• islandofcaucasus@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I used to be a proponent of the death penalty. Someone shoots up a school or is a serial rapist, they forfeit their right to live and are beyond rehabilitation

    But the book “The Chamber” by John Grisham completely changed my mind. One of the only books to ever make me cry, I realized what an awful responsibility the state has when deciding what to do with the worst of the worst. It’s so easy to lean into retribution but I decided that day I don’t want to support legally sanctioned murder. I’d rather my tax dollars go into keeping prisoners alive than for them to be spent on taking lives for no other reason than blood lust.

    Then of course you start digging into all the problems with criminal justice; innocent prisoners, corruption, racism… it’s wildly irresponsible to trust any justice system to be so infallible as to decide who lives and dies.