The death penalty is a very controversial topic. Out of only 60 countries today that still approve of the death penalty, the United States is one. 35 states have the death penalty and only 15 states do not. There are five different ways the states and US government uses to kill someone: Lethal injection, electrocution, gas chamber, hanging, and firing squad. Lethal injection is the most popular method of the five and only two persons were hanged and fired upon.
The cost of the death penalty is outrageous. The cost to kill someone is actually more than keeping someone alive. In California it costs $114 more per year to kill them than to keep them in prison for life. This is a very high price to pay considering California hasn't used the death penalty last year or this year.
The youngest person ever to die was a young man of 20 years. Do you think that maybe he wanted to die? Maybe the US should take away the death penalty because a young man like that won't have to take the consequences for his actions. He doesn't want to spend years in prison. He is probably happy he is going to die because he won't have to survive the guilt within him. The death penalty might be helping those who are killed.
What do you think? Is it worth the cost? Should we kill murderers or lock them up for life?
There are currently 1174 people killed under the death penalty and more to come. Should we waste our money to kill a person when just locking them up is cheaper? Should the United States get rid of the death penalty? Read the facts and decide.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/FactSheet.pdf
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I believe the victims’ family should have the choice of whether or not the killer should be put to death. If death is what they wish then so be it. They are after all the ones that are affected the most. Almost everyone on death row has committed terrible crimes; otherwise they wouldn't be facing death. They do not deserve to live. I believe in the old saying “an eye for an eye”. If you brutally murder someone then you too should be brutally murdered. The world needs to stop being so soft. These are not innocent people we are dealing with. Maybe if people know that their actions will result in their own death they will think twice before taking someone else’s life.
ReplyDeleteI personally don’t think that the death penalty is morally wrong, but I think that life in prison is a far worse punishment for someone than the death penalty. If you kill the convict you are just giving them a way out, but if you sentence them to life in prison without parole they will have to spend the rest of their life in a living hell which I believe is a much worse. Additionally the death penalty is extremely expensive and it would be much more practical for states to sentence people to life in prison because it would be cheaper for taxpayers. But the most important fact in my opinion is that 88% of experts say that the death penalty isn't even a deterrent of violent crimes, and if fear of the death penalty doesn’t stop criminals from perpetuating violent crimes what is the point? I think that the United States should get rid of the death penalty simply because it is outdated and ineffective.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I am adamantly against the death penalty. I understand the severity of certain crimes such as homicides or manslaughter. However, does this mean that we must "award" crime with crime? The answer is no. By allowing capital punishment, we are promoting the notion that justice can be served by crime. That is a huge contradiction. Instead, I think that we should keep offenders locked in jail. Isolation can be used as a catalyst for punishment. By being secluded, prisoners have plenty of time to dwell and reflect. In essence, it is psychological punishment. I hope that the U.S. will one day only utilize this method.
ReplyDeleteYou brought up good points in this blog but I think that the moral question, whether it is right to use killing as a method of punishment, is more important than cost. Many of us are brought up being told that two wrongs don't make a right. So why is it that in America we kill people to show that killing people is wrong? This form of punishment doesn't make sense to me. I understand that people who kill are dangerous but that is why they are put in prison- to be isolated from society so they can't harm anyone else. I think it comes down to the fact that killing is wrong no matter what. We as human beings don't have the right to take someone's life away from them.
ReplyDeleteI agree that being imprisoned is a much more sufficient punishment than the death penalty. I think having to live with what you have done is much harder than the easy way out of the death penalty.
Another big issue surrounding this controversy is the number of people who have been executed and later proven innocent. It has happened a number of times and many people often overlook this issue when dealing with the death penalty. It is just another reason that killing is not the answer.
I am glad to see that the number of people being sentenced to the death penalty has been dropping in the past 10 years. I do not believe that anyone should be sentenced to death, no matter what crime they commited. It is the 10 commandments..."thou shall not kill"...Human life is a very precious gift. I think it is bad enough that the criminal in most cases took someone else's life, but the killing should stop there. I am a firm believer in consequences for ones actions, but I don't believe that it should be taken as far as death. I agree that it is much more affective to sentence the criminal to a life time of imprisonment, that way they have much more time to reflect upon what they did. At times it is very controversial because you want the criminal to understand what it was like for their victim...but in many times the criminal is not tortured nearly as much. I believe that murder should be avoided as much as possible, regardless of the story behind it. And in these harsh economic times, we need to save as much money as possibly for the things that truly matter!
ReplyDelete“You know that you have been taught, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I tell you not to try to get even with a person who has done something to you. (Matthew 5:38-39)” I agree with what the Bible has to say, we can break the cycle of violence. As citizens we can prove that we need not take life for life, especially when there are more efficient and humane responses to the spread of violent crime. If one commits murder he/she should have to live with that decision and be sentenced to a life of imprisonment.
ReplyDeleteWhen I took drivers education a few years ago, we watched a movie about a teenage boy who had killed a young girl in a drunk driving accident. What the parents of the girl decided was a reasonable retribution, was to have the boy mail them a check for a dollar every Friday for the next fifteen years so that he would never forget. Needless to say he never did forget, and he now speaks against drunk driving at many school assemblies along with the parents of the girl.
There are other options besides death! A major issue surrounding the controversy of capital punishment is the past cases where plenty of people who have been executed were later proven innocent. This is why only God has the right to take life away; the United States should get rid of the death penalty all together for it is simply unethical.
I believe in capital punishment and the death penalty. If someone receives the death penalty they are usually waiting in jail for years and years because they appeal their case: in fear of death. In America it takes years to actually face the death penalty. Usually prisoners are locked up for years thinking about their crime and waiting to suffer the consequences of it. This is emotionally and pyschologically painful for them. And it is what they deserve. Do you think that someone who killed 2 people and raped someone deserves 3 meals a day and a warm place to sleep at night? I dont think so. I believe if it actually affected your own family, you would feel much safer if they received the death penalty in court. It is for the victim's family. It is justice. I do think the system should be reformed to only lethal injection, but hey, the person did kill someone. They should have thought about their own life before they took someone else's.
ReplyDeleteThe death penalty should never be enforced as a form as punishment. Is "an eye for an eye" really that good of a strategy for punishing a murderer? How can law enforcers say that murder is wrong if they themselves murder people? Taking away someone's life is murder no matter how you look at it. Some say that capital punishment is utilized to keep the public safe by stopping criminals in their tracks. But if the murderer/criminal is already incarcerated, what is the point of the death penalty then? Serving a life time in prison is far more of a punishment than death is. Death is a natural part of human life. Freedom is a privilege. If we do something of bad behavior as children, privileges are taken away. This should be the same case as with the punishment of murderers. No one has the right to take someone's life away unless it is in self-defense.
ReplyDeleteThe death penalty should never be an option of punishment. But what do we do with criminals that commit heinous crimes? We pay a lot of taxes to keep these criminals in prison, what other forms of punishment could there be? Should we bring back the work lines? It is a fact that it costs more to kill someone than to keep someone alive in this case, but what would be a just punishment for say murder?
ReplyDeleteAssuming that you're against the death penalty, I agree, albeit for different reasons.
ReplyDeleteSo long as it isn't substantial, I don't think the cost of capital punishment versus life in prison should even be a factor in deciding whether or not we /should/ have the right to sentence someone to death. Nor am I against the death penalty because it may be the "easy way out" for the perp.
It's the fundamental principle that I disagree with. The old philosophy of Hamurabi's code: "an eye for an eye." You killed, so we'll kill you.
While this may work well in some practices, I'd figure our judicial system would have evolved beyond that mentality at this point. It's hypocritical. Killing the person solves nothing. There is no retribution, no justice. Capital punishment is merely a form of revenge. What's more, if you believe in a heaven and a hell, you are essentially sentencing this person to eternal damnation (and that's certainly not fair).
In that respect, I guess the "justice" is that the victim's family feels better. But feelings aren't objective. You can feel better, but it doesn't mean the situation itself is actually better.
So I think there are better alternatives. Put the criminals to good use. Have them repay a debt to society by forcing them into public work programs. Or, if they are truly beyond that kind of retribution, keep them alive for criminologists and behavioral scientists to observe in order to better understand the sociopath's psyche. But don't waste that life.
Admittedly, you can bet I'd be singing a different tune if I had to decide on an emotional level. For example, if someone killed a member of my family, I would absolutely want that person dead even though I know deep down that it's not the right thing to do.
And that alone- the blurring between the emotions and facts- is enough to keep this as a controversial topic for years, maybe centuries to come.
In my opinion, if the death penalty worked and it was a deterrent of violence, I say why not. Are you telling me that a sick serial killer who, while in his or her right mind, is killing people left and right doesn't deserve to die? What about the man who rapes little children and, jail-sentence after jail-sentence, he continues to scar these children for life. If someone is caught in the act or there is no doubt at all whatsoever that someone has taken the life of another or done something worthy of the death penalty, he or she deserves to die. In the case of DUI or manslaughter, I feel that the death penalty is not a good choice. The person made a mistake. He or she doesn't deserve death. There was one blog response earlier by tormey that said "88% of experts say that the death penalty isn't even a deterrent of violent crimes." If it doesn't work, we shouldn't use it. It's just not worth it. My concluding thoughts on the matter are that the death penalty should be legal but we use it far too much in this day and age. It should only be used under extenuating circumstances.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the death penalty is wrong not matter what the crime committed is. Two wrongs don't make a right. I believe that harsher jails need to be created in the country to place criminals such as serial killers, rapists, child molesters, etc. Each of these criminals should be put into prison for life with out chance of getting out and need to be stripped of most "human" priveledges. Not only does the death penalty almost contradict the purpose of law I believe that if prisons were horrible enough, that it would be putting these criminals out of their misery. It also seems that the death penalty has not been very effective either.
ReplyDelete