Word: reppetto
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...public and law-enforcement establishment. That prison time can be harrowing is to some minds its first merit. The living-room sofa is by comparison a painless instrument of remorse. "Until the alternatives are seen by the public as tough, there won't be support for them," says Thomas Reppetto of the Citizens Crime Commission in New York City. The problem is even plainer when the offenders are well heeled. Will justice be served if crooked stock traders are confined to their penthouses...
...miscreants, as well as having the option not to exercise that awful power. It is easy and sometimes appealing to talk tough and demand mercilessness in the abstract. But to really "fry the bastards"? How many? Which ones? "What a person says on a public opinion poll," observes Thomas Reppetto, president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, "and what they'll say on a jury, might well be two different things...
...sense, death's deterrent power has never really been given a chance in the U.S. Even during the comparative execution frenzy of the 1930s, hardly one in 50 murderers was put to death, a scant 2%. Reppetto estimates that if 25% of convicted killers were executed, 100 a week or more, there might be a deterring effect. But it is unthinkable, he agrees, that the U.S. will begin dispatching its villains on such a wholesale basis. Even at a rate of 100 executions annually, an implausibly high figure given today's judicial guarantees, a killer's chances...
...capital punishment feel that prison terms without parole would deter as many potential murderers as the death penalty. Says Amsterdam: "The degree of punishment is not necessarily a deterrent even to someone who thinks rationally. What deters people from crime is the likelihood of getting caught and undergoing punishment." Reppetto agrees: "I always favor something that will get tough with a lot of offenders instead of getting very tough with just a handful...