Alex Boreen
Brad Brothen
ENGC 1101 77
October 20, 2014
An Eye For An Eye
Imagine that a person just killed multiple people. Does it make sense for him to live when he has taken so many lives? The death penalty helps this nation because if a seriously heinous is committed the person who committed the crime the person shouldn’t be breathing. It doesn’t make sense that the criminal should live off of all of the taxpayers and live in jail, especially when the prisons in the U.S. are being overcrowded. If the person committed a serious crime like mass murder, it should result in an ‘eye for an eye’ type situation. If a person doesn’t want to die they will have second thoughts of a serious crime. The death penalty will be a very good way of helping the country save some money instead of letting criminals live off of the government. Prisons in this country are being overcrowded. It is estimated that about 743 out of 100,000 people in the United States is currently imprisoned. The United States is the leader of imprisoned people in the world. With all of these people in prison it is costing the American government and the average taxpayer a lot of money to keep them in there. In a report by the Vera Institute of Justice, in Minnesota alone there are 9,557 people in prisons alone. With all of those people in jail it must be very costly to keep them there.
The average cost of a person being incarcerated for a year is about $31,286. The total cost for all of the states that participated in the Vera Institute of Justice study was about $39 billion. Why should we keep paying for them if they have no chance of getting out with life without parole sentences? It makes no sense. Why should we pay for them to sit in a jail and live off of the American taxpayers? The people who are living in prison are getting three meals a day, and they are getting better health care than most of the people in the country. There was a case of a man who shoplifted just so he could get medical attention. According to an article in The Buffalo News On November 26th, 2012 Frank J. Morrocco had shoplifted just so he could get treatment for his rare type of leukemia. It doesn’t make sense that people want to go to prison and get free meals and health care.With the death penalty, it will also bring closure to some of the families of the victims of those heinous crimes.
Let’s consider a mass murder that happened back in 1991. Jonathan Doody killed 9 people and was sentenced to 281 years in prison. It doesn’t make sense to sentence him to 281 years when they could just euthanize him and save the taxpayers some money. The death penalty can also bring closure to the families of the victims when they know that the person who took their loved ones away has finally paid the price. If the person is stuck in the prison they could still do harm to other inmates or to the staff at the prison the person is located at. There is also a chance that the prisoner could escape and do harm to even more people. It would make more sense to just euthanize the person and save ourselves from the chance of that prisoner doing harm later. Cases like Doody’s should definitely face capital punishment where less violent cases should not.
The death penalty should not be used for crimes such as robbery, grand theft auto, larceny etc. The death penalty should be reserved for those who are truly evil, which are the people who go on killing rampages. The people who kill two people or more people and who are proven guilty without a doubt should be considered highly for the death penalty. People who have not taken a life should not be considered for the death penalty. There are people who believe that even if someone has committed a seriously heinous crime such as mass murder they should still be allowed to live.
There are a few people who believe that the death penalty should be
