The Death Penalty

Should the death penalty be a punishment for crime?

I believe that yes, it should, but ONLY for cases in which a life has been taken away. If you murder someone, you owe the world a life that can never be brought back. It's the whole "eye for an eye" philosophy (well, actually it was a code of laws, but let's not get into Western Civ. class here).

Also, a less philosophical reason; I don't know how this works in other countries, but here in America, jails are paid for by the taxpayers. In essence, we are paying for murderers to live.

Opinions?

~Jade

 

I live in Michigan, where there is no death penalty...(though it was been highly considered.) Anyways, I think the death penalty is the greatest punishment our society has to offer. People will never change their ways, and constantly return to the life of a criminal. They should perish for what they done (if it is to a certain extent) and not be given any chances. Like you said Jade, tax payers are paying for someone who is serving life in prison...it just makes more sense to execute them, and get it over with.

 

i agree. i heard from teachers that the cost of keeping 1 deathrom inmate alive is...i forget, but i know its way too much. if they're going to die anyway, why make them live? its an odd system that should be changed. my father's old high school friend tried to rob a bank, he was sent to jail, he got out, tried to rob another bank, and is in prison again. if he gets out again, i bet he'll try to do the same thing.

 

Here in Michigan, we have no death penalty. I personally think the death penalty is fine. If a guy goes out and rapes 10 women, kills 15 people, blows up 3 houses and 5 cars, burns down buildings, and beats children, he deserves to be killed.

 

well....what u said about killing someone is rite. but what about self-defense, what if they tried to kill u first?

 

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

 

self-defense is a little bit tricky. in school ( i know its not a crime but its self defense) my friend was in the locker room for a sports team. one of the freshmen kept turning the lights on and off. my friend asked the freshman to stop, but the freshman punched, i think, my friend. my friend retaliated by putting the freshman in a headlock. the freshman then lied about it to the teacher. my friend got 5 days suspension. not fair, but courts may act like that.

 

Usually if someone wins a case for 'self-defense', they never receive the death penalty. The death sentence is a very big sentence, and although the law can sometimes make mistakes, it's very rare that someone's put to death for a crime (albeit a big one) they didn't commit (except in the movies).

As a Canadian, we don't have the death penalty either. I'm not too knowledged about the raw facts behind it, but if I were to justify why Canada probably doesn't have it--or any other nation for that matter--is:

The most important aspect is probably that society tries to promote that human life is important. Forget religion and thou shalt not kill, it's just not right to take a human life. By saying "You shall be put to death" for the lives he/she has killed doesn't really make the situation better. Sure, many of you have stated the idea that tax dollars go to keeping them alive, but by refuting that you're saying that you're choosing money over the lives of others. "He/She's just gonna keep on raping/killing, just kill them so I don't have to pay for him/her to live."

Personally, I think letting them live with the crimes they've done in an isolated prison for the rest of their natural lives is probably the worse punishment out there. Let them live their lives in solitude, so they can live with the crimes they have committed as long as humanly possible. Death for some criminals is looked upon as the easy way out; they don't have to deal with what they've done or slowly rot away in a world where their freedom is forever taken away. For the criminally insane, a death sentence is a laughable farce and many don't even feel fear or care about it.

Sure, your tax dollars could be spent on other things, and you may feel 'Hey, I'm not wasting my money keeping criminals alive', but saying they should die really doesn't put you any higher than the criminals doing the killing. To me, it just looks like a bunch of citizens hiding behind the law to justify taking the life of another human being because they want revenge or 'payment' for something that was taken away from them. But in the end, just how many people are satisfied with that? Would it satisfy the father who's daughter was raped and killed, by a man who just laughs and smiles all the way through his execution?

I think the death penalty does two major things:

a) It condones the idea that killing others is normal if you've been wronged in an equal fashion, and if you do it through the law.

b) (being a very strong advocate of the Slippery Slope Argument) This impact on society can cause a slow deterioration of society's sensitivity to human life. The more ways we find to justify killing others will eventually just make us not believe human life isn't as important to protect as we once thought it was.

For me, I see the valor and courage it takes to be the bigger person and know when to end the cycle, or in some cases, to forgive. To kill because someone was killed, then getting killed for killing another, who will be the bigger person and say no?

I'm not religious, but when the Pope forgave the man who shot him with the intention of killing him, that was incredible.

 

that IS incredible. i would've probably kicked the guy and THEN i would think about forgiving him

 

In my state, we still have the death penalty, and I think that a very bad person should be put to death. Why do people considered it cruel and unusual punishment when that person killed someone, or raped them, to me, what that person did to that other person is cruel and unusual. So, I think that the death penalty should be a punishment for crime, but only if the person did unspeakable crimes, like commiting murder or rape.

 

Self-defense is if you're in clear and present danger. Meaning if you aren't at home and set a bobby-trap (Yes, this actually happened.) And a robber breaks into your home and sets off the booby trap, while you're not there, the robber can easily sue you.

As for the death penalty, I think it should be used for the last resort. There's like 500 people *probably too low* waiting for the death penalty. Some are even innocent, but Texas kills a ton of inmates every year, well over the thousands. It should only be used to be as a last resort, to the prisoner's who did crimes that were unspeakable. Like the BTK killer.

 

i agree. btw, what's the BTK killer?

 

^ He was a serial killer in Kansas...a lot like Charlie Starkweather, a serial killer in Nebraska in the 1950’s. *I'm a history nerd xp*

 

Someone gave a clear example of how this 'isolation solution' isn't really working at all - a lot of the criminals that get out of prison continue doing crimes anyway :/ With a more severe punishment, I think more peolple would retreat from doing such absurd things. Like back in the Middles Ages, someone would get their hand chopped off for stealing - hence stopping him by FORCE from stealing again.

So like a good majority of others, yes, I say we use the Death Penalty for those who've taken lives from others - it doesn't really matter what the criminals think, but what matters is that we keep the dangerous people away.

 

I'm not saying it's going to work, but I am saying that I don't think it's a good idea to kill someone for killing another. It's kind of like a hypocrisy if you ask me, except one hides behind the law to do so. And for those who 'deserve' the death penalty, there's always the life sentence--which will never get them out. Life in dangerous prisons isn't exactly a safe haven, either. Criminals die in prison because of the violence behind those bars.

Like I mentioned before, some of the more disturbed criminals won't find the death sentence more 'severe'. If someone's a cold-blooded, ruthless killer, most don't even care about what happens to them. They'll find it an easy way out. So sometimes it does matter what the criminals think. The only people this would 'send a message to' are those people who contemplate murdering someone but are constantly thinking about the consequences. In many cases, these aren't the 'scary' individuals we should be worrying about.

I personally don't believe in the death penalty. I'd rather pay taxes to keep them alive than to slander the importance of human life, no matter who the individual is. Keeping them in prison for life *still* keeps the dangerous people away, just some of your tax dollars are working to remind the world that killing others is wrong.

I don't know. I guess I don't get the principle. Killing people is against the law, yet we use the law to kill others . I simply don't get the lesson learned there. So it's okay to kill someone if they've killed someone you loved, as long as you don't act on your own and use the law instead to justify your anger and resentment.

 

I think you are right. I agree with many of the things you said. Isolating someone can be a real torture (mentaly).

I am against death penalty. We don't have the right to kill someone even if he/she did the worst thing ever.

First because we might be wrong and this person can be innocent. Second, i believe that none of us has the right to kill a person. We have all commited crimes during our lives. I don't mean stealing or something similar but daily things. For example when someone make fun of someone else. And i mean in a really bad way not something for fun. This is violation of human rights. We all deserve a second chance because none of us is perfect.

 

Normally, I would agree with that. However, some people CANNOT change. There are people constantly going back to prison, and those who have life sentences (99 years plus, and the odds of them living that long is .1%) Why not just kill them is they are going to rot in prison their whole life? I agree that people deserve a second chance if their charge was only a few months/fews. But if you take part in a homicide or rape...you deserve to die.

 

Yeah, killing is against the law but under certain circomstances it's actually OKAY to kill someone. If someone attempts to kill/rape you or someone you witnessed, you have the right to interfere and knock the life out of the aggressor. So I don't see why we shouldn't apply the Death Penalty to those who get away with murder.

I see your justified point, I'll give you that, but personally speaking I still believe we apply the Death Penalty to the criminals that get away with murder - is all :/ I mean there are a number of criminals which aren't JUST blood-thirsty serial killers who don't fear death...well I dunno - I can't say I know crap on criminal psychology. But it's not the idea of killing someone to 'justify one's anger' but really in terms of the criminal 'getting what they commited', a bit like karma whut, just not in a natural sense.

 

IMO, the death penalty kills a man quickly, while isolation/solitary confinement kills a man slowly.

 

but if we kill someone, we might be saving someone else's life. maybe someone's whose life is actually worth saving. cuz killing that person might prevent them from going out to kill somebody else