Its way way way more complex than that. One point is that you have life imprisonment without parole - the same effect of people not coming back to society is achieved. Another one is expense - death row costs AFAIK are higher than life imprisonment, so the harmed society pays even more.
As for truly horrible crimes (which is something else to each of us), there are also tons of different views - do we want to be in society that is above emotional vengeful reactions, and more about compassionate loving ones? Ie like all good christians/muslims/etc are supposed to be according to their holiest books? You have to start somewhere if you even want to get there. You have to be morally strong to act in smart and compassionate way if you want to claim progress of mankind in this area. And so on.
I don't have a clear position on this myself and not stating some higher moral ground, since there are many pros and cons on both sides and quick emotional reaction to some murderous pedophile is as expected. But I am 100% certain that this very topic reveals a lot about mankind and us humans in our progression to be a better species, compared to primitive uneducated masses of the past. Or regression, its up to us.
As for truly horrible crimes (which is something else to each of us), there are also tons of different views - do we want to be in society that is above emotional vengeful reactions, and more about compassionate loving ones? Ie like all good christians/muslims/etc are supposed to be according to their holiest books? You have to start somewhere if you even want to get there. You have to be morally strong to act in smart and compassionate way if you want to claim progress of mankind in this area. And so on.
I don't have a clear position on this myself and not stating some higher moral ground, since there are many pros and cons on both sides and quick emotional reaction to some murderous pedophile is as expected. But I am 100% certain that this very topic reveals a lot about mankind and us humans in our progression to be a better species, compared to primitive uneducated masses of the past. Or regression, its up to us.