To Kill A Killer Essay Research Paper

TO KILL A KILLER A few of my friends and I once saw a bumper sticker that questioned, “Why do we kill people who kill people, to show that killing people is wrong?” Suddenly there was a wild riot of arguments between us. Even though on that day I was out numbered two to three, I was and today still am against the death penalty as a deterrent to crime. The death penalty is not an effective way to punish a criminal. Even states that use the death penalty seem to have a higher number of homicides than states that do not use it. It does not seem to show its effectiveness since states that have the death penalty present no long-term differences in the murder in comparison of the murder rate of their adjacent states. So, if capital punishment isn’t lowering the murder rate, why waste the extra money? Since dollar signs seem to rule America’s minds, most tax payers feel that too much of their taxes are going towards maintaining prisons and feeding inmates. A recent study found that it costs more to put a prisoner to death, with any method than it does to imprison them for life. Also, in the U.S., the chief objection to capital punishment is that it was always used unfairly. First, women are rarely sentenced to death and executed, even though 20% of all homicides in recent years have been committed by women. Second, a study conducted by U.S. News and a World Report showed that a disproportionate number of nonwhites are sentenced to death and executed. Yet many people, especially family members of murder victims, want to see the offender(s) dead. I have no objection to the emotions families have when a loved one is killed and the family wants their satisfaction of knowing that the killer is dead as well, but death is too quick. The mother of a murdered son has to suffer over him for a lifetime. So why shouldn’t the murderer suffer, too? The death penalty needs to go and so should all the luxuries of prison. Our justice system shouldn’t just kill the criminal and get his or her life over with but rather make their life miserable. The prisons need to get rid of the library, gym, basketball courts, and TV’s and make these prisoners toil laboriously for food just like the working class has to. I’m not implying that offenders should be tortured, I’m only saying that prisons should only supply the bare necessities and nothing more. Even though our prisons need to toughen up, I give them credit for taking away a criminal’s freedom. And if capital punishment is not lowering the murder rate, is more expensive, and being alive is harder than being dead, then the death penalty should be removed.