Capital punishment, or more commonly known as the death penalty, is legal in the majority of states in the U.S. The exact number of states that have legalized capital punishment, is twenty-seven states, but Iowa isn’t one of them. This brings up the question, should the United States. keep capital punishment, or abolish it? The question is not just based on ethics, it is also a question about the process. You see, there are problems with the process to reach only one end goal, ending a life.
First of all, a big problem with capital punishment is that it takes way too long to even kill the prisoner on death row. On average, an inmate on death row will stay on death row for about 19 years, but they can even stay on death row for well after 40 years. During this time that a murderer stays on death row, the victim’s family will probably have already mourned and moved on, and many have probably passed away too. You could even raise a family in that time, and the kids and grandparents, if any, wouldn't have even known the person who had died. It’s just too little too late. It not only takes too long, it’s way too expensive. A study at Susquehanna University showed that on average, death row inmates cost about 1.12 million dollars more than the average inmate. This cost equates to heightening taxes for the general public to kill someone.
Is the risk of killing an innocent by keeping the death penalty even worth it? Because of human error in judgment, it is almost certain that some may be wrongly convicted and be sentenced to death. According to the research of Bruce Levin of Columbia University, he showed how errors in death penalty cases are magnitudes higher than in any other case. The study showed that around 4.1% of death row inmates may have been wrongly convicted. Take this with a grain of salt though, because the study doesn’t show how or who is wrongly convicted. Personally, I believe that the false conviction rate is higher than others, but not as high as 4.1%, I would say it's around 1-2%. In 1989, Carlos DeLuna was executed for the fatal stabbing and robbery at a convenience store in Texas. After the execution, another investigation was launched by Professor James Liebon which uncovered powerful evidence of Carlos’s innocence and was wrongly executed.
Some people may even argue that the punishment of life in prison could be worse than sentencing them to death. If a criminal who had murdered someone was sentenced to life in prison, then the criminal would have to live the rest of his life in monotony and contemplating what he had done forever. He would be so close to civilization, yet the prison keeps him from luxury and can break all hope. Some may also say that the government shouldn’t be trusted with the power to end peoples’ lives. With corrupt government officials and not being able to even decide on minimal issues in comparison to the death penalty, this power could possibly be abused by the federal government. If you are a fan of limiting the government’s powers, you should not want capital punishment.
In my opinion, although there are situations where the death penalty would not be unethical and should be used, keeping it just is not worth the risk. All in all, the United States should just not keep the death penalty as a punishment for criminals. This is because capital punishment is an expensive and long process, there is a risk of innocents being killed, life in prison could be worse, and we shouldn’t trust the government with this power. So, what do you think?
Sources:
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/state-by-state
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence/executed-but-possibly-innocent
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row/death-row-time-on-death-row
https://www.science.org/content/article/more-4-death-row-inmates-may-be-innocent?
https://www.amnestyusa.org/issues/death-penalty/death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-cost/
Questions:
Do you think that we should keep the death penalty?
Do you think we should trust the government to fairly enforce capital punishment?
Do you believe that the risk of innocents dying is worth punishing the criminals?
Why or why not?
Replies
I think we should get rid of the death penalty because the money spent on this could be spent on something mroe efficient. I think that if someone innocent was to be sentenced to the death penealty it would be a lot to spend and then find out that they were innocent.
I agree that life sentences could be a lost more money efficient than the death penalty.
I think we should keep the death penalty for cirtin cases. I think we should trust them for punishments because they have studied it for a longer time than we have on the subject. I think that it is worth it and that we should go deeper into cases to make sure innocents do not get the death penalty.
I am on the fence about if we should or shouldn't keep the death penalty. There are lots of pros and cons to having it in place. Having a death penalty is an important tool for preserving law and order, deters crime, and costs less than life imprisonment, however, a lot of people may have died from wrongful prosecution. There are many cons children are sometimes put to death through the use of capital punishment, It tends to be applied in a discriminatory way, and can be a denial of human rights when implemented.
I mostly agree with you; however, the study at Susquehanna University showed that putting an inmate to death actually costs about 1.12 million dollars more than keeping an average inmate in prison. Besides this, I agree that it does preserve law and order from people doing major crimes and that it can be used in a discriminatory way.
I personally don't think we should keep the death penalty. I liked that you brought up human error. I can almost guarantee that innocent people have died because of human error. I also think there is no point in having it in place if you will wait so long to execute them. I believe that life in prison is worse than being sentenced to death, having no freedom for that long seems like torture to me.
Personally, I completely agree. In making inmates spend so much time on death row, it makes it so that families will not get a sense of closure, or at least less of it, because they have waited so long for the inmate to die. I also probably could not live in a prison for the rest of my life because I would have no freedom and I would have the rest of my life to regret the decision I made.
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
of 5 Next