There are vast differences in the way people view the death penalty. Some oppose it and some agree with it. There have been many studies trying to prove or disprove a point regarding the death penalty. Some have regarded the death penalty as a deterrent, and some have regarded it as state sanctioned murder and not civilized. The death penalty has been attributed to societies for hundreds of years. More recently, as we become more civilized, the death penalty has been questioned to be the right step towards justice. The death penalty is a highly controversial subject. No one knows who’s right or who’s wrong-it’s fifty percent speculation and fifty percent research. It’s just a lot of thoughts and beliefs from people who have contributed to the death penalty hype. Who’s right and who’s wrong? That is the question.
First I need to highlight briefly into to the history of the death penalty to fully understand why people feel the way they do about the death penalty. Almost all nations in the world have had the death sentence and had enforced it in many ways. It was used in most cases to punish those who broke the laws or standards that were expected of them. Some of the historical methods of execution were restricted only by one’s imagination they include flaying or burying alive, boiling in oil, crushing beneath the wheels of vehicles or the feet of elephants, throwing to wild beasts, forcing combat in the arena, blowing from the mouth of a cannon, impaling, piercing with javelins, starving to death, poisoning, strangling, suffocating, drowning, shooting, beheading, and more recently, electrocuting, using the gas chamber, and giving lethal injection.
The people who oppose the death penalty have very different reasons than people who agree with it. Those who oppose it feel that no matter how bad of an offense that the criminal has committed, they should not be executed. One argument is that the convicted could be innocent. Once the state kills an innocent person, the effects are irreversible. There have been at least 96 instances since 1973 of wrongfully convicted people set free before the states had a chance to kill them. If there are 96 cases, caught before they could be sentenced to death, then think about all of the cases that haven’t been caught. DNA evidence has come a long way to help these innocent people to their freedom. The following person is an example of one of those people wrongfully condemned by lack of evidence.
There are those that are pro-death penalty advocates. They believe that the death penalty serves as a deterrent. They believe others will see that the offender is getting executed for their heinous crime, and this will deter them from ever committing such an act. They feel that not only is the person who is executed unable to commit another murder, but other potential killers may also be dissuaded from killing. Not those who act on emotion or the heat of the moment. One could argue that there are far more rational civilized people in this country than there are emotionally disturbed people. The death penalty works because it instills psychological resistance to the act of murder, not because it offers a rational argument against committing the act at the time that the decision to murder is made. So every day citizens have instilled into their heads that it is bad to murder someone. But murders still occur on occasions when people are in an irrational state of mind. Even though a person may be rational one day they could become irrational on another day. The irrational people are mainly at the hands of alcohol and drugs, but there are occasions where unusual circumstances exist. For example, a husband catching his wife in the act of adultery could drive him mentally into a rage and into a very irrational state of mind, which could ultimately lead to murder. But there are also those people who are just straight up mentally disturbed that kill for no reason at all.
Another reason pro-death penalty advocates give for their belief is that it serves as retribution, or an eye for an eye. These are the two main types of retribution: revenge, in which the victim gets satisfaction, and “just deserts”, which the offender should have an obligation to repay society . An eye for an eye relies on what people deserve for their crime, which determines what kind of punishment they will receive. Or in other words we should treat people the way they have treated others. If someone murders someone, then they should be murdered. This type of punishment would not have any prejudice, because they would receive whatever they dished out. It tells us that the punishment is to be identical to the crime. Which in a way is a repayment towards the victim’s family, or “just deserts”. This view of the death penalty wouldn’t rely on a jury to decide what should be done to the offender. Let’s say the offender was black and raped a white woman, and the jury sentenced them to life in prison. People could say in the same circumstances a white man would only get ten years. But using an eye for an eye, both men would be raped in return. No discrimination. And the same goes for the death penalty, there wouldn’t be no prejudice, it would just simply be “you kill, you die—end of story”, enough said.
Nobody can really prove that any of these views are right or wrong. In my opinion, God should have the final say on life. But on the other hand the offender didn’t let God give the victim a die. So who knows what to do? As a society we should determine the fate we have dealt ourselves. We have developed these offender’s, we should therefore deal with them as a society. It is true that the varieties of ways in which men have put one another to death is horrific. It is society that should determine if we (as a society) want to be murderers. These offenders, murderers, and killers are a mirror image of our own reflection in society. Two wrongs don’t make a right! You choose! Civilization or Brutalism?
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