Capital punishment is the ultimate form of incapacitation. The murderer can't commit any further crimes if he or she is executed. Is there any value to society in keeping the murderer alive and sentencing murderers to life sentences instead?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The easy answer to this question for proponents of capital punishment would be no, but opponents would be geared and ready for this question. The way this question is posed, it turns the attention away from the victim of capital punishment to society as a whole. This eliminates a lot of the strong arguments, which are usually about the person being executed. Another argument that is more relevant now than 50-100 years ago is the value of learning from our criminals. Once we execute a serial killer, we can no longer obtain information. We have learned a vast amount of information from serial killers and rapists that could not have been obtained from detectives or other professionals who work closely with these types of people. Besides learning more about the specific crimes committed by a person, we could also learn information that might correlate with others who are still at large or haven't even been born yet. An example of this is Ted Bundy. The day before his execution he disclosed to a reporter that he and all other serial killers he met in prison were heavily involved in pornography.