Pros of the Death Penalty - Essay Example

Argumentative essay on the pros of the death penalty Generally, death penalty is considered as the most vulnerable punishment for a criminal. To be specific, death penalty does not allow an individual to have a change to repent on the crime committed. From a different angel of view, unavailability of suitable punishment for serious crimes leads to death penalty. In addition, there exist a number of arguments in favor of and against death penalty. Thesis statement: Death penalty or capital punishment is a controversial issue but the same is the best possible way to provide justice to the victim, not the accused individual.

The main arguments in favor of death penalty are its moral value, role in reducing criminal instinct, justice to the victim and equality before law. First of all, death penalty is helpful to maintain the moral code of a society. If death penalty is totally discarded, there is high possibility for anarchy and related issues. From a different angle of view, death penalty provides honor to human dignity with moral sense. Death penalty is helpful to reduce criminal instinct among the people in a society.

Besides, fear of death penalty can prevent the criminals from committing murder. To be specific, punishment other than death penalty is not a serious threat against life. In addition, death penalty limits the scope of further crime from a criminal. Petrezselyem states that “Imprisonment cannot keep a murderer from killing more people” (43). Those who are against death penalty do not provide ample importance to the victim. When death penalty is transformed to lifetime imprisonment or other punishments, justice to the victim is totally neglected.

When a criminal is allowed to escape for death penalty, the concept of equality before law is totally ignored. Death penalty cannot restore the victim’s life, but the same can be act the role of an important lesson to the criminals who are aiming to commit crimes. To be specific, death penalty is not provided to all criminals, but to the anti-social and brutal criminals. The main arguments against death penalty are: death penalty is inhuman and a mistake which cannot be corrected. Those who are totally against death penalty argue that the same is inhuman because it is similar to murder.

Besides, it is totally against the rule of nature because the accused individual is helpless before the law. Some others who are against death penalty argue that the same is a mistake which cannot be corrected. Banks states that “In another case, a black school custodian was wrongly convicted of the rape and murder of a 16-year-old white girl” (190). For instance, when an individual is forced to undergo death penalty and later proved to be guiltless, death penalty becomes a mistake which cannot be corrected.

But both the arguments against death penalty are irrelevant because death penalty is the best possible way to deal with serious crimes like murder. Summing, most of the arguments in favor of death penalty are significant because the same is helpful to reduce crime in the society. On the other side, the arguments against death penalty are based upon emotionality and sympathy towards criminals. To be specific, the arguments against death penalty ignore the real victims and put forth the criminals as victims of law enforcement.

So, death penalty must be evaluated as an integral part of social justice, especially, equality before law. Works CitedBanks, Cyndi. Criminal justice ethics: theory and practice. California: SAGE, 2004. Print.Petrezselyem, Lissy. Capital Punishment in Contemporary US America: Development and Debate. Norderstedt: GRIN Verlag, 2008. Print.