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Ever since the death penalty has been declared constitutional in 1976, thousands of people have been placed on death row and 314 of them have been executed. ( Yaffe,1) Thirty-eight states now allow the death penalty, with New York being the last to adapt this legislation last March. Massachusetts and Iowa have been trying to pass a law that would to allow the death penalty to be used in their states. Capital punishment is most often saved for murder and sometimes arson, treason, burglary, and forcible rape of a 14 year old or under from a 18 year old or older, but it varies within each state.
There are many politicians who are trying to pass laws banning the death penalty. There are around 3000 people on death row across the country right now and if these politicians get their way, then 3000 lives will be spared. (Matthews,1) The rage of this issue continues to persist with many people questioning if capital punishment is really the answer to solving the problem of crime. The death penalty should be allowed because it is not inhumane but rather fair and its continued use will end up helping out society in many ways.
Many people who oppose the death penalty say it is inhumane and unfair. These people who oppose it say that all human life has the right to be respected. All human life does have the right to be respected but there is a point when that right can be lost, if someone takes the life of another human being then they have given up that right. Another claim the opposers to the death penalty make is that the death penalty encourages more murders because if people see the authority taking someones life, then they will think they can do it too. This is not true, if criminals see that more and more people are getting the death penalty, this will cause them to think their actions over.
The United Kingdom abolished the death penalty in 1965 and since then, violent crime has more than doubled. (Matthews,2) The death penalty is not inhumane because it can be done painlessly and quickly. In most cases when the execution was performed the process that was most often used was lethal injection. Out of the 314 executions that have taken place since 1976 the majority of them, 179 have been done by means of lethal injection. The electric chair has been used 123 times, the gas chamber: 9 times, a firing squad: twice, and hanging: once.
(Rodriquez, 4) Lethal injection is a quick, non-suffering way to execute the death row prisoners. Opposers to the death penalty dont even realize that these inmates are being done a favor. By being executed, they are being put out of their misery. There are not that many people who want to be stuck in a small cell for the rest of their life where prison rape has become more common. By executing these prisoners, they wont have to suffer.
Another reason the people who oppose the death penalty feel that it is unfair is that it denies the person the privilege to be retried if any new evidence comes up. On the average, an inmate in kept in prison 8 years before their death sentence is carried out. (Yaffe,2) If no evidence is found by then to prove their true innocence, chances are no evidence will ever be found. Besides anyone who is on death row has already gone through a trial so they had their chance to prove their innocence. The jury obviously found them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and decided they should get the death penalty. Justice has already prevailed.
Even though the Old Testament book of Exodus commands “Thou shall not kill,” just three chapters later in the same book it is advocating “life for life,” “eye for eye,” and “tooth for tooth”.The death penalty can be justified because it can be done painlessly, it is actually putting the prisoners out of their misery, and the prisoner has to deal with the consequences from what they did.The death penalty also keeps dangerous criminals from ever returning to the
