Death penalty?

Question

There are so many arguements on the subject and I want to know what you think. Do you agree with the death penalty?

Answer 1

nope, even aside from the fundamental problem with convicting innocent people that seems to be cropping up, I see a big problem with it.
I don't like the idea that we are trying to teach/enforce a view that human life must be respected by killing people. It doesn't make sense to me. Telling people that disrespect for life is ok sometimes but not others and having them understand it in a way that they will always remember (even when very angry) is contradictory.
I think that the death penalty is a purely visceral emotional response to fear and pain, and while I respect those emotions, I cannot agree with their use in determining a rational plan for creating a functional society. It seems a fundamentally unreasonable way to solve a problem. I don't think it can possibly work, it just seems frivolous indulgence in emotion to me.

Answer 2

Well, there is no doubt that execution is an evil, but it is definitely a case of the ends justifies the means.

One cannot get around the fact that death is the ultimate deterrent, and having such a law in place would deter crime, especially ones which incurred such a penalty. Ever since we in the UK abolished the death penalty, the murder rate has been going through the roof, compared to a steady decline beforehand. The same happened in the USA, and since they brought it back it is beginning to go down again. Whose life is more important? A murderer's or an Innocent victim's? Or rather who least deserves to die?

It was estimated in England that for every hanging four murders were prevented, and in the US the figures have varied from three to seventeen. This shows that, paradoxically, the executioners would actually be saving lives. If we took the English figure of four, that means that for every execution a net total of three lives are saved, it isn't just about taking life away.

Yes, you do occasionally get the wrong guy, but how often? If we estimated on in ever hundred (and that is a gross overestimation but it's an easy figure to do the maths with), then for every hundred executions four hundred are saved, and one hundred are taken, so three hundred innocent lives are saved in balance. Take away that one innocent life and you get 299 lives saved.

So, at the cost of one innocent life being taken, 299 are saved.

It may not be a very nice thought, but the death penalty works. It prevents murder and so protects the law abiding citizens of the country, which should be any government's utmost value.

Answer 3

Whether the death penalty is right or wrong is not really the issue. The problem in America is that it is applied so unevenly. Some of the most hideous criminals get life in prison while hundreds are put to death who may have committed a crime of passion. I'm not minimizing any murder, but the worst do not seem to be the ones who receive the death penalty.

Answer 4

Hi,
I strongly disagree with the death penalty because:
1. Won't the person who executes the convict also become a 'convict' (morally, not legally)?

2. Most of the time convicts don't care about the death penalty and care more about life behind bars.

and

3. Studies prove that the death penalty causes more deaths than it saves.

Answer 5

I believe strongly in the death penalty. I hear people saying that there shouldn't be a death penalty because you have to respect someone's right to life, but if the person you're going to execute killed someone, they apparently don't have respect for someone else's right to life. So kill 'em. I think that if there are eye-witnesses and DNA evidence that someone committed a crime punishable by death, then that person should be executed quickly, not let them sit on death row for years. Our prisons are overcrowded enough as it is. And maybe if they made executions public, people would think twice about committing a crime. I'm tired of all the soft treatment prisoners get. There should be no tv, no gym, nothing, in prisons. They're in there because they committed a crime, not to take a vacation from the real life and to live off the tax-payer's money. Any person who has raped, molested, or murdered someone should be executed. Those people have no respect for the lives and well-being of their victims, so the courts should have no respect for them. I know I don't.

Answer 6

Well i think that if a criminal does a horrible crime that shouldnt get the death penalty. They should live with what they had done. It is a much worse punishment then death because you always no you did that horrible thing in your mind. But then again in some cases the death penalty should be used.

Answer 7

I don't agree at all. What right does one human being have over another to say that he deserves to die? If one person (or more than one) has died etc., why make it worse by ending yet another life?

As for the argument about 'an eye for an eye', think of all the bad things that you have done in your lifetime. Now imagine every single person whom you hurt doing it back to you. Is this what the world should be like? Think of all the things you can justify, and remember people not forgiving, and saying that you are to blame, no matter how innocent you believe yourself to be. Should you be punished for these things, even though you know they were not your fault?

Should you pay with your life?

Answer 8

I agree with it being brought back into use in the uk, i think it would solve a lot of problems and maybe instead of just using the death penalty to terminate killers and murderers we should also use it to terminate the lives of repeat sexual monsters starting with the pedo population, instead of putting them in half way houses near schools and giving them silly ammounts of money every week because they cant do normal jobs and fit into society then maybe execution is the only logical solution on offer. I would vote for it everytime.

Answer 9

i live in England...we don't have the death penalty..we only have life imprisonment...which i think is wrong...
take the moors murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley ...
25 Cromwell street , Fred and Rose West......
the black panther, Donald Neilson...
and the Yorkshire ripper, Peter Sudcliffe
to name but a few...
these people are kept in jail, costing the tax payers a lot of money each year.
why do we have to pay for there crimes
some of these people will never be released,
but we have to go on paying for there crimes for the rest of our lives.
yes bring back the death penalty to the UK.
we as honest citizens have nothing to be afraid of.
and it would make England a safe place.

Answer 10

I agree with the death penalty for murderers or paedophiles but ONLY if PROVEN 100% GUILTY!
Also, it would mean that the prisons wouldn't be as overcrowded as they are now in the U.K. It would also save the taxpayer millions a year on the "care" of these monsters!

Answer 11

I agree with the death penalty.
1st) The people who get the death penalty have destroyed other peoples lives so they don't deserve and should not get mercy.

2nd) It is a deterant for other people. If you think you'll die if you kill your cheating spouse then you probably won't do it. Unless of course your suicidal, in which case you get what you want.

3rd) We spend enough money on prison space as it is, we don't need to flood it with psychopathes who deserve to die anyways.