Even though some people believe that some criminals should not be allowed to exist in society, the death penalty should be abolished because many religions teach that killing is a sin. I also believe that a quick and painless death is not severe enough punishment for some criminals.
Do you think that criminals should be given a quick and painless death or a life long punishment? I don’t. One of the reason that I think that life in prison is better than the death penalty is because for each death penalty that is done it costs the state or USA about $2,000,000 and for life in prison it’s $500,000, that’s 4x as much. Another reason why I think that the death penalty should be abolished is because of the risk of killing someone who is not guilty. Since 1976 82 inmates have being removed from death row for being wrongfully convicted. Statistics show the death penalty is not a deterrent for crime. In fact, the murder rate in the US is 6 times that of Britain and 5 times that of Australia. Neither country has the death penalty. A lot of people are against the death penalty because some religions forbid death penalty: Catholic, Presbyterian, Quaker, Amish, Mennonite and basically killing is wrong.
If you thought that that was all the reason that I was going to give you then you’re wrong. Most of the people who are given death penalty are the ones that were being defended by court-appointed lawyers who are often then the worst-paid and most-inexperienced and lest-skillful lawyers. One of the most important reasons for me is that it violates international human rights laws. It also promotes killing as an ok solution to a difficult problem. Also one of the many reasons for stopping the death penalty is that the punishment is not only for the criminal but also the family but it really affects their children psychologically. I think that the death penalty is also barbaric. There is one very barbaric way of the death penalty and that is still available in a few states is death by hanging, if the drop is too short there will be a slow and agonizing death by strangulation. If the drop is too long, the head will be torn of. Two states still authorize the firing squad. The prisoner is strapped into a chair, and hooded. A target is pinned to the chest. Five marksmen, one with blanks, take aim and fire.
One of the newest ways of inflicting the death penalty, enacted into law by nearly two dozen states, is lethal injection, first used in Texas in 1982. It is easy to overstate the humaneness and efficacy of this method. There is no way of knowing that it is really painless. As the U.S. Court of Appeals observed, there is “substantial and uncontroverted evidence … that execution by lethal injection poses a serious risk of cruel, protracted death…. Even a slight error in dosage or administration can leave a prisoner conscious but paralyzed while dying, a sentient witness of his or her own asphyxiation. Many people think that with this new method everything always runs smoothly, but that’s not always true. In 1985 “the authorities repeatedly jabbed needles into … Stephen Morin, when they had trouble finding a usable vein because he had been a drug abuser., during the execution of Raymond Landry, a tube attached to a needle inside the inmate’s right arm began leaking, sending the lethal mixture shooting across the death chamber toward witnesses.
So now that I have told you many reason to be against the death penalty why don’t try some reasons for the death penalty. The next time you here about a death penalty or life in prison. Imagine if that person was a loved one of yours. How would you feel if they have them the death penalty.
