111 countries vote against death penalty; Japan among 41 voting for it

"Who will pay the expenses of these criminals until their death"

Taxpayers! Grrr!

KariHaruka, did you hear of those death row inmates who were proven innocent by DNA tests right here in Japan last year? How about those who hanged before they were proven innocent? Imagine that person was a relative. For the sake of that one innocent person on death row, I will wish thousands stay on life.

Yeah but what's with all the endless appeals?? If I were to be given such a penalty i sure would like to get it over with and not live & rot away for years on end, That is just living dead!

"Keeping someone on death row and executing them is more expensive than keeping them in prison for a lifetime."

It shouldn't be.

Respect human rights or not don't think the J-people are prepared to agree to let go of the death option any time soon, so long as we keep hearing about some of the cruelest criminal acts imaginable.

North Korea, Saudi, Iran and good ol' Uncle Sam. If it's true that you can judge a man by the company he keeps, then Japan comes out of this looking pretty bad.

Deterrence is not the point. Neither is revenge. It's justice. Granted that's a lofty sounding word, but are we so jaded we can't at least believe in it? Justice only exists if there's someone who believes in it.

Who will pay the expenses of these criminals until their death.

" Japan said it had to keep the possibility of hanging prisoners because “heinous” crimes are still being committed."

What exactly is that supposed to mean? Typically vague, meaningless, thought processing.

KariHaruka: those feelings would be understandable. Most people who lost a loved one to violent crime might have feelings of vengefulness. But thankfully we don't make public policy in the heat of the moment, while we feeling emotional or angry. We make those decisions after giving calm and considered thought to an issue. Capital punishment does NOT prevent murders, this have consistentl been proven by research, as has the fact that the death penalty is applied unfairly.

KariHaruka: Do you know how the death penalty is carried out in Japan? Its a human rights disgrace:

http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/apro/aproweb.nsf/pages/appeals_japan_dp_okunishiMasaru

Keeping someone on death row and executing them is more expensive than keeping them in prison for a lifetime.

Even were this not the case, I would still prefer to foot the bill in taxes for these people to be kept in prison rather than have them executed. I've said it before many times, but capital punishment only serves to bring out and encourage the worst in people and society. It's premeditated revenge of a kind that fuels bloodlust and violence; not just in the abstract, but in concrete figures too. It is also subject to racism and other forms of prejudice, being as it is a moral judgement of someone's worth.

It's also symptomatic of a society that thinks that evil is something personal that can just be executed away. By focusing our wrath on this, we ignore the wider societal factors that breed crime.

letsberealistic: Don't think the J-people can ever be convinced that it's actually an "evolution" unless the EU and other "advanced" nations can actually prove that homocide and other violent crimes can be avoided or kept at low levels with the absence of capital punishment which they appear to be unable to do. With all the concerns over the cruelty of some of the crimes that occur here J-people still consider Japan to be much safer than most of the other countries. Majority believes that protection of human rights need to be geared more towards potential victims than the criminals and Japan will probably never change in lack of convincing logic coming from the rest of the world backed by factual data.

Better to get rid of the human trash if they really did it...

It shows how far behind Japan is in understanding human rights (at least with regard to the right to life)

You lose your human right to life once you take an innocent persons life from them. Why should a murderer be allowed to carry on breathing after taking the life from their victim?

These countries should stay out of affairs that don't affect them.

If someone killed one of my loved ones all I'd want would be revenge and to see that person hanging.

You lose your human right to life once you take an innocent persons life from them. Why should a murderer be allowed to carry on breathing after taking the life from their victim?

Because killing the person actually has nothing to do with justice but more to do with revenge.

Don't think the J-people can ever be convinced that it's actually an "evolution" unless the EU and other "advanced" nations can actually prove that homocide and other violent crimes can be avoided or kept at low levels with the absence of capital punishment which they appear to be unable to do.

Huh? It's already proven that capital punishment does not deter extreme crimes.