I am categorically opposed to the death penalty. Period. Everyone has their various reasons for supporting or opposing it; mine is simple: injustice is not corrected with injustice. You can retaliate against wrong with wrong, but you can not correct it in that manner.
This of course doesn’t make sense in our hedonistic, instant-gratification-obsessed society. The quick-fix/temporary satisfaction solution to punishing a murderer is to kill them. That way, you get another “killer off the street.” This makes us feel safe for about 2 seconds, then the cycle repeats itself the next time danger or the thought of danger presents itself (sounds kind of like “the ‘war’ on terror,” where we shampoo terrorists: get scared, kill, repeat. But I digress…). That’s about as logical as cheating on someone because they cheated on you. That makes you more of a scumbag than the initiator of the infidelities. The problem that people don’t realize that until much later. Well this is one that can be realized now because I am saying it and you are reading it.
With all of that out of the way, we will now list reasons why Stan Will should be a prison privatization infomercial and not a dead man.
- He was convicted.
(Not sure if he was guilty or not, but for the sake of argument let’s say he is)
- He was locked away from society, where he theoretically could do no harm.
- He had a change of heart, realizing that certain things he did were wrong (starting a gang. Inciting others to do hurtful things). Notice that the murders he was convicted of are NOT a part of this bullet since he maintains his innocence.
- He acted on the aforementioned change of heart, by writing his books and becoming an outspoken ANTI-gang activist that led individuals to end the wars he helped begin.
If I ran SQ, I would have this guy be my spokesperson. I would parade him around to any and every town/city/state/country/planet looking to imprison anyone. I would say, “we took in this killer and made him a (Nobel) peacemaker! We will make ‘productive’ citizens of your captives!” that would work for everyone because Stan wouldn’t die, satisfying the anti-capital punishnent crowd, and the jailers would get more mon- I mean jailees (I apologize for that prison industrial complex moment).
Stanley Williams is a SuperSpade. He is a great leader who went from a negative direction to a positive one. He has inspired far more than he has misguided. He elevated his mind and his actions. We all strive to do just that.
