People often ask me what my views on capital punishment are. The answer is simple-I believe capital punishment is utterly necessary, but modern methods like lethal injection or the gas chamber are way too fuckin' expensive. It takes a staff of 10 guards, two doctors and probably plenty of money, and just building a gas chamber is only slightly less expensive than a space station. Hell, just letting the bastard languish around making frivolous appeals and stall for 20 years is too much upkeep. So if you ask me, we need to go back to something cheap.
Hanging, when done properly, is actually quite humane-a snapped neck and a couple of flops, and its all over. Rope is cheap-we don't even have to use natural cordage anymore, we have a lot of great synthetic cordage that spares guards the labor of having to stretch, wax and soak the damn rope. The only other expense outlay is for a cheap stool and a high crossbeam, and you only need one guy to kick the stool out from under the condemned's feet. And the best part is, with modern cordage, we can use the same setup over and over as long as we need to.
But the real kicker is this: a hanging is a public, grisly spectacle that we, as money grubbing Americans, can not only perform cheaply but actually charge admission to. Right now the justice system is a huge money sink, but if we start charging 25 bucks a head to see a public hanging, I bet we could get it to turn a profit in no time. Hell, in time, we might even have other sources of revenue-Advertising logos painted on the hanging platform, the condemned going to his death in Nike sneakers and a Mountain Dew T-shirt, concessions-hell, a cash bar-and bam, suddenly it's not only cheap to execute society's chaff, but damned profitable.
Building on that concept, if you really wanted to turn a profit on society's misery (and who doesn't?) you could even start up a brutal gladitorial arena and fire up your own reality tv show. The ad copy practically writes itself. "This sunday, on Convict Slaughter Roundup-P-Nada and Lil' Moses have survived the first round, but the stakes are rising and tonight they have to challenge the X-TREME Molten Metal HELL WALK! Will they stick together and hope to survive legitimately, or will P-Nada add another notch to his belt and kick his buddy into 1200 degrees of RETRIBUTION! Tune in Sunday at 10 pm EST to find out! For live ticket info, contact ticketmaster. Sponsored by McDonalds-Official Food of the Inmate Death League."
Man. Sometimes my own genius astounds me.
...Yeeeaaahh. And then, if (or when?) the prison system ends up with a shortage of executable prisoners, they can just bribe some politicians to make up some new convoluted and poorly written laws to increase the percentage of criminals in the population. Because the profits must be maintained.
ReplyDeleteSomehow, doesn't quite seem like such a good idea once you factor in the unintended concequences.
Definitely when and not if, my friend.
ReplyDeleteBut think of the ratings!
I beat you to that concept...though mine was actually inspired by The Running Man. (the book). Put convicted murderers on a gameshow to fight to the death for prizes like, oh, hookers and dope. Make it Pay Per View.
ReplyDeleteMy other one was a spin-off idea. Let convicted murderers hunt down child molesters for, well, hookers and dope.
Or, make the child molester thing be like Survivor, only interesting. Leave scattered weapons about (spoons, twigs, shovels) around and let them fight amongst themselves. Last one standing....
Gets choice of weapon for next episode. Every couple weeks maybe let convicted murderers with kids on the show at the kiddie rapists with their choice of weaponry.