The Death Penalty 2 Essay, Research Paper

THE DEATH PENALTY

Someone murders your brother. The murderer gets

sentenced with life in prison and every two years he has a

chance for parole. Every two years you have to go through

pain wondering if the murderer is going to get let out of

prison. Sure, he could have learned his lesson and became a

saint. But he could kill yet another person, maybe even

you. The death penalty is like having a war. Some innocent

soldiers will die but it is necessary to protect the nation.

A small amount of wrongful executions happen, but it is a

risk we have to take to protect the nation from dangerous

criminals.

Wrongful executions happen. It is an imperfect world

and people make mistakes. On the other hand, there has only

been 23 wrongful executions this century which is not a big

number. As Wesley Lowe states:

Far more innocent lives have been taken by

convicted murders than the supposedly 23 innocents

mistakenly executed this century.

Furthermore, the death penalty isn t the only thing

that has risks in exchange for our benefit.(Lowe) About

45,000 innocent people die each year due to auto wrecks.

That sure is a lot more innocent people that die so we can

have the convenience of speedy travel. To enjoy using

certain things we accept the fact that accidents happen.

Going back to the amount of people that die in cars every

year, we tend to think that 45,000 deaths are less tragic

than say, 23. Former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin hits the

nail on the head when he said:

One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths are

statistics.

Or, in other terms, one wrongful execution is a tragedy, but

thousands of murder victims are just statistics.

Some people don t see the point of the death penalty if

it supposedly doesn t deter crime. They say that states

that have the death penalty have a higher crime rate than

those that don t. Well, these would be good points except

for the fact that they aren t true. First of all, the only

reason states where the death penalty has been enforced have

higher crime rates is because they have more urbanized

areas.

As for the deterrence of crime, in 1985 there was a

study done by Stephen K. Layson at the University of North

Carolina. It showed that on average one execution deters 18

murders. More recently, in 1995, there were 56 executions

in the USA. This led to a 12% drop in the murder rate

nation wide the following year. Those statistics sure prove

to me that the death penalty deters crime.

People that have researched the death penalty think

that an execution costs a pretty penny. Well, you know

what, it does. Some people say that the death penalty costs

at least 2 million per case. That is an exaggeration. This

is all good defense except, for some reason, abolitionists

seem to ignore that life in prison costs even more.

The average annual cost per inmate is now

$23,500. The average cost per bed in maximum

security facilities is $74,862. (Blackman)

People that go out and earn a living everyday are

forking over tax dollars to pay for murderers and abusers.

The initial cost of the death penalty is higher but over

time life in prison costs $1.2 to $3.6 million higher than a

death penalty case.

I would like to talk about the death penalty and

Christianity. Most Christians think that the death penalty

is against the teachings of God and the Bible. I am a

Christian but I have read the facts. The sixth commandment

says Thou shall not kill in Exodus 20:13. However,

translated directly from the original Hebrew version it says

Thou shall not murder. (Lowe) Wesley Lowe also points out

to us that Murder is defined in any dictionary as the

unlawful killing of a person with malice and aforethought.

The death penalty can not be referred to as murder, because

it is the law. Finally, the death penalty is not against

the Bible because in several passages from the Bible God

says something to the sort of:

Whoever sheds man s blood, by man his blood shall

be shed. (Genesis 9:6)

I m sure you now agree with me on the issue of the

death penalty. A crime is only as severe as the punishment

that follows it. Therefore, the only thing that is a good

penalty for murdering someone is getting put to death.

You would definitely think so if someone close to you gets

murdered.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blackman, Ann. Lock Em Up! Time. February 7, 1994 p.

50-59

Lowe, Wesley. Wesley Lowe s Pro Death Penalty Webpage.

Royko, Mike. Syndicated newspaper columnist.

*Passages from the Bible were found through Wesley Lowe and

checked for accuracy by myself*