Abolish the Death Penalty

The death penalty has always and will always be a very controversial issue. It does not deteriorate crime because it is a crime. Do you want to commit a crime? I think not. The process of execution is easy to understand, but the emotions involved in carrying out a death sentence upon another person, regardless of how much they deserve it, is beyond my own understanding. I just can’t kill a person, no matter what the accused individual did. Death sentences are usually handed out to people who have been found guilty of a serious crime. Firstly, the death sentence is extremely inhumane. It also defeats the purpose of teaching a lesson, as it would be using violence to end violence. To end violence with violence are, well, two wrongs which do not make a right. So how does a collective society draw the line on the death penalty?

It is not humane to kill other people. If a person is found guilty of a serious and outrageous crime, how is sentencing him or her to death allowing them to learn from it? Nothing because they are dead. They cannot learn from their mistakes if they have no beats in their hearts, no blood flowing through their bodies and minds and no occupying soul. Furthermore, killing one criminal will not teach the other potential criminals because they are not able to consider consequences when committing the crime. People who commit these horrific crimes are not in a normal state of mind; they do not think logically about the consequences. In fact, most people on death row commit their crimes in the heat of passion, possibly under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or while suffering from a serious mental illness. These people, our people, represent a small portion of the population that is highly unlikely to make smart decisions or think about the consequences of their actions. Logically, when you think about it, when a child makes a mistake, such as, purposely killing a spider, we simply do not kill the child but simply teach them that what he or she has done was wrong and, when these actions are repeated over and over, you don't lose faith in the child. Why do we lose faith in these people? Just like you and I these criminal have the potential to learn with unconditional support.The idea that the death penalty has the power to stop murder is naive. The person who commits the crime may have a troubled past. For example, they may have been severely abused as a child or maybe they have a severe mental illness such as schizophrenia. People with a disturbed past are often prone to these types of crimes, sometimes for attention and often don't realize what they have done. There are programs in place to help criminals, to change and potentially become a productive member of society. Sometimes the people with the darkest past can create the brightest smiles.

The execution of the death penalty deprives the offender of the opportunity to restore his or her bad behavior or even a chance to start again. Rather, these people give us cause to look more closely at the people whom we want to execute. If you look closely, what you will find is that the practice of the death penalty and human dignity are not interchangeable. There needs to be a line drawn, but how do we know what is an appropriate line? Each line you draw is made up. We have to figure out when to implement the death penalty. Do we enforce the death penalty only in the case of a conviction for multiple murders, child or adult molestation, drug dealers, gangs, kidnapping, terrorism, etc. We would have to figure out what crimes deserve death. Don’t you think it makes it hard to draw any line? How can one being make a conscious and moral decision on whether or not to end a life. Also, choosing the death penalty can lead to other corporal punishment and that has no positive outcomes for the people, you and me. I think this should be avoided at all cost. Harming or killing people doesn’t benefit anyone even if its court ordered. On another point, we do not want to run the risk of killing an innocent person because not only did you just commit murder but legally committed murder to a person accused of a crime they never committed. Ending their life is like taking candy from a baby. Rude, wrong, unethical and inhumane.

“An eye for an eye,” is what some people would say concerning the death penalty. People who support the death penalty ask the question, “Why should I, an honest hardworking taxpayer, have to pay to support a criminal for the rest of their life?” There are actually studies done that state that the actual cost of execution is a lot more than the cost of life in prison “A recent study commissioned by the Nevada legislature found that the average death penalty case costs a half million dollars more than