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Crucifixion As A Modern Death Penalty

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I'm not a big fan of the death penalty generally. It always seems to me to be a sign of giving up on the idea that an offender can be rehabilitated, before we've even really committed properly to rehabilitation. I think some other countries do a better job at that. But that's a different debate than whether to use crucifixion as the method. If we are to dispose of people in some manner, why dehumanize ourselves with the most gruesome possible methods. If death is to be a penalty, it is enough that the person is removed from society permanently. It requires no public spectacle.

Crucifixion is only viable if it is done in public. Without the audience, there is no point to it at all. It takes a lot of time and resources (monitors, guards, space) to accomplish, which is antithetical to the functioning of an efficient institution of any sort. If it is public, what you end up with is a lot of dead people hanging around in various states of dying, death, and decomposition, which would pose a bit of a public health hazard, and take up even more resources (guards, disposal squads, etc.).

Finally, there is the issue of the perception of death in society today. Market forces tend to emphasize youth and vigour, and the fiction that we can all live vibrant, healthy lives, free of illness or anything remotely "icky". Menstrual products are sold showing blue liquid, because nobody is supposed to publicly do anything so crass as to bleed or perform any sort of sticky activity. Death is more feared than considered a natural part of life. We go to war now and people are distressed that soldiers die, as if they're not supposed to do that. Nobody wants to see a lot of people lined up on the roadsides hanging on crosses waiting for a messy, painful, non-antiseptic death.

I find the issues of dealing with death, and particularly death by crucifixion, interesting and fascinating, insofar as we have an almost Victorian view of death - death and pain as illicit "pleasures". It's fun as a fantasy. It's considerably less viable as a real life practice.
 
I have recently become convinced that all killers should be put to death and the more painfully the better. Are there any other members who believe in the use of crucifixion or is everyone else here for fetish/sexual reasons.

Several members have put forward reasonable and well laid out arguments why such a thing is a very bad idea, at least for our current society.
I agree.
But the fantasy of reintroducing crucifixion as a valid punishment is a very powerful and fascinating and entertaining one. We see it here on a regular basis, it appeals to us on many levels. I've done stories and manips on this topic, it intrigues us.
So my vote is: no to actual reintroduction, yes to the fantasy of it!
 
Your argument isn't one at all I'd say.
Even if one did favor the death penalty it could still be the (painless) final removal of a person from a society, that this society feels it cannot under any circumstances tolerate to exist.
It wouldn't be an argument either to say, if we have prisons in the first place, they should all be non-stop 24/7 torture dungeons.


A lot of what's going on with public executions seems to me, rather than deterrence, to be an aggressive celebration that swears in the spectators on a set of values.
That's why violent tyrannies often enforce attendance.
See the current example of Islamic State.
They don't find it very easy to deter the things they punish with death, it's more a ceremony by which they induce the people of conquered territories to become a part of the Caliphate's society. Some do that willingly because they support those values but many are coerced into this ritual.

You do that when your society can't stand on the basis of its values but the essence of it is force and subjugation.
While the Romans had some nice Republican ideals they might occasionally even have applied amongst their citizenry, their empire very much relied on continuous conquest, subjugation and enslavement and that's where crux comes in...

Modern crux I think as a storytelling device is a perfectly valid scenario; -- if we devise a society that would do that, it would be a dystopian one though.

It's possible to imagine the steps of civilizational descent that might lead there but it's got nothing to do with improving justice.

It's also possible to highlight failings of some of the currently established practices of justice without going to extremes...


I would always have guessed a lot of that is just plain boring demographics...?
Well argued although when someone commits a horrendous crime, I tend to revert to a more basic type of individual.
 
I'm not a big fan of the death penalty generally. It always seems to me to be a sign of giving up on the idea that an offender can be rehabilitated, before we've even really committed properly to rehabilitation. I think some other countries do a better job at that. But that's a different debate than whether to use crucifixion as the method. If we are to dispose of people in some manner, why dehumanize ourselves with the most gruesome possible methods. If death is to be a penalty, it is enough that the person is removed from society permanently. It requires no public spectacle.

Crucifixion is only viable if it is done in public. Without the audience, there is no point to it at all. It takes a lot of time and resources (monitors, guards, space) to accomplish, which is antithetical to the functioning of an efficient institution of any sort. If it is public, what you end up with is a lot of dead people hanging around in various states of dying, death, and decomposition, which would pose a bit of a public health hazard, and take up even more resources (guards, disposal squads, etc.).

Finally, there is the issue of the perception of death in society today. Market forces tend to emphasize youth and vigour, and the fiction that we can all live vibrant, healthy lives, free of illness or anything remotely "icky". Menstrual products are sold showing blue liquid, because nobody is supposed to publicly do anything so crass as to bleed or perform any sort of sticky activity. Death is more feared than considered a natural part of life. We go to war now and people are distressed that soldiers die, as if they're not supposed to do that. Nobody wants to see a lot of people lined up on the roadsides hanging on crosses waiting for a messy, painful, non-antiseptic death.

I find the issues of dealing with death, and particularly death by crucifixion, interesting and fascinating, insofar as we have an almost Victorian view of death - death and pain as illicit "pleasures". It's fun as a fantasy. It's considerably less viable as a real life practice.
Some people cannot be rehabilitated, they are sociopaths and will forever be sociopaths.
 
Some people cannot be rehabilitated, they are sociopaths and will forever be sociopaths.
Sure, there are those who we could not safely allow among us and for whom rehabilitation is highly unlikely (Charles Manson, for example). That's why we have life without parole.

Finally, there is the issue of the perception of death in society today. Market forces tend to emphasize youth and vigour, and the fiction that we can all live vibrant, healthy lives, free of illness or anything remotely "icky".

And that is true even on CF where the crucifixion stories (and the non-crucifixion stories as well) tend to feature almost exclusively young beautiful women, which is not what you would find in the real world, where many of those crucified would be older, fat, heavily tattooed or deviating from the ideal in a variety of ways.
 
Well for me, i would want the Guillotine used for executions
and in public, and a must is bring back the Ducking Stool
for stroppy women. just imagine if you disobey your husband
he has the right to take you to court for disobedience and
the only sentence is the ducking stool . all the guilty females
sentenced monday to friday in one week have to report to
the pond, lake, whatever on the following sunday at 11-45am
ducking punishments start at twelve noon prompt.the number
of duckings each female takes depends on the seriousness of
her disobedience . Now That Is Fantasy
 
Well for me, i would want the Guillotine used for executions
and in public, and a must is bring back the Ducking Stool
for stroppy women. just imagine if you disobey your husband
he has the right to take you to court for disobedience and
the only sentence is the ducking stool . all the guilty females
sentenced monday to friday in one week have to report to
the pond, lake, whatever on the following sunday at 11-45am
ducking punishments start at twelve noon prompt.the number
of duckings each female takes depends on the seriousness of
her disobedience . Now That Is Fantasy

Some of you girls could use the cleaning also.
 
The greatest argument against any death penalty, at least to my mind, is that it is impossible to redress the penalty in the case of a mistake.
It is final we cannot bring someone back from the dead.
Mistakes do happen, even in the best regulated societies.

But as a fantasy - keep up the good work.
 
The greatest argument against any death penalty, at least to my mind, is that it is impossible to redress the penalty in the case of a mistake.
It is final we cannot bring someone back from the dead.
Mistakes do happen, even in the best regulated societies.

But as a fantasy - keep up the good work.
That's right, but i am very concerned, to I or other persons come innocent in the situation for live long jail. And when the state never recognize the innocence. Horrible, for ever in jail. The life on this place, is it not worth, to life. That is buried alive. A good penality for guilty persons, a endless horror for innocents.
 
There seem to me to be four considerations in sentencing a convict:

1 Protecting the public: well, yes - that seems the one and only clear point in favour of capital punishment, he won't re-offend.

2 Reformation: the hope that, given appropriate training in prison, he'll come out a useful citizen, less likely to offend again.
Clearly if you crucify him, that's not going to happen.

3 Deterrence: as several have said and supported with evidence and arguments, it's clear that capital punishment (and other forms of corporal punishment - i.e. entailing bodily harm) doesn't have such a simple effect - in general, homicide rates are higher in countries/ states where there is capital punishment - it's not cause and effect either way, there are of course many other variables. In the UK, historically, excessively savage laws simply deterred juries from convicting.

4 Retaliation: a primitive but powerful motivation for a playground concept of justice, an eye for an eye... Applying that principle, a murderer who's killed with a gun should be shot, one who's used a knife should be stabbed. Murder by crucifixion is, mercifully, rare though it probably has happened.

I'm glad I live in a country that does not use capital punishment. I certainly wouldn't feel any safer if we did.
 
It is a important point for the cop's in the world.
When the Offender must expect a hard punishment, he fight hard for his freedom.
With light and mild punishment, is the offender resistance often not so strong.
I advocate mild, but reasonable penalties.

All the shouting for harder penalities are political lies, and when not lies, not useful.
 
About the use as crucifixion as a death penalty in Roman times, there is one particular aspect.
Crucifixion was not applied as an execution method to Roman citizens. Law excluded them. Crucifixion was only applied to non citizens and to slaves. Hence, the cross was not an instrument of doing justice, but rather of political and social terror by the rulers.

Personally, I am neither a fan of death penalty anyway, because of the aspect of state terror related to it. But that aspect makes crucifixion interesting in fantasy.
 
Several members have put forward reasonable and well laid out arguments why such a thing is a very bad idea, at least for our current society.
I agree.
But the fantasy of reintroducing crucifixion as a valid punishment is a very powerful and fascinating and entertaining one. We see it here on a regular basis, it appeals to us on many levels. I've done stories and manips on this topic, it intrigues us.
So my vote is: no to actual reintroduction, yes to the fantasy of it!

I like phlebas' point. The fantasy of reintroducing crucifixion as punishment in some futuristic scenario is always intriguing to me. I doubt we will see anything like it in the real world today (although there are some places where you never know ;)). But to imagine what it might be like is always a fun and erotically exciting thing to spend time doing.
 
I like phlebas' point. The fantasy of reintroducing crucifixion as punishment in some futuristic scenario is always intriguing to me. I doubt we will see anything like it in the real world today (although there are some places where you never know ;)). But to imagine what it might be like is always a fun and erotically exciting thing to spend time doing.

Yes! And also the political and social context of these futuristic scenario's, and the way the lead character(s) end up at the cross.
 
My own crucifixion scenarios take place in modern dress. However, for reasons articulated by Windar, above, I'd be opposed to using it on the vast majority of serious criminals in our current society.

In the dystopia where my judicial crucifixions take place, the real aggravating factor is "looking too good". Overweight tattooed hairy murderers are quietly garroted in the police cellars; 19-year-old swimmers caught with a joint end up naked and nailed. Trials are held in secret, and the defendant isn't told the charges against him, so technicalities like "no evidence at all" and "obviously innocent" can be ignored. Of the people who end their days on crosses, less than one in ten are what we'd call real criminals; the rest were brought in for minor offenses, or were convicted of purely imaginary crimes—conspiracy to distribute drugs to schoolchildren is always a good one, since it'll bring out a herd of parents screaming for the accused's blood.

Crucifixion in contemporary America, though? No, thanks. After several weeks of driving across town to the courthouse, only to see a group of flabby hairy tattooed subjects stripped and nailed and put on display, I'd give up and sleep in on Saturday morning.
 
I see dystopian future scenarios as a mirror for today's society.
Political incorrectness will be the crime.

Maybe not for long?
The backlash is in motion, we may be looking at more conservative mores in the future. These things cycle century to century.
 
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