Persuasion Paper Death Penalty FINAL

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Words: 1735
Pages: 7
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Robert Young
Professor Neal Phillips
ENC-1101
July 21, 2014
The death penalty is not an effective deterrent to serious crime The subject of the death penalty has long been an emotional, personal and divisive issue in America and in the nations of the world. Many cry, “blood for blood”, “an eye for an eye”, while others call for mercy, who is right? “The debate over whether the death penalty should continue to be used in the United States is one that invariably stirs up strong emotions in people. (Update Death Penalty). Supporters say that if a person kills someone, he or she deserves to die as punishment. I believe that if we keep taking an eye for an eye, we will soon all be blind. Issit, defines deterrence as, “the belief that a person will not commit a crime due to fear of the potential consequences.” If the death penalty was such an effective tool at preventing or stopping people from murdering other people, why do people today still brutally murder, sodomize, poison, behead, maim, and torture others on a daily basis? The death penalty is not a deterrent to potential murderers and should be abolished in every nation because it fails to acknowledge the nature of humanity, the lack of clear evidence that it is a deterrent, the long, excessive and expensive appeals process, and that many murderers who premeditate about a killing do not expect to be caught. The death penalty does not deter murderers because it fails to acknowledge the nature of humanity. One’s view of mankind’s nature from a Biblical perspective will result in the view that man is inherently born with evil residing in his heart. (King James Version Bible, Psalm 51:5). This evil is further buoyed by learned ideology, cruel life experiences, occasional fits of rage, and human expressions of jealousy, envy, fright, and calculating, fiendish malevolence. This propensity to express inherent evil is an important reason why capital punishment does not deter someone from carrying out heinous acts of violence and murder. Those of us who refrain from yielding to our inherited evil instincts to commit murder do so primarily because of our value systems. We receive moral teaching from our parents, family or friends, or a religious or social entity. Murder is evil because it robs a human being of his most valuable possession, life. Those who yield to the evil within, do so at times because of prior abuse, ideology, a lack of conscience or an unwholesome immoral upbringing dripping with incontinence. Consequently, the person without a moral value system is not able to overcome the resident evil that beats within his breast, in spite of knowing they could die for their actions. “The root causes of violence are so deeply entrenched and so difficult to change, the death penalty presents a tempting “quick fix” to a complex problem.” (Richard Dieter, On the frontline). It however, never does the job of being an effective deterrent to malevolence and murder. The second point is that there is the lack of clear evidence that the death penalty is an effective deterrent to murderers. In her news article Joanna Sheppard narrows in on the core issues in the debate: There are many moral and legal issues in the debate over capital punishment. One central issue is whether executions deter murder. Deterrence is the major basis that many policymakers and courts cite for capital punishment, along with a need for justice. For example, in one of his presidential debates with Al Gore in 2000, President Bush stated that capital punishment deters crime and that deterrence is the only valid reason for capital punishment. Likewise, the Supreme Court, when it held in its landmark 1976 decision Gregg v. Georgia, that capital punishment was constitutional and cited deterrence as one of its main reasons. (Sheppard 1) Social Science studies and multiple research efforts show that capital punishment has not deterred homicide. Roger Hood in his book, The
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