Capital Punishment and its Misconceptions (FGCU) Escalante

Capital punishment is defined as the execution of a person by judicial process as result of a punishment for a crime. The United States along with China, India, and Indonesia all practice the death penalty. Although each of these countries practices capital punishment differently, it is still an issue that is argued daily. If we look at each of these countries histories, we can see that the death penalty has been abolished and then re-introduced several times.  

There are a lot of misconceptions about the death penalty, both good and bad. One of the main ones is regarding the cost. It is said that Life without penalty costs one million for 50 years and the death penalty is approximately two million. According to the JFA (Justice for ALL), they estimate that life without parole cases cost 1.2-3.6 million more than death penalty cases. TIME Magazine found out that the average cell cost is $24,000/year and the maximum-security cell is $75,000/year. The annual cost of the cells increases are based upon increases in prison costs, medical cost and injury or death cause by the inmate.

Another misconception is the execution of innocents. My personal opinion is that the execution of an innocent does not amount to the number of victims each day that are killed because of murderers or inmates that have been released on parole. According to Wesley Lowe’s website, a pro capital punishment page, “the death penalty isn’t the only institution that contain risks in exchange for social benefits. We, in fact, mindlessly use far more dangerous institutions that take the lives of innocents by the hundreds every day, like the three or four tons of lethal metal we call automobiles for example. After all, how can we accept the average 45,000 person a year death toll in this nation due to car wrecks for our personal conveniences when the slim risk of a wrongful execution is so unbearable.”

Everyone has a different opinion about the death penalty regarding his or her morals and values.  A lot of Christians and Catholics believe the death penalty is wrong because you are killing another human being. “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” is usually a statement made by someone who is against the death penalty. Yes indeed, two wrongs do not make a right; but why should you pity someone who killed your loved one when they did not pity him or her when they murdered them. Edward Koch once stated, “ It is by exacting the highest penalty for the taking of human life that we affirm the highest value of human life.” In my opinion, murder is one of the worst crimes you could ever commit and you should be punished severely for doing so. Some murderers commit crimes simply because they feel like they can get away with it or because they know the worst punishment they can get if it is their first offense is life without parole or a couple of years in jail.

According to the Bureau justice of statistics reported that 38% of inmates had a prior felony conviction and 15% had been previously convicted for a violent felony.  This data came from an analysis of a sample of 9,000 convicted felons representing 33,000 cases. These cases were selected from seven separate studies leading until 2002. Although I could not find any recent statistics regarding this past year of 2009 facts are facts, and at the end of the day there is a large percentage of inmates that are repeated offenders.

I believe if these inmates were given a severe punishment from the get go they would not have been repeated offenders and would have learned from the beginning. Although murders will still occur whether the death penalty becomes more enforced, murderers will think twice about committing a crime when they learn that the death penalty can now become one of the only penalties they can receive when they commit the crime. I believe the number of homicide cases, along with other type of murder cases will dramatically go down when capital punishment is enforced, therefore I 100% believe in it. 

This entry was posted on 10. February 2010 at 02:59 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.