In this essay I chose to write about Capital Punishment. In my opinion, I am all for Capital Punishment, because to me that is justice served.
The first reason I am for Capital Punishment, is because it will keep a criminal from replicating the same crime again. If a person has assassinated someone, and is convicted of murder, but only gets a few years in prison, chances are they will replicate the crime again. Although, if a person only gets a few years in prison for murder, it can also cause other criminals to replicate a similar crime, because they know they will only get a few years in prison. For example, in the Timothy Buss case. Timothy murdered a five-year-old girl, and was sentenced to 25 years in 1981, however was out on parole
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Overcrowded prisons in my opinion, is a bad thing because it can end up costing tax payers more money. If a prison is overcrowded, we would need to make more room for more inmates, and need more security, which takes away from our tax dollars. If criminals were to be sentenced to the death penalty, it would make the prison less crowded, and in my opinion will cause crime to decrease. If people knew that they would get the death penalty for committing a crime, the chances of them committing a crime diminish.
I also think if we stop giving criminals the option to say they are not in their right state of mind, and give them the death penalty, our crime rate would decrease. For example the mass shooting in Colorado, where James Holmes killed 12 people and injured 70. In this case Holmes offered to plead guilty and spend life in prison in exchange for avoiding the death penalty. He pleads not guilty by reason of insanity, and the judge accepts his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. He was taken to the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo for evaluation and expected to be returned to the Arapahoe County Jail. He was later found guilty, and charged life in prison without parole. In my opinion for someone who staged this massacre, and even had to set bombs at his apartment, he is not mentally ill. He knew what he was doing, and he should have had the death penalty. Even though he will be in prison
Assuming that the killer is capable of such reasoning shows us the arrogance of our kind. In fact, "those who commit violent crimes often do so in moments of passion, rage and fear - times when irrationality reigns" (Information, "Capital Punishment" 107). Killing a human being as prevention to crime is, in essence, using a human being as a means rather than an ends.
Keeping a prisoner in jail for life will be very expensive considering that it costs $80,000 a year; and the bad news is that the money comes from the taxpayer's pocket. Thousands of people will attack the death penalty. They will give emotional speeches about the one innocent man who might be executed. However, all of these people are forgetting one crucial element. They are forgetting the thousands of victims who die every year. This may sound awkward, but the death penalty saves lives. It saves lives because it stops those who murder from ever murdering again (Bryant). These opinions represent some of the strongest and most influential views that proponents hold. However, if our prison system could rehabilitate more effectively, perhaps those who murdered once, could change.
Since the earliest times, man has struggled with the concept of justice. The controversy of capital punishment has weighed on the minds of humans since the beginning. When we are wronged it is our natural instinct to demand compensation. This thirst for revenge can be seen in the earliest civilizations and societies. Ancient Hammurabi code states “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (History of the World). For many people this little axiom seems fair. Others however, think otherwise and warn of a blind and toothless community. What is it about capital punishment that divides so many Americans? Is it the possibility of an innocent man being executed too much of a risk? Should our current
An innocent man is wrongly executed whilst a man who raped and murdered a mother and her thirteen year old daughter spends the rest of his life with three meals a day and cable television. Which of these is the bigger injustice? The use of the death penalty to punish serious crimes is a very controversial topic and there is much debate surrounding the issue. This paper will briefly discuss arguments supporting and against the use of the death penalty.
Capital punishment is used predominantly for, but not exclusively to, the crime of murder. This employs the “eye for an eye” sort of belief system that has been in use for hundreds of years. This type of thinking is backed by a principle that was a key point in Machiavelli’s “The Qualities of a Prince.” Machiavelli contends that “it is much safer to be feared than loved.” This is a mindset that is shared with those who support the death penalty. This is because if one knows that they will die if they perform a certain act, they will generally be unwilling to perform that act. People who use even the slightest bit of logic and reasoning could reach the conclusion that it is better to use the threat of death to keep potential murderers from killing innocent victims than to abolish capital punishment and sacrifice innocent lives.
American prisons today are filled to their capacities, yet crime here in America seems to have increased. I am speaking of one of the cruelest forms of crime that must be eradicated, which is murder. It seems as though a life sentence does not impose fear into modern day criminals, seeing that serious crimes are being committed more often now than in the past. I believe enforcing a death penalty on violent criminals would help them to come into a realization that they should begin to value not only their own lives but the lives of their victims beforehand and not after.
The death penalty does not deter criminals from committing crime. Most criminals who commit crimes do not have intentions of being caught and believe that they are invincible from the repercussions of their actions. Because of this, the death penalty really does not deter criminals from committing a crime. In fact, the death penalty could be considered an “easy way out” because the criminal does not have to spend several months, years, or even the rest of his or her life behind bars with little contact with the outside world. The criminal can just die and no longer have to suffer with knowing what he or she did, how it has affected others, and how it will continue to affect his or her life. Also, many criminals end up committing suicide in prison because they do not want to have to spend every day locked in a jail cell for extended periods of time.
While criminals must be punished for their criminal actions, “legalized murder”, as author Coretta Scott King put it, is immoral. The death penalty is legalizing the very thing that many on death row are charged for, murder. There is a multitude of lawful alternatives, to the death penalty, of reestablishing a better reputation for the criminals. The Constitution has no true right to allow such a felonious form of rehabilitation.
he death penalty serves the right justice for capital murder. Many people think that the death penalty does not serve any justice, but it takes away the number of cold murderers on the street. Life in prison may do justice on some occasions, but if a person kills another person, then that person deserves the death penalty.
Should one person have the right to end another human's life? It is a question most people have the answer for when it comes to capital punishment. Capital punishment is known to some people one of the cruelest punishment to humanity. Some people believe giving a person the death penalty doe's not solve anything. While other's believe it is payback to the criminal for the crime they have committed. There have been 13,000 people executed since the colonial times, among 1900 and 1985 there were 139 innocent people sentence to death only 23 were executed. In 1967 lack of support and legal challenges cut the execution rate to zero bringing the practice to a complete end by 1972. Although the supreme court authorized its resumption in 1976
The death penalty has been an issue of debate throughout the world, from its establishment as a public display, to it’s banning, and through this day remaining controversial. In biblical times the death penalty was widely used in brutal inhumane ways such as crucifixion and stoning. This form of punishment spread throughout the world, eventually leading to Britain bringing this practice to America in the early 1800’s. Scholars such as Voltaire and Montesquieu began to write on the banning of this form of punishment, but during the times of war, capitol punishment opposition was and still is put on the backburner as a major public concern due to more urgent issues, such as slavery, or international terrorism
Capital punishment is the execution of a perpetrator for committing a heinous crime (homicide), and it is a hotly debated topic in our society. The basic issue is whether capital punishment should be allowed as it is today, or abolished in part or in whole. My argument is that:
Susan Smith purposely drove her car off into a lake with her 2 children strapped to the back seats. Think of how they must have felt as the cold water started to fill the car, and then ultimately drowned them. Barbaric is the word I would use to describe her actions. But yet, the jury rejected the death penalty and chose a 30-year sentence instead because capital punishment was not enforced in the state. Broken up from the death of his 2 children, Mr. Smith said, “Me and my family are disappointed that the death penalty was not the verdict.” I am going to convince you that capital punishment has to be enforced in all states. I will tell you about the problem, the solution to the problem, and what it would be like if my solution is
even consider death a punishment. Dying is a part of life, and "you can be a
First of all, capital punishment would reduce taxes and makes prisons a much more effective place to hold criminals. This causes life imprisonment to become practically obsolete and prisons will be capable of functioning as a rehabilitation center. (the purpose of prison is to separate the criminals from the general population and to rehabilitate prisoners.) By