MAP Forum

Posted: **Thu Jul 18, 2024 10:28 am**

Many of you will likely support the death penalty because it's euphoric to see some bad guy get what they deserve, such as murderers with a pathological penchant for sadism getting executed. But is this the case in most cases involving the death penalty? Does it make sense for MAPs to support it, even for treason?

In my opinion, in terms of what benefits MAPs, I say that it would be better for us to be abolitionists, and I'll shortly explain why.

First, capital punishment/death penalty can and will be used to have the government kill people, especially political dissidents. And as seen from the recent rulings in Florida and Idaho, state courts there can now prescribe the death penalty for statutory rape for cases involving minors below a particular age. While those state laws are yet to be challenged by the SCOTUS, I think the death penalty puts a bad precedent for us.

Second, Most arguments for the death penalty effectively boil down to appeals to emotion (e.g., What about how the victim feels?!). While there is place for punitive and reformative justice for crimes, it can't be denied that it's questionable if capital punishment does anything at all to curb crime. I guess it would make more sense for treason since you don't want secrets to be spilled out any further, but that would unnecessarily change the discussion, so I won't discuss this point further. Moving on...

Advocating for the abolishment of capital punishment/death penalty is a safe position, especially in Europe where Belarus is the only country in that continent that still maintains the death penalty for certain crimes. Plus, it's already divisive enough in the USA that you'll likely find support for such an opinion just as much you'll find hate for it.

Overall, I think that the abolition of the death penalty should, at the very least, be part of our strategy for leal reform and part of the pro-MAP rights political platform. My only worry for the abolitionist position is that it may replace one unjust punishment for another. In this case, "statutory rape" (illicit sex solely due to an age gap or one of the partners being a minor) may be punished in other ways like chemical castration, already a violation of human rights that is still practiced in some countries. As such, any position should be gamed out to check for any pitfalls. Because even if I favour doing away with the death penalty, I wouldn't want the punishment for the same crime be replaced with chemical castration, solitary confinement, or another horrendous abuse.

What do you guys think?

Posted: **Thu Jul 18, 2024 10:51 am**

I used to be neutral for the death penalty, but only in the case of multiple murders. I've always thought it overused in the US. The US and East Asian nations (Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and notionally South Korea) are the only developed democracies to still use it. Abolition probably didn't even occur to the committee as we took it for granted.

These kinds of issues are kind of thorny, though, because they're only really adjacent to being MAP. I agree that the Florida (and Idaho) law is bad, but when I read through it, it was much more limited in scope than I first expected. Not that I'd support it for anything else than "rape and murder of a child" (and even then extremely reluctantly).

I'm not sure as a community if it's something we could get consensus on. I think we could agree to "no cruel or unusual punishments for sex crimes" (ie no death penalty, no castration for "mere" sex crimes). If we can agree on the sex offender registry, I think we can definitely agree on that. But I'm not sure where people would come down for terrorist attacks or school shootings. Tens of elementary school children being gunned down is probably quite emotive for a lot of MAPs. Although the perpetrators often commit suicide in such cases, in cases where they don't, some may think the death penalty is justified.

I am interested in hearing from others, though. Is this something worth considering or is it excessive "mission creep"?

Posted: **Thu Jul 18, 2024 12:24 pm**

Fragment wrote: ↑Thu Jul 18, 2024 10:51 am I used to be neutral for the death penalty, but only in the case of multiple murders. I've always thought it overused in the US. The US and East Asian nations (Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and notionally South Korea) are the only developed democracies to still use it. Abolition probably didn't even occur to the committee as we took it for granted.

These kinds of issues are kind of thorny, though, because they're only really adjacent to being MAP. I agree that the Florida (and Idaho) law is bad, but when I read through it, it was much more limited in scope than I first expected. Not that I'd support it for anything else than "rape and murder of a child" (and even then extremely reluctantly).

I'm not sure as a community if it's something we could get consensus on. I think we could agree to "no cruel or unusual punishments for sex crimes" (ie no death penalty, no castration for "mere" sex crimes). If we can agree on the sex offender registry, I think we can definitely agree on that. But I'm not sure where people would come down for terrorist attacks or school shootings. Tens of elementary school children being gunned down is probably quite emotive for a lot of MAPs. Although the perpetrators often commit suicide in such cases, in cases where they don't, some may think the death penalty is justified.

I am interested in hearing from others, though. Is this something worth considering or is it excessive "mission creep"?

It's probably a mission creep if the abolitionist cause extends to all crimes rather than the ones affecting MAPs. But I think the issue is worth considering, and even moreso given the slippery slope of the death penalty. After all, if having differing opinions is grounds for capital punishment, we should definitely be opposed to that.

I would've thought that getting on abolition would be a good idea given that it's less murky than, say, free speech where censorship is bad for MAPs, but I don't think many would mind if hate speech laws were changed so that we are included as part the protected groups, making that issue more complicated. Still, we can all agree that the expansion of the police state would be detrimental to us, so while the abolition of the SOR is within the consensus, I think that doing away with the death penalty in the USA (or at least limiting to cases involving murder or treason) should be within this group's scope too, don't you think?

Posted: **Thu Jul 18, 2024 2:51 pm**

For me, it's hard to criticize an MAP even if they made a terrible mistake. I know that MAPs are constantly subjected to The Push, and that even very decent MAPs could be turned into monsters by the awful abuse to which they are subjected.

I support moderate punishments even for the 'worst of the worst', MAP or not, because I cannot accurately judge the convict to be anything more than a victim of a society weighted against them.

We never know what's been done to a 'criminal'. Might their experience mitigate or even justify their actions? Maybe.

Posted: **Thu Jul 18, 2024 3:12 pm**

I mean, fundamentally I have absolutely no problems with a system that mimics the Norwegian model.

https://www.firststepalliance.org/post/ ... em-lessons

Not only no death penalty, no life sentences.

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