What Line Does That Go On?

[BobKamman]

Arizona, like most other states where the death penalty is still on the books, is embroiled in a controversy over when and how it should be inflicted.  A recently suppressed government report disclosed that prison officials who conducted the executions "were paid tens of thousands of dollars in cash that the state was not reporting with proper tax documentation."

Glad someone else has those clients.  

[IRonMaN]

So executioners get tax free money.  They must have kept that a closely held secret or there would be a lot more folks applying for the job.  The job applicants would probably include a few tax preparers hoping to "delete" a few of there more troublesome clients 😬

[BobKamman]

@IRonMaN  

I never have figured out why the most ardent right-to-life adherents are often the most vigorous defenders of capital punishment. But then, the Pope hasn’t been able to explain that one either. There does seem to be a historical connection between executioners and tax collection, Wikipedia tells us:

“Many executioners were professional specialists who traveled a circuit or region performing their duty, because executions were rarely very numerous. Within this region, a resident executioner would also administer non-lethal physical punishments, or apply torture. In medieval Europe, to the end of the early modern period, executioners were often knackers, since pay from the rare executions was not enough to live off. (A knacker is a person who removes and clears animal carcasses from private farms or public highways and renders the collected carcasses into by-products such as fats, tallow, glue, gelatin, bone meal, soap, bleach and animal feed.)

“In medieval Europe executioners also taxed lepers and prostitutes, and controlled gaming houses. They were also in charge of the latrines and cesspools.”

When we follow the traditions of China and Saudi Arabia, I think we should at least do some accounting of the human-resource cost. For every execution, tell us how much government time – mostly from lawyers and judges – was used for the conviction and appeals. My estimate is that the equivalent of 100 staff-years were involved. So the system takes away parts of many lives. Wouldn’t those resources find better use if we just started a colony for convicts, like England did with Australia? Maybe Greenland is available. Or there’s always Guantanamo.

[IRonMaN]

If I remember correctly, George Carlin suggested converting Kansas to a prison.  He was looking for a state that had relatively straight lines so it would be cheaper to put a fence around it.  Maybe we are going to acquire Greenland to make it into a penal colony or maybe just looking for a place for the displaced Kansas folks to move to.