The death penalty has various serious problems and lifetime imprisonment is really really expensive.
I guess we should be happy every time someone so thoroughly bad we want them out of society forever (like a serial murderer) does us the favour of killing themselves. Nothing of value is lost, and the justice system saves money. Right?
It seems to me it logically follows that we should incentivize such suicides. Like: 5000 dollars to a person of your choice if you're dead within the first year of your lifetime sentence, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
It feels very wrong and is clearly outside the overton window. But is there any reason to expect this wouldn't be a net benefit?
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Notes -
There have been societies where suicide is an option presented to and taken by many criminals (Classical Greece and Rome, Premodern China and Japan), but these societies were all much more shame-based than our own, and were places where the stain on one's family reputation and the posthumous treatment of one's children, spouse, friends, etc. could be noticeably improved by choosing to do "the honorable thing." I think you would need that sort of understanding hardwired into the culture before people would accept this particular bargain, and simple bribery just doesn't carry the same weight as all of society, your ancestors, and the gods pressing down on you to do it.
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