of drugs which can take hours to work, if it works at all, often leaving them in agonising pain the whole way. The solution is to just use the gun.
But can't people change?
Yes, people can change. But we currently have no reliable way to stop shoplifters being shoplifters, or any way to distinguish those shoplifters who are going through a phase from those who will be in and out of prison for their entire lives. And until they change they continue to do society immense damage.
However I do hope that the knowledge the next time you get caught shoplifting you will be executed, would filter out those who are just in a phase.
But are you really going to execute a single digit percentage of all Americans?
This is the one that really gives me pause, picturing the rivers of blood that such a policy calls for.
Let's get some numbers here. Roughly 6% of the US population will be incarcerated at any point in their life, which gives us an upper limit. Now many of these won't meet the requirements for the death penalty but a large fraction most certainly will.
Of those who do, many wouldn't have committed the crimes in the first place if they knew the death penalty was the probable consequence, and those that would have are likely precisely those with such little self control they are the most dangerous to society. But either way we're probably talking of about 1% of the population. That's a frightening number.
But what you're probably not aware of is that 0.8% of the US population ends up dieing due to intentional homicide, and a larger, but impossible to calculate, fraction will experience rape. Removing violent criminals from the population, often before they ever work up to killing or raping someone would drastically cut this down.
At that point killing 3 million criminals to save the lives of 2.4 million mostly non-criminals, plus largely eliminate other violent +property crime, seems like it might well be a price worth paying, especially when the sensible alternative is not to let these criminals roam free, but to give them a pretty miserable existence in prison.
But what about mental illness?
As stated above, I don't care about vengeance or justice. I care about fixing things. If someone committed a seri us crime due to mental disease I have two questions:
If the answer to either of those is no, then they are not safe to be released into society, and we are not a society wealthy enough to lock every such person up.
But won't this encourage criminals to take violent steps to prevent capture?
After all, might as well be hung for a cow as a sheep. Yes this is a likely cost of the death penalty. I do not think it comes near to tipping the scales.