In 1972, the US Supreme Court stated that the death penalty and its statues were unconstitutional. In 2007, 42 people were executed, yet the number of murders in the United States was an approximate 16,204. Do those numbers add up? They are not even close. I find it unconstitutional that everyday hundreds of people lose their lives, and their killer's life is life in a prison. Where, in this prison, they get fed, have a place to sleep, don't have to work, and see there family members every once in a while. Sounds like a pretty simple life if you ask me.
The rest of the American popultion who lives their everyday lives and goes about their own business, pays for these criminals to live. Everytime we pay our taxes, a small percent of that goes to fund the prisones of America. It is said that it is around $20,000-$40,000 a year to keep an inmate. Where do you think that money came from? The victim's families are the ones who really suffer from this. Knowing that the one who took the life of one of their relatives or a close friends is still living comfortably would drive anyone to do anything to make the murderer suffer. But instead of making them suffer, the families of America are paying for their hospitality.
Capital punishment would be a great scare for our country's criminals, too. Just recently, My history teacher assigned us a journal to read. It was about why constitutions matter. In the article an Egyptian girl was talking with an American professor on how our country has so much crime compared to the rest of the world. She simply stated it was because we have no religion and that it is not inforced. That is truly not the case. Other countries don't have as much crime as us because their punishments are way more extreme. If someone were to steal a vegetable off a cart, they would simply have their hand cut off. People could be killed for any law they violated. Now I am not saying we should go to that extreme but our country is much more lenient toward all crimes. If our country started enforcing the death penalty for reasonable crimes, the crime rate would lower and it would scare criminals from doing wrong.
To summarize this, capital punishment would scare our criminals and hopefully lower crime rate. It just isn't morally fair either, life for death…it doesn't make sense.
xoxo sunkissed
21 comments:
I'm a complete supporter of capital punishment for 1st degree murders. The minute someone decides that another does not have constitutional rights, should be the minute when their constitutional rights are removed. Not all murders are the same though. It is difficult to decide just how justified their actions were. Obviously there is no excuse for murder, but some can be more easily defended then others.
I have never really thought about capital punishment before. Now that it is mention I agree. A person with a first degree murder shouldn't be just sitting in jail doing nothing. In some way I don't even think that is suffering.
First of all, I just want to say that I completely support the death penalty, but there are some things in this article I don't agree with. First of all, not every person who commits a murder is given the death penalty. Some of them don't get caught,which is a shame, but also, it's not like judges can just hand out death penalties left and right. A jury has to decide that circumstances were bad enough that the person deserves to die for the crimes they committed. And you have to remember, it's not like if a criminal gets the death penalty, they're going to get executed right away. What I'm trying to say is that the numbers are off. Not everyone who commits a murder is going to get the death penalty, and not everyone who gets the death penalty is actually going to get executed. You can't compare 16,000 murders to 40 executions a year. Secondly, this article makes it seem like living in prison is a dream come true, which is ridiculous. Living in a state penitentiary for the rest of your life isn't a fairy tale. A third thing is when it's talking about people paying for the criminals that get the death penalty to live. Again, it's not like the criminals are going to get executed right away. You're paying for them anyway, and when they do get executed it's not free. Executing a criminal does cost money. So you're paying for them to live and die both, and there's not anything anyone can do about that. If we do start killing criminals right after they're convicted, it's still going to cost a ton of money. My next point is, capital punishment is not going to scare anybody. We already have the death penalty, making it easier to execute someone is not going to scare people who aren't afraid to kill somebody else. It's not going to lower the crime rate. There's always going to be psycho's out there that don't care if they or anyone else is killed. Like I said, I'm all for killing these psychos, but I don't agree with almost all of this article. Pretty much the only thing I agree with is that if someone thinks they have the right to kill someone else, then they deserve to die.
In some ways i agree that someone who killed a person should not get certain things in prison, otherwise they are living comfortably. However, i disagree with the analysis that they should be killed. You may have just put this person in prison for killing someone and then you go kill them? That seems completely wrong to me. We have always been taught, just because someone did it to you doesn't mean you should do it back. And i know its very elementary school, but it's the truth. Personally, if someone i loved was murdered I would rather them rot in jail for the rest of their stinking lives than be killed and put out of their misery.
Sasquatch-
No where in my blog did I say that every person that commits a murder gets the death penalty. That's my opinion on what I think should happen.
Secondly, what you are saying about my numbers makes no sense. It is my opinion that the number of murders each year is extremly higher than the number of executions for murder and that it is completely unfair.
Thirdly, I am pretty sure that I would rather be ALIVE living in a prison then dead. And i doubt that the cost to execute someone would truly add up to the cost of keeping someone in jail for life for $40,000 to $20,000 per year.
This reminds me of a song Toby Keith and Willie Nelson did together called "Beer for my Horses." It was all about taming the criminals of the Old West and how the death penalty helped scare people out of committing crimes. Then they related it to how the same thing would work in today's big cities. Really, I thought they had a good point. When those Texas Rangers went into some troublesome town and hung 'em high in the streets, you wouldn't see their kind in town again. We should crack down on violent crime the same way in modern America as we did when we were a younger nation, cause it sure worked back then. It's time the long arm of the law put a few more in the ground! Send them all to their Maker and He'll settle 'em down!
Criminals don't just sit in prison and watch tv all day while eating potato chips. Its not a fun place to be. Yes, they eat regular meals and have a roof over their heads but that doesn't make it paradise.
Also, executions cost alot of money. Its not just a matter of injecting a lethal dose into their body. To get to that point a criminal first exhausts their appeals process. It costs alot of money to put someone through this and even then people can spend decades on death row.
Harsh punishments do not deter crime. The British tried this and all they ended up doing was colonizing Australia. Punishment deals with the effects of a problem, not the cause. To totally end, or even curtail the rate of, violent crime you must work to eradicate amongst others poverty, mental illness, and mankind's inclination towards evil. Good luck.
I guess I haven't thought about capital punishment too much and still am not completely swayed in either direction after reading this post.
I do, however, have some thoughts on the post. Sunkissed thinks murder is so wrong (and I agree here that murder is definitely wrong) that all who commit it should be killed. To me, this seems a bit contradictory. Murder should be punished by more murder? You said yourself that we have far too much murder and killing in America, so let's add more to it by pushing for capital punishment? If you truly believed that murder is wrong, then why would you push to promote more murder? Who are we to decide who lives and dies? By choosing to end the life of another human, who is to say that we won’t eventually get carried away and become one of the very “psychos” we’re trying to rid America of? Choosing who lives and dies, to me, seems a bit like we’re playing God down here on Earth.
I thought this was a great blog! I remember someone telling me about a prison in Arizona, where the head of the prison made the prisoners work! Like super hard, tiring work that helped the community in some way. I'm not exactly sure how they did it or what they did but I don't think that's a horrible idea. If we are going to pay for prisoner's food and shelter, why not make them do some stuff for us? This would be for the prisoners who committed a crime other than murder. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", if they take someone's life why should their own not be taken away as well?
I don't like the idea of crazy, psycho killers getting put in a jail for a long time just to eat a lot of food, lift weights and stay in shape with exercise. This sounds like a place for bad guys to get huge and kick all our butts and kill more people when they are released. I vote 'yes' for capital punishment.
Yes, murder = bad. Evil. Yeah, we get it.
However, we already decided that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind right? So does a life for a life leave the whole world dead?
Think about it.
Actually, if you look up the cost of execution versus the cost of life in prison, execution is by far more expensive. It takes much more effort and resources to get through all the appeals and to provide all the evidence to pronounce someone deserving of the death penalty. In fact, the South Dakota Legislative Research Council does estimate about $20,000 a year to keep someone in prison for life--and between $750,000 and
$1.1 million per execution.
In addition "In California, our most
populous state, it is estimated that
taxpayers could save $90 million
annually by abolishing the death
penalty. Between 1977 and 1996,
California spent more than $1 billion on
its death penalty system but executed
only five men."
http://legis.state.sd.us/IssueMemos/IssueMemos/im99-20.pdf
It's an interesting report.
I may very well feel differently if someone I knew was murdered, but I agree that it is wrong to kill in order to show how wrong killing is.
And though technology is improving, there is still a chance of an innocent person being put to death. I am rather afraid to take that chance--especially when living out your life without freedom is, I think, worse than the escape of death.
"It were better that ten suspected Witches should escape, than that one innocent Person should be Condemned." --Increase Mather on the Salem Witch Trials.
In closing...my final argument is that I believe that to give and take death like this is a judgment that should ultimately be left to God, not man.
I agree with the death penalty 100%. People who are selfish enough to take someone else's life, should not have their right to live their own. I agree with Sunkissed in the fact that these criminals are sitting in prisons living the easy life. Like he/she said; not working, getting fed, place to sleep, "free time". Many hard-working Americans don't even get this leisure time that the criminals do, so why should they pay for these people that have killed our loved ones to sit back and enjoy life after they unrightfully stole someone elses.
The supporters of the death penalty on here are making prison sound like a paradise. "Free time," "leisure time," and "eating a lot of food, lifting weights and staying in shape with exercise." Wow! Sign me up because this sounds like the greatest deal of all time! Never mind that they're sitting in a cell with no place to go.
Sunkissed you need to learn a few things about arguing. Just because it is your belief does not make it true. The opposition has done a pretty good job of showing statistics and evidence and all you can say is "it is my opinion?" You might want to rethink your position a little bit.
I completely disagree with this article. I didn't read all of the comments, but I did read Sasquatches comment. I totally agree with him (..or maybe her?).
You obviously did no research or very little research on prisons. My father worked in a prison for quite some time. They ARE forced to work, and that's pretty much what they do all day. I would rather DIE than go to prison. Imagine having no freedom whatsoever, always living in fear of being beaten or raped by other inmates. Yes, they are fed and have a bed, but the food is generic bland mush, and the bed is metal, with a thin sheet. You are stripped of all personal privacy. And for a murderer, you would spend every day with a constant reminder of what you did. That to me, would be hell on earth.
If a family member of mine was murdered, I would rather the murderer rot in prison for the rest of their lives rather than get the easy way out.
I'm not saying whether I am affirmative or negative when it comes to taking sides on the death penalty issue. But, in any case, Nebraska is the only state that advocates the use of the electric chair for carrying out said death penalty. An ironic fact concerning this issue is that the electric chair was actually invented as a more HUMANE means of executing people rather than public lynchings or burnings.
Jesus Fish makes some good points.
* $20,000 to support a prisoner
* $750,000 to $1.1 Million per execution.
* In California, taxpayers could save $90,000,000 annually if the death penalty was abolished.
*19 years in CA, $ 1 billion spent on system... 5 were executed.
The death penalty is expensive, and when it's used, we all pay for their crime. Literally.
But if you do the math..
take how ever many prisoners there are in america, multiply that by 20,000, then multiply that by the number of years inmates are sentenced (which is usually life).
That is well over how much multiple exectuions are.
Hmm...so, Mr. Keller said there would be a post you would look back on and be like, "oh crap..."
well, here is mine. I am surprised no one else caught it...
I'll try to amend it...and hopefully won't be discredited from now on :)
the direct quotes from my last post are obviously true, so i'm gonna stick to those---because there are some paraphrases in my post where i pretty much had a brain shutdown and misread:
"Taking into account the average age of
incarceration for someone convicted of
homicide (30.8 years) and the average
life expectancy for males in the U.S.
prisons, Raymond Paternoster has
estimated that the total cost of life
without parole ranges from $750,000 to
$1.1 million per prisoner." (my bad!)
"In Wisconsin, the Legislative Fiscal
Bureau has estimated that reinstating
the death penalty would cost the state
between $1.6 million and $3.2 million
per execution. In California, capital
trials are six times more expensive than
other murder trials."
"...in Texas
each capital case costs taxpayers an
average of $2.3 million, nearly three
times the cost of imprisonment in a
maximum-security cell for forty years."
so, basically, if you had a prisoner in prison for life it would generally be much less expensive than it would be to kill him. The report gives the converse hypothetical example that, "...if a healthy twenty-year-old
was sentenced to prison and died of
natural causes sixty years later, it might
be more expensive than if he had been
sentenced to death and refused to
appeal his sentence." but "It is not the cost of a
particular case that is relevant, it is the
full cost of keeping a death-penalty
system that consumes time and
resources. The costs of complex trials
and numerous appeals outweigh the
cost of life in prison."
sunkissed, your last argument about doing the math (and here i assume you were only talking about 1st degree murder, because it is certainly not true that most criminals in general get life in prison) probably does make sense at this point, while there are less people being executed than there are getting life in prison.
i don't think, however, that it makes sense for the amount of people getting life in prison to get the death penalty instead. can you imagine how those figures would skyrocket?
you are probably right that due to numbers, it is overall more expensive to keep several people in prison for life with a few being executed at high cost. if all these people were being executed at that high cost, though...that is where capital punishment becomes disproportionally expensive.
On the topic of capital punishment, I'm kind of torn. I do agree that the death penalty should exist, but the risk of human error is too great to condemn every accused murderer to death. I do think that a compromise between the death penalty and prison would be nice, we need harsher punishments but not to the extent of death. Yes, jail is "tough" but I know that some people prefer jail to the streets because they are guaranteed food and shelter. Prison needs to be something to fear, instead of a routine for some petty criminals.
For the most part I agree with your point. However, not everyone should be considered for the death penalty. There are many circumstances where the person would be better punished having to sit the rest of their lives in jail thinking about the horrible crime they have done. On the other hand, if someone killed my loved one I would not be okay with them getting to live out their life while my loved one died.
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