[John Scott]

It started with a partial agreement. Yes sane people can rape and murder, but it takes someone crazy to commit the rape, sodomization and murder of a toddler in their bedroom while her parents sleep in the other room.

Again, I would have to disagree. I think it only takes a person who is so confident of himself that he believes that if a confrontation were to ensue, he would prevail. I would guess that he also likes the adrenaline rush of risk taking. One of the guys I was in prison with was there for homicide, but he also did night time burglaries. He stated that it was a rush to walk into people's bedrooms at night while they slept and take their wallets from the nightstand. He even claimed to sometimes just watch the people sleep. Gave him a feeling of power.

You know, I had a conversation with a guy who said that you had to be sick in the head to want to have anal sex. To him, the idea was so disgusting that only a psychopath would want to do it. It seems that people are labeling others "insane" simply for taking pleasure in something that they could never take pleasure in. Am I wrong?

I went on to note that what you said implied that the death penalty had failed to act as a deterrent since these types of criminal offences still occur.

The death penalty could act as a deterrent. But it likely won't in the US because most people know that the chances of getting it are slim. Japan has the death penalty for murder, used quite often, and Japan has one of the lowest homicide rates of all the countries. Same goes for Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

With so many killers getting off with light sentences in America, I doubt there is much of a deterrent there.

Given this, we are left with the sole purpose of the death penalty being retribution.

I think a lot of people think "revenge" when they hear "retribution". I would take issue with that. Revenge isn't something the government should be doing.

If you, through recklessness or malicious intent, destroy my car, you should be forced to pay the cost of restoring it. If you take $5 from me, you should be forced to pay $5. If you take a life, you should be forced to pay a life.

That's not revenge. It's justice. And that's what Japanese counts enforce. The idea is that if a person is forced to pay for precisely the damages he incurs, he will not do those damages in the first place.

When I was in America, I often drove rather aggressively. If there ever was an accident, I am confident that the chances of getting punished were close to nil. In Japan, "it was an accident" doesn't play. Doesn't matter if you honestly didn't see the pedestrian, if you hit somebody you will go to prison. That definitely changed the way I drive.

I'm sure I went on to suggest that it would be better to lock these criminals up and learn as much about them and their motivation with the intention of using that information to prevent such crimes in future and of course to catch other perpetrators.

America locks up more people per capita than any other country, and we still have high crime. I think it's an insult to the victims, some of whom were tortured and suffered horrible deaths.

Anyhow, sorry for my perceived rudeness at just ignoring your post, it wasn't intentional.

None perceived.