I’ve been listening to Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska” and am considering asking my public relations students to write and talk about capital punishment.
I want them to put forward good reasons why the murderers should or should not be executed, as if they were petitioners writing for a legal journal or even a periodical.
I would appreciate any suggestions.
Thank you.
2 Likes
For what it’s worth, I’m vehemently against capital punishment, but watching “Dahmer”, I was filled with glee watching him being beaten to death at the end.
I suddenly felt ill, and walked away thinking I may be a psychopath like him, getting joy out of the murder of another person. It really upset me.
Maybe the topic is a bit rough for university students.
3 Likes
“A Course in Contemporary Chinese 5” has text in Chinese about the death penalty, along with a decent amount of discussion questions and related exercises (in Chinese). Could either translate that text to English or give it as supplemental reading.
3 Likes
Thank you, @nz but I’m looking at playing the song and letting them write and talk about it. Even though I hate Oliver Stone’s stuff, a bit like “Natural Born Killers”. And all in English. No translations.
That struck me right away, but if so they can simply explain why they feel that way? Make that clear perhaps. Maybe tie it to a well known historical crime case like Chen Jing-Ping, that will make it less distressing as the actual outcome is known.
1 Like
I’m for the death penalty in certain situations (eg: child abductors/killers, serial killers, spree shooters who are caught alive). But I certainly understand both sides, and so should your class. Pit the students against each other in debates, or if you’re feeling particularly clever have them put on a mock trial with a student defendant, student prosecutor, student DA, student judge, and student jury who will vote on a type of sentence (the tricky part is choosing who will play each role, especially the defendant). Let them come to their own conclusions through their class activity instead of influencing their opinion either way.
Also, I don’t think the topic is rough at all. Maybe for junior high school it would be a bit much, but not for uni level. Uni students need to be challenged more here, and when I was in college we debated issues much more contentious and thorny than this.
1 Like
My problem with the death penalty is that if mistakes are made, there’s no way to fix it. So anytime you have death penalty there’s always the possibility that a wrongfully convicted person will be executed.
The problem is places like Singapore has collectively accepted that people will be killed wrongfully for drug related offense, and they’re perfectly fine with that.
They’ll all support it.
I think you’d be surprised. My uni is very liberal, and a lot of the students have pretty radical ideas.
Sure, about 75% of Taiwanese support capital punishment, but Taiwan has a disproportionate amount of old people.
1 Like
My uni must be fascist. In my debate classes I’ve yet to experience a student who didn’t enthusiastically support it. Nail 'em up! Nail some sense into 'em.
I say debate classes, but there isn’t much debate. They refuse to disagree with each other.
That really doesn’t surprise me. as much backlash I may get on this, Taiwanese are what we refer to in UK as muppets.
They are controlled with no Lateral thinking.
I’m trying to change that. One insignificant student at a time.
1 Like
When I was younger I was for the death penalty. I’d seen death and been close to it myself.
I also understood the hypocrisy of state sanctioned murder. You can be a soldier and murder people, even by accident, and receive no punishment.
I’d also seen the impacts of child sexual abuse from serial offenders. It is this that changed my mind about the death penalty.
Reading more into different religious texts, outside of the Abrahamic religions, there were different opinions and ideas of what punishment should mean.
At this point I became strongly against the death penalty.
Those that commit these heinous crimes should be forced to live the rest of their lives with minimal freedom. And as long as possible. Because it is this time that allows reflection.
A young man who has committed a crime bad enough to be given the death penalty will often ride the lightning and laugh.
An old man that has had more than enough time for self reflection will understand exactly what they have done and be remorseful for their actions.
Having said that there also needs to be a new approach to imprisonment. Each and every prisoner deserves protection against predatory behaviour whilst in prison. They are effectively the responsibility of the state that sentenced them.
Over the last 20 years or so incarceration has become a business model. And these business models have no intention of reducing recidivism. They want more prisoners in order to make more profit.
So if people are being sentenced for relatively minor crimes, or crimes that have no victim like personal drug use, are not given the education, guidance, and opportunity to use their incarceration to better themselves then it is safe to say that their time inside prison has been more of an education in how to commit more criminal acts. Criminal acts that often escalate over time.
So there should be greater communal awareness and say in what is happening. Rather than deflecting that responsibility. It’s like how a lot of religious people claim only religion can teach you morals while ignoring the systemic abuses that senior religious figures within institutions are or have been committing.
3 Likes
“Billy Austin” by Steve Earle could be another good source song. The movie Dead Man Walking is good, too. I saw the real life Helen Prejean (played by Susan Sarandon in the movie) speak back in the 90s. If you can listen to that woman’s stories and still be pro-death-penalty, you might not be human.
2 Likes