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THE DEATH PENALTY Someone murders your brother. The murderer gets sentenced with life in prison and every two years he has a chance for parole. Every two years you have to go through pain wondering if the murderer is going to get let out of prison. Sure, he could have learned his lesson and became a saint. But he could kill yet another person, maybe even you. The death penalty is like having a war.
Some innocent soldiers will die but it is necessary to protect the nation. A small amount of wrongful executions happen, but it is a risk we have to take to protect the nation from dangerous criminals. Wrongful executions happen. It is an imperfect world and people make mistakes. On the other hand, there has only been 23 wrongful executions this century which is not a big number.
As Wesley Lowe states: Far more innocent lives have been taken by convicted murders than the supposedly 23 innocents mistakenly executed this century. Furthermore, the death penalty isn t the only thing that has risks in exchange for our benefit. (Lowe) About 45, 000 innocent people die each year due to auto wrecks. That sure is a lot more innocent people that die so we can have the convenience of speedy travel. To enjoy using certain things we accept the fact that accidents happen.
Going back to the amount of people that die in cars every year, we tend to think that 45, 000 deaths are less tragic than say, 23. Former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin hits the nail on the head when he said: One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths are statistics. Or, in other terms, one wrongful execution is a tragedy, but thousands of murder victims are just statistics. Some people don t see the point of the death penalty if it supposedly doesn t deter crime.
They say that states that have the death penalty have a higher crime rate than those that don t. Well, these would be good points except for the fact that they aren t true. First of all, the only reason states where the death penalty has been enforced have higher crime rates is because they have more urbanized areas. As for the deterrence of crime, in 1985 there was a study done by Stephen K. Lesson at the University of North Carolina.
It showed that on average one execution deters 18 murders. More recently, in 1995, there were 56 executions in the USA. This led to a 12 % drop in the murder rate nation wide the following year. Those statistics sure prove to me that the death penalty deters crime. People that have researched the death penalty think that an execution costs a pretty penny.
Well, you know what, it does. Some people say that the death penalty costs at least 2 million per case. That is an exaggeration. This is all good defense except, for some reason, abolitionists seem to ignore that life in prison costs even more. The average annual cost per inmate is now $ 23, 500. The average cost per bed in maximum security facilities is $ 74, 862. (Blackman) People that go out and earn a living everyday are forking over tax dollars to pay for murderers and abusers.
The initial cost of the death penalty is higher but over time life in prison costs $ 1. 2 to $ 3. 6 million higher than a death penalty case. I would like to talk about the death penalty and Christianity. Most Christians think that the death penalty is against the teachings of God and the Bible. I am a Christian but I have read the facts. The sixth commandment says Thou shall not kill in Exodus 20: 13. However, translated directly from the original Hebrew version it says Thou shall not murder. (Lowe) Wesley Lowe also points out to us that Murder is defined in any dictionary as the unlawful killing of a person with malice and aforethought.
The death penalty can not be referred to as murder, because it is the law. Finally, the death penalty is not against the Bible because in several passages from the Bible God says something to the sort of: Whoever sheds man s blood, by man his blood shall be shed. (Genesisure you now agree with me on the issue of the death penalty. A crime is only as severe as the punishment that follows it. Therefore, the only thing that is a good penalty for murdering someone is getting put to death. You would definitely think so if someone close to you gets murdered. BIBLIOGRAPHY Blackman, Ann.
Lock Em Up! Time. February 7, 1994 p. 50 - 59 Lowe, Wesley. Wesley Lowe s Pro Death Penalty Webpage.
Rock, Mike. Syndicated newspaper columnist. Passages from the Bible were found through Wesley Lowe and checked for accuracy by myself
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Research essay sample on Life In Prison Death Penalty
