shockkkk Posted December 11, 2015 Share Posted December 11, 2015 Consider a criminal act which carries a severe penalty. Other than that this is a pretty straightforward poll. Link to post Share on other sites
Skycaptain Posted December 11, 2015 Share Posted December 11, 2015 Convicting an innocent person. A life ruined. Letting the guilty go free, often they will commit further crimes giving prosecutors a second chance. Usually if a guilty person goes free it's because of problems with the evidence. Link to post Share on other sites
deltaX Posted December 12, 2015 Share Posted December 12, 2015 This is tough, but I eventually went with wrongfully convicting an innocent person. If you wrongfully convict an innocent person for a major crime it could unjustifiably ruin their life for no reason. Link to post Share on other sites
Raina. Posted December 12, 2015 Share Posted December 12, 2015 That's a very difficult question, but I'm also going with convicting an innocent person. You're ruining their life and that of their loved ones without reason. Link to post Share on other sites
timewarp Posted December 12, 2015 Share Posted December 12, 2015 Wrongfully convicting an innocent person is clearly worse, not the slightest doubt about that. Link to post Share on other sites
shockkkk Posted December 12, 2015 Author Share Posted December 12, 2015 Kind of happy with the results tbh. I think it is clearly worse to incorrectly convict an innocent person, and I think it is a basic fact which our legal system is built on - hence the requirement of 'beyond reasonable doubt' for convictions in criminal cases. However, I read this survey where almost 40% of people felt the opposite which kind of horrified me. Link to post Share on other sites
Larkaloke Posted December 12, 2015 Share Posted December 12, 2015 Convicting the innocent person. There are some cases where I could see it swinging the other way -- but really, those would all probably be better defined as failing to apprehend or stop a guilty person. Letting an active serial killer continue to walk free may be worse than convicting an innocent person, as that person may then take more lives; on the other hand, convicting an innocent person in their place will still result in the serial killer going free, and will only make things worse -- especially if it's believed that the correct person was caught, whereas it was actually an innocent person. Link to post Share on other sites
deltaX Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 I'll admit, I'm kind of surprised that the survey is so strongly leaning towards one side, even if it's the side I chose for myself. I think both options are kind of awful, so I had a hard time picking an answer, but it seems like overall, there is little question in which is worse. I expected it to be at least a little bit closer than it currently is. Link to post Share on other sites
RK800 Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 Wrongly convicting the innocent. You can't undo that damage. Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 Kind of happy with the results tbh. I think it is clearly worse to incorrectly convict an innocent person, and I think it is a basic fact which our legal system is built on - hence the requirement of 'beyond reasonable doubt' for convictions in criminal cases. However, I read this survey where almost 40% of people felt the opposite which kind of horrified me. I'll admit, I'm kind of surprised that the survey is so strongly leaning towards one side, even if it's the side I chose for myself. I think both options are kind of awful, so I had a hard time picking an answer, but it seems like overall, there is little question in which is worse. I expected it to be at least a little bit closer than it currently is. Really? I'll admit that I was shocked to see the second option reach that many votes. I think 8.7% (current number as I post this) is frighteningly many people to be okay with accepting harsh punishments for innocent people just to not let any criminal get off scot free. I expected something closer to 100 : 0. Link to post Share on other sites
shockkkk Posted December 14, 2015 Author Share Posted December 14, 2015 Would agree with the above, but 8.7% is a hell of a lot better than 40%. Link to post Share on other sites
marauders Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 I firmly believe that convicting an innocent person is worse. Link to post Share on other sites
Sisky Posted December 26, 2015 Share Posted December 26, 2015 Kind of depends on the exact specifics. An innocent person's life being ruined because they were wrongly convicted of a crime isn't any worse to me than an innocent person's life being ruined because they were the victim of a criminal who went free. Whether the innocent person was convicted in place of that criminal, or whether the criminal commits another crime/ruins someone's life and all that is pure speculation, but has a huge impact on the degree of damage to whoever, so I'm unable to answer the question. Link to post Share on other sites
AshenPhoenix Posted February 4, 2017 Share Posted February 4, 2017 This poll is being locked and moved to the read only Census archive for it's respective year. As part of ongoing Census organization, and in an attempt to keep the demographics of the polls current with the active user base at the time, the polls will last for one year from now on. However, members are allowed and even encouraged to re-start new polls similar to the archived ones if they like them. AshenPhoenix, Census Forum Moderator Link to post Share on other sites
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