The Death Penalty - Essay Example

Death Penalty Death Penalty Death penalty is the act of putting a condemned person to death and is also known as capital punishment.In many countries including the United States, it was debated on whether the death penalty should be eliminated or not. Many citizens in the U.S expressed support towards the restriction of death penalty earlier, which was the reason as to why a law was passed limiting death penalty (Drummond, 2014). However, in the modern world, people have grown more confused of whether they should support or discard it. When weighing the pros and cons of allowing it, it is clear that it should be allowed, as the pros do not hold water against the issue. Most of the individuals that oppose it are the religious individuals and activists who represent human rights. According to these individuals, it is in human to kill a wrong doer but when making these allegations, they have not considered the facts that include that the individual in question and the person that they are defending was involved in a similar act. This implies that most of the claims against the death penalty are not strong when the reasons for it are raised. Moreover, there have been various changes made to existing laws so as to accommodate certain agreements on the same issue. This indicates that there has been controversy concerning whether death penalty is right or wrong. As a general viewpoint, death penalty can and should be applied to improve the society and overall security situation. Before assessing any other reason for supporting the death penalty, it is important to consider the event in which the murderers are taken to prison. While in prison, they just increase the number of inmates leading to overcrowding and poor health, which could be attained, with a manageable number of prisoners. Such poor health leads to more allocation of funds form governmental reserves so as to cater for the increasing number of health cases in crowded prisons. In addition, when they get to prison, they may endanger the lives of fellow inmates. Since they themselves are killers, they can result to killing their fellow prisoners implying that they can be danger to other people either in prison or in the open society. This implies that their continued existence only continues to cause havoc and to affect other people’s lives negatively. Furthermore, when in prison, the murderers continue consuming the taxpayers’ money that would have been used in other developmental purposes. This places more burden on the government for an individual that killed another person. This can be said to be unnecessary wastage of limited resources. In order to prevent such wastage of resources, the death penalty should be supported to be imposed on those that the prosecutors are completely sure that they committed crimes that include murder. What is more interesting is the fact that due to the belief that death penalty is there to discourage coming up of more and more murder cases, above 70% of Americans have supported death penalty as a fair punishment that assures progress in security of the nation. Death penalty means elimination already nurtured murderers and discouragement to the upcoming. It is very emotionally oppressive to citizens, when a loved one is killed by a known murderer who is still enjoying freedom and the gift of life. This is made possible when a proved assassinator is reported in court and after concrete evidence proves him or her guilty, the jury affords not to apply capital punishment for the case. For complete satisfaction of the victim’s close friends and relatives, who are part of the nation’s citizens, it is in order to eliminate those responsible for the murder by killing them too. This will prove justice to everyone and warn anyone with intentions for similar illegal actions. It will therefore build up the nation’s state of security. This is one of the most crucial reasons as to why death penalty should be supported and enforced. Deterring crime is not possible without harsher penalties. Death penalty is also okay as it helps to tame people in respecting life. This implies that if a person has been involved in killing another, then they should also be put to death so as not only to punish the involved individual but also ensure that other offenders know their fate if they commit similar crimes. In the same way that a person that has committed a petty crime is sentenced for equivalent time after which they are released, the murderer should be eliminated from the society permanently. When murders are not offered due punishment, our lives as fellow humans are at risk, as it is for sure that the murderer will always kill again. Habits are developed by favorable environments. We will therefore be doing ourselves injustice by making the environment we survive in a favorable one for this kind vice. Punishing them in this manner would be enough to show that injustice would not be tolerated in the society. Death sentence therefore is the reward for murderers proven guilty (Pamela, 2015). In other instance, the opponents claim that killing a person regardless of crime is cruel. In response to this claim, the modern medical world has become improved to the point that the kind of cruelty that the criminal showed to the victim is no longer required. In fact, most executions in the modern world have been carried out in non-traditional ways. These ways include injections that render the criminal lifeless within seconds. This indicates that the cruelty claim from the opponents does not hold water as no pain is felt by the criminal, as it was the case in the past when the main way was the electric chair. The electric chair could have been said to be inhumane but nowadays there are better and painless ways of putting the individual to death painlessly. Although various parties may be against it, it is the only answer to murder. In most instances, the criminals do not face the cruelness that they deserve if they are taken to jail. A worse way of reciprocating the acts that they did is required. Therefore, death penalty should be encouraged in support of this idea. Since death is feared by almost all people, then using it to threaten future criminals is appropriate. Tit for tat is a fair game. Almost everyone is contented with the saying. Those who cause death should also experience the same death. It is believed that one should do good things to the others. If their good acts unto others is taking away their lives, why then is it not right to take away theirs too as a sign of good will? Do unto others what you feel free with accommodating as what you want to be done unto you. ‘An eye for an eye’ is one of what most humans believe in. With this therefore, death penalty is worth imposed onto anyone who deserves it. It can only be unfair to anyone who is put to death under wrong convictions. Some argue that death penalty is in favor of one and does not favor the other. This reasoning clearly attends to their understanding. What should be debated about therefore is not whether or not the death penalty should be applied, but fairness in application of this penalty. Many whites happen to support the need for the penalty strongly because it is much imposed to the blacks as compared to the whites. This however, should not be a reason for the suspension of death penalty. This should deal with effectiveness of the magistrates and not the allowance of death penalty. It is true sometimes people are wrongly executed and sentenced to death, but solution for this situation is not doing away with the ruling but finding effective ways of imposing it and avoiding unfair ruling. A better solution can be found by paying more attention to how the magistrates pass their judgment (Braswell, 2014). The act of cancelling this penalty will only move the situation from bad to worse. The only characters allowed to be free from the death penalty are the mentally ill killers if only they are well proved to have a mental disorder. This is because there are chances that they were not in their normal state when committing the crime, making it possible to be viewed as fault, which was not intentional. This was supported by two-thirds of the public in the United States. With time, when judgment is made effectively well and to those who deserve it, the public will fall for the impact of the penalty’s application. A case of an American woman who was accused of murdering her own five children was used to evaluate the American’s support for the death penalty. The woman has been pleading insanity since the date of accusation. More than 44 percent of the public voted for her execution, and above forty percent voted against. This left some of the citizens undecided. However, as far as the law is concerned, the woman’s fate is freedom if she is found to be insane and execution if she happens to be found at a normal condition (Patry, 2013). The opponents of the death penalty defend their opinion by stating that this penalty is unfair as it violates the ban for cruel and strange punishments, which was done during the eighth amendment. To take care of this, the method used by the court in making executions is fair enough and individuals that have been proven that they failed to show mercy to others do not deserve the same. In such a case, the court uses an objectively unbearable test to determine whether the execution method applied is good in terms of the eighth edition’s ban (Kittner, 2006). In conclusion, I support the death penalty for unless the court does not take up the right methods of execution, the punishment remains fair and builds up a promising future as far as the level of immorality and ethics are concerned. This will greatly discourage such cases of felony nationwide. It will scare away murderers and encourage peace within the nation. Surprisingly, this has impact as deep as to the nation’s economy. No investor would feel attracted to a country whose rate of intention killing is high. Even competitors in business field assassinate people who happen to be performing better than them. These cases must therefore be offered due attention to greatly reduce them. In case we lose our loved ones in a murder case, we will need satisfying assurance that the individuals responsible for such pain are taken care of. This therefore guarantees death penalty the best ruling that suits those who commit felonies. It has positive impacts that out do the few negative effects. References Braswell, M. C., McCarthy, B. R. & McCarthy, B. J. (2014). Justice, crime, and Ethics. New York: Routledge. Drummond, J. (2014). The politics of sentence of death; a comparative perspective. Race and Class. 56 (20), 41-50. Kittner, G. (2006). Voters support death penalty. Business and Economics. 1(1), 1-2. Legal Information Institute. (n.d). Retrieved from https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/death_penalty Patry, M. (2013). Death penalty decisions: instruction comprehension, attitudes, and decision mediators. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice. 13(3), 2014-244. Read More