People say it costs tax payers less money just to kill murderers, instead of putting them in jail. This is a rumor. It costs more to put someone to death than to house him/her for the his/her entire life in jail. People also say that killing murderers, who serve no purpose in society if they're locked up in jail, is population control. Since they can do nothing good for society, why keep them around? I suppose that's a good point...from a cynical standpoint. So maybe that's one reason the death penalty can be good. However, there's a really good quote for this. "Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?" I like this, because it is kind of hypocritical to teach people not do something, and then punish them by doing to them what you told them not to do. However, that could be considered "an eye for an eye." So which is it? Justified payback or hypocrisy? Well, "an eye for an eye" suggests that law enforcement is around to PUNISH convicted murderers. But that's not the point. The point is to protect society, not to hand out punishments.
Another thing. And I think this is the biggest thing. What if the person on death row for murder is actually innocent? That's not very fair... http://deadlinethemovie.com/state/GA/index.php says that the government of Georgia has executed 39 people since 1976, and 5 people on death row have been exonerated, because they were later proven innocent. Are we really ok with risking killing innocent people? Here's another great quote that pertains to this: "It's better that 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man be wrongly convicted." More or less, I tend to agree with this. It's kind of sad, and it stinks if that's our only option, but i can't stand to see someone die for doing nothing wrong. It's simply not right.
Think about it this way. If a person commits a crime as heinous as murder, then don't you want him/her locked up forever in misery, instead of putting him/her out of his/her misery? Sure, criminals are allowed tv and other things that some people think should be a privilege for only people who aren't locked up in jail. So...then why not take away those privileges if that's what bothers you? Then keep the murderers locked up forever. That would also leave time for an innocent convict to be exonerated. There are, however, a few problems with this. First, an innocent convict could live his entire life in misery, instead of being put out of his misery, which wouldn't be cool. Second, the point of execution is not for punishment, actually. It is to keep society safe from the person who has been convicted of murder, as I mentioned in the first paragraph. Therefore, to punish murderers by keeping them in jail for the rest of their lives, rather than to put them out of their misery, would be wrong, because that would be considered revenge. And the government is not supposed to be vengeful... But, then again, a lot of people say that murderers should be put to death for punishment. So we can't do that to "punish" them either, because punishment isn't the point of law enforcement. It's God's right only to punish or take away lives, or nature's right, or whatever you believe in. Anyway, there's one more problem, and it's the obvious one. Giving a person a lifetime sentence in jail gives him/her that much more time to break out of jail (and this isn't that common, but it happens.) I think the point of the death penalty is to get rid of that person, so that society doesn't have to worry about him/her breaking out of jail and going on a killing spree. I can't argue with that logic, but it doesn't happen that often, so it's not the biggest of concerns. At least in America, we have sturdy jails and a lot of guards and jail workers.
Here's something that may change a lot of your minds. But then again, it also may strengthen your beliefs. I don't know the statistics, and quite frankly, this is heresay, because I heard it from my roommate, but her family works in law enforcement, so I'd say she's a pretty decent source. There's way too much overpopulation in jails, which causes tons of convicts to go free way before they're supposed to. Obviously this is not good. Apparently most convicts go free after spending half or even less of the jail time that they are supposed to spend. This is obviously a problem...But does the death penalty make that much of a difference here? I mean, in about 33 years time, there have been 36 deaths via the death penalty in the state of Georgia. That has opened up 36 spots in Georgia jail cells in about 33 years. That's nothing. So I guess this argument isn't as legitimate as it seemed at first. Also, here's a better idea for creating jail cell openings: let all the people who commit petty crimes go free. For instance, tons of people go to jail for doing drugs or dealing, but what was their crime? Using drugs for their own body, not hurting anyone but themselves? It's pretty messed up when people who commit heinous crimes, such as rape or child molestation, only go to jail for like 10 years, just because the jail needs to create a cell opening for a guy who smoked pot for fun one time and got caught. Especially since there are no victims in a drug crime! Drugs should be legal, because if someone wants to harm his/her own body, that's his/her own business. So it shouldn't be a crime anyway. But the point is, law enforcement needs to be more concerned with putting away the people who are committing the real crimes - the bad ones that hurt other innocent people!
I don't know if execution is worth it, but maybe it is. Who knows? I mean, what are our other options? It's one of those "You're damned if you do; you're damned if you don't" situations. What do you think?
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