PRO:
We’re all in school one day going about our daily lives, and slowly we start hearing murmurs that something has happened a few towns over. Is it a shooting, just a suspicious person walking around, a robbery? We all begin to question and then we hear an announcement in the halls, a mass-murder has occurred in an elementary school not too far away where many of us know little kids who attended the school. Kids and teachers ask themselves how someone can do such a thing to innocent little children and feel no remorse. Unfortunately, things like this occur all the time, maybe not as severe as the Sandy Hook incident but there are evil people in this world. For a person to commit such a crime as killing someone them themself should be put to death. In a just society, the punishment should equal the seriousness of the offense.
The death penalty started a long time ago in the eighteenth century and has grown into many other countries including the United States. As of now, there are 18 states without the death penalty and 32 with it. I believe that with the death penalty it shows the society’s commitment to stopping heinous crimes. If people were to think about one’s they love and then see them being in a murder case like the one above, they would want that person to suffer as much as their family member did. The death penalty gives closure to the family and justice is better served. “Life in prison just means the criminal is still around to haunt the victim.” In prison, the criminal gets food and a place to sleep; it’s not too bad. Why do they deserve to live when the other person had no choice? If they get life in prison there’s nothing that would stop them from continuing to murder in prison because they’ll be there no matter what. The biggest reason to have the death penalty is to stop a terrible crime from happening again.
Prisons across the country are facing the problem of overpopulation. There’s not enough room for everyone and all their crimes in jail. Each prisoner includes clothes, food, bedding, guards, and more. Without the death penalty and just life in jail that’s a cell that’s occupied for a long time when it could be used plenty of times on different prisoners. Without enough guards because of the amount of all the prisoners can cause escapes from jail with a possibility of a crime/murder spree. It is all very scary to think about, by eliminating the people that do not deserve to live because of their evil ways it may make that type of crime rate go down. If a criminal knows they will be put to death following their crime it could prevent one from wanting to do it. Instead of just thinking, “oh well I’ll be put in jail with food, clothing, and shelter that’s not even too bad.” “Mass murderers and serial murderers will always reoffend. It is who they are. Treat them as they would treat you, with complete harshness and no empathy. This process should be bought to a quick resolution, no years and years of appeals, just get it done.” This punishment just protects citizens from living in fear and not feeling safe.
In Maryland, what happens with the death penalty is the sentence is decided by the jury, execution dates are decided by a trial judge, the governor decides clemency or commutation, and then the execution is carried out by a lethal injection at the Maryland State Penitentiary in Baltimore. If every state were like this everyone would feel more safe knowing such a criminal couldn’t harm him or her anymore. “The 775 killers who were executed between 1998 and 2008 had murdered at least 1591 people. That is an average of 2 victims per executed killer.” It is scary to think about the type of people we have living in the world and unless they are executed after their terrible crimes many families and people will live in fear that they could come out somehow and do it all over again. At the end of my research I found a very important quote by Mike Royko “It's because I have so much regard for human life that I favor capital punishment. Murder is the most terrible crime there is. Anything less than the death penalty is an insult to the victim and society. It says…that we don't value the victim's life enough to punish the killer fully."
CON:
Life is a very sacred thing, and if it should not be taken no matter what the circumstance is. There may be a very good reason behind a crime like murder, like a father who’s daughter was just raped and kidnapped, or a child who was sexually abused their whole life by a family member, whatever it is, nobody deserves to die. This person has made a mistake just like everyone else has; they may have a family, children, a girlfriend, or siblings that would not want to see them have their life taken in an immoral way when instead they could receive their punishment of life in prison. We also have to think about the people that have psychological disorders that literally have no control of their body. They don’t deserve to die just because they were born with something that they can’t help. Also, there are flaws in every criminal justice system; if a subject turns out to be guilty we have just killed an innocent life. What kind of society would we be if we promote death?
The death penalty is torture, cruel and unusual punishment, making it an immoral thing in our society. A society that chooses violent acts such as the death penalty also takes part in promoting this type of life in their society. Most people who support this punishment probably have never witnessed it; most Americans would not want to see someone killed in front of them. The death penalty is nothing other than showing violence in America. It will never be the solution to problems in the world nowadays and will not stop people from continuing to murder and commit evil crimes. We have never been able to link those two together. A murderer is not going to stop themself because they know they will just be put to death after. They are mostly crimes of passion or ones that aren’t planned at all. Life in jail is a much better punishment then they almost just getting away with it and dying. If they are sentenced to life in prison, they life in a small cell with little to no privileges and are mostly alone all day, driving themselves crazy and giving them plenty of time to think of what they have done. They get terrible and minimal food and are pretty much forced to stare at a blank wall all day long, what could be worse than that?
If you take someone who commits a mass murder and look at their background almost all the time you will see they have a severe mental issue. Their brains don’t work like most of ours do, most of us couldn’t do something so evil, but they can because they are indeed sick in their head. It is immoral to kill someone who is ill; it is just not fair to them for being born the way they are. These types of people need to be locked up and kept away from society but should not be put to death. Many believe they simply are just not like us and that’s why it seems to us that it was so easy for them to commit a heinous crime like murder. Lane Wallace from The Atlantic exclaims that, “Murderers seem to have no appreciation of boundaries, and it shows up in all aspects of their lives. Most criminals I deal with are very narcissistic. They're blame-shifters, manipulative, and can't feel anyone else's pain but their own.” If you take someone who has schizophrenia for example, they may hear voices and they believe other people are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. Which could lead to them wanting to harm someone because their mind is literally telling them to. They are a rare breed of people and most of the time aren’t treated properly which leads to evil crimes. This isn’t just the only type of mental illness; there are many more that can connect to someone wanting to harm others.
There is no Criminal Justice system that is perfect; one always makes mistakes no matter what the crime is. There have been many reports of mistakes inside the system, so that makes one think, what if there is ever a mistake when putting someone on death row to be killed? If that person is killed and is later found innocent Americans would go crazy saying the death penalty to be abolished and that the whole system is corrupt. We would all feel terrible for that victims friends and families and it would be a huge controversy in our states on top of the crime that was committed. To stay away from something like this from happening it is easiest to just not have the death penalty be an option. Innocent lives could be in danger because no system is perfect. Mistakes in the criminal justice system can also be caused by biased and rational thinking a hard thing to do in some situations. There have been many cases in which a child was the only witness and they give wrong information that can ruin a whole case, convicting the wrong person. Rumors and assumptions can also eschew an investigation making some information wrong.
As we can see from these three examples, the death penalty should not even be an option. It will never solve the crime we have in today’s society. Sticking these villains in jail is the best punishment one can get and is exactly what they deserve, to never see the real world again and have to live with themselves and what they did. The death penalty is immoral and is an act of violence we should not portray to people in America nowadays. Ones with illnesses they cannot do anything about, need help, not death. The death penalty needs to be stopped so we can stop living in a world that influences violence to the people.
