should the death penalty be abolished or kept?

Question

explain your opinions..

Answer 1

Kept. Some crimes justify that type punishment. Of course appeals should be kept in place, but do research how many thousands of dollars (hundreds of thousands, actually) it costs to keep people in prison at that level when they are appealing the penalty for many years. It is simply not financially feasable to imprison them for life, when their victims never got any mercy.

Answer 2

Frankly,im more of somewhere in between the abolishment & the keeping of the death penalty,but for a reason.If the crime committed is heinous enough that the person convicted will still be a threat to the society & even among his inmates (may sound silly but even convicts also had rights while in prison if theyre not in the death row line wherever the death penalty is imposed) then i agree that the death penalty should be kept.However since majority of the people think that the death penalty is inhumane it will be wise that it will not be abolished till all the pros & cons is weighted & thought over.Hey, we now live in a society where crime of all kind prevail & there's even an increase in the number of juvenile offenders who do the very crimes that most hardened criminals had done so isn't it fair that we had to impose harsher punishments within the justice & penal system ?

Answer 3

Assuming that the prisoner is really guilty of the crime (over 100 death row prisoners have been found innocent and released), my answer is: abolish the death penalty because:
(1) The alternative of life in solitary confinement without possibility of parole is more punitive. Those in favor of the death penalty have not figured out that once the prisoner dies, he can no longer be punished.
(2) Many societies without the death penalty have fewer murders than the USA.
(3) You cannot instil a general belief in the sanctity of human life by having the representative government of all the people demonstrate that killing people can be a good idea..
(4) People who support the death penalty should do a little introspection: do you get a rush of pleasure visualizing the death scene? is some of the pleasure erotic? do you dream that you are the executioner or a witness? Maybe you should get help.

Answer 4

The death penalty is not effective in preventing or reducing crime and it risks executing innocent people. I believe it should be replaced with life without parole as the most harsh sentence. Here are answers to questions about the practical aspects of the death penalty system, with sources listed below.

What about the risk of executing innocent people?
124 people on death rows have been released with evidence of their innocence.

Doesn't DNA keep new cases like these from happening?
DNA is available in less than 10% of all homicides. It is not a guarantee against the execution of innocent people.

Doesn't the death penalty prevent others from committing murder?
No reputable study shows the death penalty to be a deterrent. To be a deterrent a punishment must be sure and swift. The death penalty is neither. Homicide rates are higher in states and regions that have it than in states that do not.

So, what are the alternatives?
Life without parole is now on the books in 48 states. It means what it says. It is sure and swift and rarely appealed. Life without parole is less expensive than the death penalty.

But isn't the death penalty cheaper than keeping criminals in prison?
The death penalty costs much more than life in prison, mostly because of the legal process. Anytime the death penalty is a possible sentence, extra costs start to mount up even before a trial, continuing through the uniquely complicated trial (actually 2 separate stages, mandated by the Supreme Court) in death penalty cases, and appeals.

What about the very worst crimes?
The death penalty isn’t reserved for the “worst of the worst,” but rather for defendants with the worst lawyers. When is the last time a wealthy person was sentenced to death, let alone executed??

Doesn't the death penalty help families of murder victims?
Not necessarily. Murder victim family members across the country argue that the drawn-out death penalty process is painful for them and that life without parole is an appropriate alternative.

So, why don't we speed up the process?
Over 50 of the innocent people released from death row had already served over a decade. If the process is speeded up we are sure to execute an innocent person.

Answer 5

I was pro-capital punishment for a long time, but I have changed my stance over the years, for several reasons:

1. By far the most compelling is this: Sometimes the legal system gets it wrong. Look at all the people who have been released after years of imprisonment because they were exonerated by DNA evidence. Unfortunately, DNA evidence is not available in most cases. No matter how rare it is, the government should not risk executing one single innocent person.

Really, that should be reason enough for most people. If you need more, read on:

2. Because of the extra expense of prosecuting a DP case and the appeals process (which is necessary - see reason #1), it costs taxpayers MUCH more to execute prisoners than to imprison them for life.

3. The deterrent effect is questionable at best. Violent crime rates are actually higher in death penalty states. This may seem counterintuitive, and there are many theories about why this is (Ted Bundy saw it as a challenge, so he chose Florida – the most active execution state at the time – to carry out his final murder spree). Personally, I think it has to do with the hypocrisy of taking a stand against murder…by killing people. The government becomes the bad parent who says, ‘do as I say, not as I do.’

4. There’s also an argument to be made that death is too good for the worst of our criminals. Let them wake up and go to bed every day of their lives in a prison cell, and think about the freedom they DON’T have, until they rot of old age. When Ted Bundy was finally arrested in 1978, he told the police officer, “I wish you had killed me.”

5. The U.S. government is supposed to be secular, but for those who invoke Christian law in this debate, you can find arguments both for AND against the death penalty in the Bible. For example, Matthew 5:38-39 insists that violence shall not beget violence. James 4:12 says that God is the only one who can take a life in the name of justice. Leviticus 19:18 warns against vengeance (which, really, is what the death penalty amounts to). In John 8:7, Jesus himself says, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Answer 6

Kept.

There is already enough tax money wasted on things that aren't necessary.

People who claim that the death penalty is wrong irritate me. There are crimes that the criminal deserves to die for.

Hypothetically...If someone murdered say...20 children between the ages of 10 and 15 by skinning them alive, would anyone claim this person could EVER be reformed or ever possibly serve a purpose to society? What would be the point of keeping them alive? Why, as taxpayers, should we have to spend money to keep this person alive?

Aside from the cost of the criminal being kept alive, there's also the possibility of escape. The person in the previous example could escape. Once out, he could commit the same crime again. Now another 20 children have been tortured and murdered.

Who would be blaimed for this persons escape? The police most likely. But if this person had been put to death, 20 children would still be alive, 40 parents would still have their children. One of those children could have been a future scientist to discover a quick, painless cure for all types of cancer. Countless lives could have been saved.

But instead, the child, along with 19 others, and several hundred thousand cancer sufferers are doomed to death because some stupid bleeding hearts didn't want a horrible criminal to be put to death.

Answer 7

I think that the death penalty should be kept

I think that the only person(s) who should be given the death penalty are the people who do horrible crimes like mass murder for fun, or really sick crimes.

I just think this way cause i see some people in jail for life because of horrible crime and i feel that they are just take up space and money.

P.S the people I'm talking about who should get the death penalty are only the ones who are pretty much 100% guilty

Answer 8

There have been way too many people killed by ex convicts or parolees who should never have been released from jail to begin with. It happened last month in Connecticut. Two guys with rap sheets so long the'd "wrap" around the trunk of a redwood tree randomly wandered into a family's house, raped and killed the mother and two daughters and nearly killed the gentleman, who woke up in the hospital to news that I'd rather be dead than hear.

I don't care about deterrence, I don't care about punishment and I don't care about whether it's right or wrong -- I say that if there is no shadow of a doubt that a given individual did something heinous enough to warrant talk of the death penalty, then put that individual out of our misery before some judge or parole board lets him out to inflict that kind of hell on another group of family and friends of another undeserving victim.

Answer 9

The death penalty should be kept. The punishment should fit the crime. There is no higher crime than taking someones life. There are thousands of inmates sitting on death row, why should they get to live at the tax payer's expense while their victims are six feet under? They contribute nothing to society, and I highly doubt any of them will "reform" or "rehabilitate" and make the "transfer" back to society. They are a burden to the country and we are better off without them.

Of course if anyone were foolish enough to try to harm my child I'd take the issue out of the court's hands and be judge, jury, and executioner myself.

Answer 10

Kept, I'd rather not pay taxes to feed and house a cold blooded killer that will adventually die in prison anyway. If the death penalty was abolished I think the homicidal crime rate would go up. I'm also in line with the "eye for an eye" mentioned in the bible. I know theres the whole seperation of church and state thing but lets make arrangments for God(whomever he or she is) to deal with these horrendous people.