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.
No comments:
Post a Comment