Well, I guess a good way to start s to say that I think literal lifelong prison sentences are worse than an execution. I don't speak from personal experience so this is more of guess than fixed knowledge.
I just imagine living a fake live behind bars for eternity to be worse than just ending it.
The concept of revenge is often present and toxic in juristiction, however German law often focuses on repairing damages and not paying out money for "emotional damage". That is why you rarely see Germans suing a Starbucks for burning their tongue on the coffee.
(This also has downsides, but thats a whole new topc)
In my opinion it is unrealistic to get the concept of revenge out of humankind. Like you said, if someone were to kill my parents, my brother or close friends
I will want to make sure he suffers. I don't need him dead or physically punished, but I won't let someone take injustice to my loved ones "for free".
All this said our modern laws often focus way to much on this punishing aspect, especially silly when it comes to crimes without a victim. People also tend to get swollowed by their emotions when they call for the killing of a convict.
I actually started watching the Korean drama "Stranger" or "Forest of Secrets". And (small spoiler) I cried at the moment when the old woman grabbed a stone to kill the alleged Murderer of her son, but then stopped when she saw the young wife of the convict and their new born child parting from him in tears.
Kinda cheesy, but it really got me. Those Koreans actually now how to act, who would have thought?
It is a complex topic on a few levels and I find that there is a lot of conflict within, especially when it comes to the 'religious' aspects of it where often the people most bent on revenge are the religious. Not always though of course but I find this contrary to their belief in a god who will punish the guilty in the after life. Perhaps it is impatience.
With all of the nonsense in the world however, I think it is a topic worth investigating for the individual rather than blindly supporting whatever societal view is held. Doing that leads to similar psychological positioning as honor killings and the like.
I used to watch a lot of foreign language films in Australia but hardly ever now.
Yeah my main crux with some religious people is the notion of punishment/avoiding punishment being much more important than actual reasoning.
Speaking of punishment, I would really appreciate if you could give me an opinion about my most recent post. I want to start flagging a Rep 60 spammer, but I might sound very tiki-torchy in this post.