THE WIEGHT OF PUISHMENT Essay, Research Paper

THE WEIGHT OF PUNISHMENT

Capital punishment, known as the death penalty is not practiced in all states. In order to receive or qualify for the death penalty you would have to commit murder, which is taking an innocent person life away from our society. To commit an unpleasant act like that a person has to be ill and immoral. When I see people holding up signs, marching or giving speeches on how we have to abandoned the death penalty I get sick to my stomach. Any person that was willing to take a innocent persons life away should be willing to live up to the punishment. If we do without the death penalty that will not give any seriousness to the act of murder. I fully agree with capital punishment.

For the utilitarian, punishment is only regarded to as if there is happiness created and unhappiness not created. From the utilitarian point of view capital punishment is good if it prevents or deters the criminal from repeating the crime and also deters others in acting out a crime in the future. One problem utilitarian thoughts have are, first of all utilitarian try to reduce the amount of unhappiness as much as they can, in doing that they are also reducing the amount of punishment given for the act of murder. So by this fact it is wrong to reduce the amount of punishment just to create happiness. A murder deserves every ounce of punishment that comes along with the price of killing.

The retributive thoughts of capital punishment, first of all is that all criminals earn punishment and also adding to this is that the punishment should be equal in treatment to the crime. Retributive also complies with an eye for an eye, just like the amount of punishment is based on the degree of the crime. The problem with retributive thinking is that if you kill two people the punishment you deserve far more then just the killing of you, but the killing of one of your family members. The retributive opinion is more on a personal minded justification, for example if you speak to a victim who just had his wife and daughter killed by another person he will want the same done to him because of the pshycolgical effect that was put on the victim.

My opinion on the death penalty is that if you commit a killing you deserve the punishment that comes along with it. I wonder why the states wait an average of twenty years to put a murder in the chair; there should not be a gap between the crime and the punishment. Every day after the killer gets to live after the crime he or she is being treated unfairly toward the victim?s rights. I am not talking about a criminal act consisting of stolen goods or assault of another person I?m talking about taking innocent persons life for no reason. I think that is a very sick and unlawful act to commit; the penalty should be issued as fast as possible, to show the importance of innocent life. Capital punishment should always be practiced; it is or can be thought of as a controller of society. In other words it is like a ruler, those who follow will not receive punishment, and those who do not follow it will receive the punishment. The public deserves the safety of the capital punishment. Capital punishment frightens people thinking about committing a crime. This is a proven fact; you can look up the histories of states with the death penalty and see that the killing rate has gone down since the law was passed. Most people fear death and capital punishment is fear itself, many people will avoid coming to conflict with the law. Putting someone on life without parole is like giving him a gift. Some people will murder or commit a crime just to be sent to jail, they feel like it will be a better life for them. They get three meals a day and have a shelter to stay in, but we do not want to give a criminal what he wants, we want to give him the maximum punishment for his crime. Even if we did not have evidence of deterrence and fear we still have to act normally, that is we give punishment to who deserves it and only when proven of the criminal act.

With all these negative thoughts of punishing one may say there is an alternative to the capital punishment, like life without parole. Yes many can argue, that is a rough punishment and that it also can deter people from committing an unlawful act. Many people can also give an argument on the behalf of correcting a violent act with another violent act. Capital punishment maybe a violent act for many people. The death penalty does not allow the victim to change and shape up to fit in the society in the future. One may say that it is not a good act because we show killing is wrong with killing another, and we also have alternative routes to too give examples of what you will expect if you kill. When we kill someone in reference to deter others we are only using or manipulating that person and that is a wrong act. Many arguments will use the cost of the death penalty compared to life in prison. Life in prison is far less expensive then the death penalty. We can save money and still punish criminals at the same time.

Yes they are all good arguments, but first of all I will start with the argument of having an alternative to the death penalty. There is no alternative or substitution for the death penalty. There is nothing in the world that will deter future criminals, but death itself. If we apply life without parole that would be saying hears is a slap on the wrist, and you never do that again. Some people just want a better place to stay and better meals to eat, so they commit the crime hoping they get some prison time. Should we let the criminal get what he wants or should we let the victim have his or her revenge if he or she was still alive. The second argument is we can not correct a violent crime with a violent act. There is no other way of correcting a violent crime. We can?t correct a criminal by rewarding him. This will completely universalize the act of killing. Yes killing is wrong but we give the criminal what he or she deserves willing they understand the consequences. Yes we are using a criminal as an example, but I think if you have the decency to commit an hideous act you deserve to be stripped of all your rights as a human. The last and final argument I think people will give was that of the cost of the death penalty. This country spends a large amount of money on things we don?t need at this time and age. So if people think we are spending a lot of money on the death penalty they are totally wrong, first of all you should be concerned on how your tax dollar is spent on useless stuff and then think how useful the death penalty is. The death penalty is worth every penny put in it, it is beneficial to you and I, and it keeps us safe and deters crime in our society. By you saying it is very expensive you are saying the human life taken away was not worth the money spent on the death penalty. Human life is priceless and for you to think of saving money by not applying the death penalty you are insane and you have no compassion for the life of others.

Murder should be taken seriously. The criminal deserves the most punishment possible. I believe if we abolish the death penalty we will be acting immoral toward human rights. Every human is given an equal opportunity to be educated and to be successful in life. There is no reason why anyone?s life should be taken away. Anyone who commits an act of murder is fully capable of understanding the penalty that comes along with murder. In order for the law to keep its respect, we must punish every criminal for his act. Murder is the most awful crime there is. Anything less than the death penalty is very offensive to the victim and the society. Overall I think the death penalty will spread from state to state as crime progresses and the death penalty will always do its job very effective toward criminals.