Punishment And Death Penalty Essay

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Death Penalty
Professor Shah
April 8th 2015

Killing does not solve killing Capital punishment or the death penalty is a legal process whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The judicial ruling that someone be punished in this manner is a death sentence, while the actual enforcement is an execution. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. 58 countries maintain the death penalty in both law and practice. It as a way of deterring crimes. The death penalty continues to be an issue of controversy and is an issue that will be debated in the United States for many years to come. The death penalty has been used since ancient times for a variety of offenses. It appears that public debate on the death penalty has changed over the years and is still changing, but there are still some out there who are for the death penalty and will continue to believe that it’s a good punishment. I always hear a lot of people say “an eye for an eye.” Most people feel strongly that if a criminal took the life of another, theirs should be taken away as well. I don’t see how the death penalty could deter anyone from committing crimes if you’re going to do the crime then at that moment you’re not thinking about being on death row. In this paper, I will present arguments to show why I do not support the death penalty.

They say you forgive and you forget. I believe that almost everyone deserves a second chance. As long as they are willing to change, they should be allowed to get a second chance. It is only fair and killing them won’t change anything. It is just one more life taken away. Isn't that just redoing what the murderer did? "A life for a life". So those who hung the convict should die too? Think about it. You have to give people a chance to change. I don't support the death penalty because it is not nearly humane at all. A big thing here is that two wrongs do not make a right, which is absolutely correct. People change, they make better decisions and they change their frames of mind all the time. In some cases, the penalized human is innocent. Why would you want to take the risk of killing an innocent person because you think that they are guilty? You must give people a chance to change who they are before you make an immediate assumption. In a way, by agreeing with the death penalty we are murdering. Wouldn't you feel the slightest bit of guilt for knowing that you killed someone? It's okay to want someone to die because of their wrong doings, but how would you feel after you know that you are the murderer, in the end? Why do we kill people, who kill people, to show that killing people is wrong? I believe that putting them to death to prove that we are against killing doesn't exactly make any sense. It contradicts our country's belief system. It's inhumane, to put it simply.

For the utilitarian all suffering is intrinsically evil. So if punishment involves suffering then punishment involves an evil. This is a strike against punishment for utilitarianism, and punishment would have to be outlawed if other reasons cannot be presented in its favor. For utilitarianism, societies should punish criminals only if punishment is a cost-effective method of social control. This means reducing or eliminating crime. Because punishment is a means of producing suffering, and suffering is bad, punishment can only be justified on utilitarian grounds under two circumstances. One is that the amount of suffering is outweighed by benefits to society, and the second reason would be that good cannot be produced in any other way which does not involve suffering. If punishment will bring about more good than bad for society, then it can be justified on utilitarian grounds. The utilitarian must look at punishment like we look at going to the dentist for example. By this I mean that it may hurt to go to the dentist, but ultimately it is good for us, and may prevent something
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