The Death Penalty

Since one of the main reasons for this blog is to get an opportunity to talk about issues that are bothering me (politically speaking of course), I thought that the death penalty would be a good starting topic. In this blog, I want to address the main arguments against capital punishment, and explain why I believe that the death penalty should not only be used, but used more often than it is.

1. Argument: The costs of executing a man are higher than simply putting him away for life.
Response: I'm making the assumption that court costs for appeals are included in that figure. First of all, anyone convicted of murder should not be able to live for years on death row. If no new evidence is presented, the number of appeals should be limited. No one should grow old on death row. Second, why should we spend so much on chemicals, when bullets are cheap and rope is reusable? There are many cheaper alternatives to the expensive method we use now. I would even be willing to use substances to render the person unconscious or at least something to keep the person from feeling the pain. The point is that there are considerably cheaper options that would be just as effective, and still be humane.

2. Argument: We kill people to show people killing is wrong.
Response: Yes.... yes we do. Sadly, we don't do enough of it to be effective. When you were a kid, you were afraid to do something bad because you would get in trouble. If that punishment was to get scolded, then it meant it wasn't nearly as big of a deal to commit the action. But if you were spanked for it, then you wanted to avoid it like the plague. The same applies here. If people knew that the death penalty was a much more likely punishment, they would be less likely to commit a crime. Therefore, this would decrease the overall crime rate, which also would help out the cost issue.

3. Argument: Thanks to technological advancements, some people on death row have been found innocent.
Response: While this may be true, it is hardly a very big ratio of innocent to convicted. According to deathpenaltyinfo.org, there have been 138 people on death row who have been exonerated. As of January 1, 2010, there were 3,261 people on death row, while there have been 1,233 executions since 1976. (All of these numbers came from deathpenatlyinfo.org, which is against the death penalty). Essentially, 3% of all people convicted to die since 1976 have been exonerated. That's not a very large number, and I suspect that the number of people exonerated will continue to decrease.

Now don't get me wrong. I think it is a terrible thing for an innocent man to be punished. I don't think that we should just say "oh well" and execute people the moment they're on death row. But, like I said: with the increases in criminal investigation technology and reform in the appeal process, I think that we could essentially bring down that number to next to 0. This would also help to substantially decrease the costs of putting criminals on death row. And a more efficient system (as well as a potentially more liberal use of capital punishment) would help to deter crime and make our nation safer.

I think that the way that capital punishment is handled currently is a waste or taxpayer dollars and does little to punish the condemned or prevent future tragedy. But, if politicians and the people of this country are willing to stand up and work for a more efficient justice system, we could do wonders to decrease costs, alleviate the the problem of overcrowded prisons (by expediting and expanding the use of capital punishment), and to deter future crime. I believe Texas might be on the right track with this issue. Let's follow along America.