(urth) This Week in Google Alerts: Home Fires

[Lee Berman]

>Antonio Pedro Marques: How can you live in such a country?
 
The prisons in France are similarly filled with Muslims and the rest of
Europe isn't so different.  Americans and Europeans live under such
conditions because: 1. It makes the majority feel safer.  2. Minority males
are, for many reasons, more prone to committing crimes.

>Gerry Quinn: Are all possible confounding factors (such as, for example,
>death penalties being likely to be legalised/outlawed during periods when 
>murder rates are rising/falling respectively for unrelated reasons) eliminated?
>...scientific research in such fields is often highly agenda-driven.
 
I agree about agenda-driven science. But if that were behind these statistics 
we'd see counter-evidence from death penalty advocates showing a drop in the 
murder rate with the advent of the death penalty. We do not see such 
counter-evidence. 
 
Nor do we see concern about rising murder rates among death penalty advocates.  
Even in discussion here.  The main goal is not crime prevention but justice and
retribution. When you speak to death penalty advocates they talk in terms of the 
killer deserving death, not having sympathy for them, not letting them get away 
with it and "what about the victim and their families? Don't they deserve justice?" 
Based on many, many conversations. People simply have different views on life and
death. I'm okay with that, as long as I know where I stand.