| The administration of justice should not be perverted into sport or entertainment. Death-penalty-as-deterrent types might welcome this, but I worry what it says about us as a society if large numbers of us tune in to watch. Does this actually convince people with violent tendencies to turn away from violence because the consequences are so severe? Or does it deaden us, allowing us to grow more accustomed to seeing people’s final moments on camera?
“A public execution is giving a terrorist exactly what he wants: publicity,” writes Reason‘s Robby Soave on X. “They fantasize about being martyred like this, in front of a crowd (and a live TV audience???). It’s ISIS recruitment slop.”
We’ve long been repulsed by the idea of televised executions: “Three-quarters of Americans believe that convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh should be put to death,” noted Pew Research Center back in 2001. “But only about a quarter of the public (24%) favors televising McVeigh’s execution, while 73% say it should not be broadcast. More than twice as many white men as white women (32% vs. 15%) believe that McVeigh’s execution should be broadcast. Younger Americans are also more likely to support broadcasting the execution; three-in-ten of those under age 50 say McVeigh’s death should be broadcast, compared to 14% of those over 50.”
My hope is that we’re still horrified by them, not desensitized through the proliferation of violent cop bodycam footage, Twitch-streamed mass killings, and ICE shootings.
There is, of course, also the argument that broadcasting an execution by the government could turn more people against the death penalty. Between this and the recent botched execution of Christa Pike, I am hopeful public sentiment will sour, and we will no longer approve of the state putting people to death.
“The day after”: “Top executives at Anthropic, OpenAI, and other AI companies are privately gaming out scenarios for a public and political revolt after a catastrophic AI event,” reports Axios. “These officials anticipate a large-scale event, most likely a cyberattack, that shuts down access to financial services, internet connectivity, or even power and water.…Many AI industry insiders told Axios they believe a major event will occur in the next six to 12 months.” I discussed this type of scenario on Monday’s Reason Roundtable.
Scenes from New York: “A federal immigration agent shot and wounded a man in a largely residential section of New York City on Thursday, eliciting swift rebukes from Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who accused the Trump administration of ‘terrorizing our city,'” reports The New York Times. “The shooting happened about 4 p.m. in the Marble Hill neighborhood, as agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, tried to arrest the man while he was in a car with a 5-year-old boy believed to be his son in the back seat, Jessica S. Tisch, the police commissioner, said at a news conference late Thursday night.” |
