Why should the death penalty be abolished in the United States
It is totally inhumane to take
someone's life in the name of society. Nowadays, most of the countries around
the world have already abolished death penalty. Nonetheless, there are some
small states which are still implementing this capital punishment. Historically,
death penalty began since the 18th century BC, written by King Hammurabi of Babylon.
It was mainly codified for 25 crimes, with the exception of murder as a crime.
Throughout the time it was reformed many times. Such as in the 14th century BC
by the Hittite, in the 7th century BC by Athens, in the 5th century by the
Romans and so on. One of the most known deaths is from Socrates, the Greek
philosopher. Who was sentenced to drink a hemlock cup. For the reason that he
was corrupting the youth. The main goal of this essay is to demonstrate the
reasons why we should ban death penalty all around the world.
First of all, death penalty is immoral and inhumane. As the most used form of execution is by injecting lethal substances, what is wrong with this? If we totally accept death penalty, it should be painless. Nonetheless, statistically, 3% of the death penalties caused severe suffering to the prisoner for its high rate of error. Which makes the prisoner die suffering which is cruel and inhumane. If you think it's okay for that person to suffer because he has committed a crime it shows resentment and cruelty, which is immoral, for the reason that rather than a sense for justice you're seeking for revenge and to justify taking a life.
In addition, it affects certain
ethnicities and social groups more than others. For example, for about 40% of
the people in death penalty rows, consist of black American citizens, which
show a discriminatory and racial pattern if analyzed in depth. So, even though
these types of groups are not committing the most amount of crimes, they are
receiving the severest punishment. Which leads to my third point
Nonetheless, if you think that low social class and
black people are more propense of doing crimes which is statistically wrong, as
only 33% of people arrested are black. In the USA. Nevertheless, black people
are receiving more death penalty rather than white people which shows racism.
Which is that many governments use
this “tool” in order to control society rather than to search for justice. To
explain it more in depth, governments around the world, sentence death penalty
for crimes such as: Drug dealing, adultery, blasphemy, offenses against the
government and political crimes against the state. Which they start using death penalty as a
control for the citizens. They violate their human rights and control them by
fear. Therefore, death penalty allows corrupt dictatorial governments control
their population inhumanly and use for it advantage to abolish the opposition.
This can be seen historically in the consolidation of power from the Nazis.
Where they consolidated their power by assassinating and imprisoning their
political opponents such as the communist. And killing the people who
contradicted the Führer. Which consequently lead to the holocaust.
Additionally, if new evidence is
known, it can't be undone. Contradictory in sentencing people in jail where
they can be released if the suspect is innocent. With death penalty, it can’t
be reverted. Which it would turn out to take an innocent life for nothing. This
shows discrimination and unfairness.
Finally, studies showed that it
doesn't stop crimes from happening. Therefore, it is useless against stopping
crimes. So, it doesn't stop crimes, is morally wrong and inhumane, its racially
discriminatory and socially discriminatory, arbitrary and has an irreversible
margin error. Hence, it’s useless and has no positive effects at all.
In conclusion, morally, is incorrect to use death penalty. As it's a violation of human rights, it doesn't have any benefit at all as it does not prevent crimes as the crime rates are still high, it's racially discriminatory, some governments used it for their advantage, to control a population and their opposition rather to a sense of justice and finally if there is an error, it's irreversible.
Besides,
if we take into consideration, we can think of some utilitarian uses. Which
will benefit society.
An
example would be that instead of just killing the criminals, we could make them
work in camps. Which would make their lives more productive. Therefore, the
society would increase economically. We can observe this historically, in the
1930s to 1940s, in concentration camps. So, they took: Jews, communist,
prisoners of wars, opposition of the government and invalid people, to work for
the Nazi German society. Based upon this example, we can take them to do
community service, work in the jail or any other productive thing.
In
addition, death penalty is expensive, much more expensive than expending your
whole life in prison. For this reason, the government has to afford: legal
costs, pretrial costs, trial costs, jury selection, incarcerations and appeals.
Which raises the cost exponentially. For example, in the 2020 US, the cost to
kill 5 prisoners was about 4.7 million dollars. Which, negatively affects the
society economically.
On the other hand, some utilitarian argument in favor of death penalty is, it will bring the most amount of pleasure and happiness, therefore, killing the prisoner, will give the society, the most amount of safety and relief. Nonetheless, some monetary income coming from the prisoners will bring a higher pleasure to the overall society.
We also
have a retribution argument, which states that people have to suffer the
consequences from their mistakes. Therefore, the punishment depends on the
atrocity of crime, conduct of the criminal and the state of the victim. A known
quote that refers to be is “eye for an eye”
Nonetheless, many people argue that rather than
seeking justice, they're seeking revenge, which is morally wrong. You can't
take someone's life as retribution.
In addition,
it can be very useful for the police, by plea bargaining. It's when a prisoner
gets his sentence reduced in exchange for helping the police. In the case that
the sentence is death penalty, the prisoner will have no other option rather
than to cooperate with police in order to reduce its sentence. To imprisonment
for life.
Nonetheless, this could be counter argument by thinking if torture should be allowed because it’s a useful police tool.
In conclusion, there are both
arguments in favor and against capital punishment, but, from my own perspective
and personal view I am against death penalty, for the inhumanity, the overall
purpose of death penalty, the margin of error, the overall costs. I've just
stated the moral arguments. It's up to you to analyze and interpret them below
your own judgement. On the other hand, from another perspective, productivity
can be given. If you think in a utilitarian perspective, you will know that an
additional working class will give a better economy, which working for the
state is the minimum thing they should do, as they are receiving shelter and
food for free, the overall time of their sentence they are serving. Perhaps,
killing, from a utilitarian view will just bring safety and maybe happiness
among the families affected, but, otherwise, there is no going to be a great
benefit compared to the other advantages mentioned before.
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(Crime Statistics)
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21
(Murder Rate)
(Costs)
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/costs
(History)