5 Reasonable but Merciless Alternatives to the Death Penalty

This past Wednesday, millions of Americans were outraged over the execution of Troy Davis, a man convicted – with inconclusive evidence – of murdering a police officer in Savannah, Georgia. As the fairness of the death penalty is really drawn into question, we begin to ask ourselves: what other alternatives might there be to execution? 5. Compulsory Residence in a Fundamentalist Conservative Colony One possibility worth considering is the establishment of a prisoner colony. The automatic choice for location would be Georgia, given that it started as a prisoner colony, and has arguably been one ever since. The colony would be governed by an entity known as “The TetraDouche” – a council consisting of Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Perry. While prisoners would not be executed in the colony, they would be forever subjected to other atrocious fundamentalist policies, such as mandatory readings of the Gospel each time a prisoner gets an erection.

4. Court-ordered Jonas Brothers tour This option would force the convicted criminal to follow the Jonas Brothers on a national tour – not only to sit through their inconceivably rancid concerts, but also to travel with them on the tour bus. Some investigatory research has indicated that more Americans fear a Jonas Brothers tour than fear death, so not only would this alternative be more humane than execution (okay, that’s debatable), but it would be more effective in crime prevention. Furthermore, there is a decent chance that it would result in said criminal physically assaulting the Jonas Brothers, an outcome no one can deny secretly desiring.

3. Lifetime Season Tickets for the Pittsburgh Pirates I can only begin to imagine how inexplicably atrocious it is to be at a Pittsburgh Pirates home game. No one would willingly spend an entire evening sitting in a hot stadium seat while the raging cocklord sitting next to them drunkenly heckles the unsuspecting Blue Jays fans on the grounds that “Canadians can’t partake in America’s pastime.” What’s worse, it’s the Pittsburgh Pirates, so there is literally no chance that you’ll ever get to see the home team win. Ultimately, the only positive aspect of this punishment would be the opportunity to feast on the woefully sub-par concession stand food, which is only sold for 15-20 times the amount it costs to produce. And to put the icing on the cake, you’re living in Pittsburgh, so the likelihood of getting dateraped by Ben Roethlisberger is substantially greater.

2. Community Service at The Keg of Evanston You might be thinking, “But the KOE is a jolly place! I love going there!” However, imagine being at The Keg and not being allowed to consume alcohol. Or popcorn. Suddenly, your run-of-the-mill Monday night fuckshow has turned into a night full of unmitigated self-loathing whilst observing others in their endless debauchery. On top of that, you’d be forced to engage in community service – picking up empty cups, preventing multi-generational couples from hooking up, politely asking obese Hispanic men to remove themselves from the stripper poles, etc. After 10-15 years of spending every Monday and Saturday performing these tasks, there’s no doubt that a criminal would truly regret the crime they committed.

1. Pledging Sig Ep Although it has been ruled unconstitutional on the grounds of “cruel and unusual punishment” by the Supreme Court, many still support this method of alternative castigation for perpetrators of heinous crimes (OH MY GOD WE JUST MADE LEGITIMATE USE OF THE WORD HEINOUS! HOLY BALLS! IT FUCKING HAPPENED!). Yes, engaging criminals in this form of punishment would involve activities that, under certain definitions, qualify as “torture,” but the long-term penalty would be much worse – a 25 to life sentence of unchecked doucheification. This result, while being worse than death for many criminals, is indisputably more just from a moral standpoint. Even Julie Andrews, a role model for many, firmly asserted that the fairest punishment for murderers and rapists is “an inevitable lifestyle of supercalifragilisticexpialidouchiness.”